FreeOrion

I have a number of linked ideas that I would like to see, tied to the way that the Stealth system works.

I feel that it would be very interesting if a ship with a high Stealth statistic could enter an enemy system and choose not to initiate combat. The Stealth rating of the ship would have to be higher than any of the Detection ratings for the ships/structures in the system.

By choosing not to initiate combat, a stealth-focused player could gather tactical information about an opponent's build pattern, ship movement and ship deployment within a system.

If it was indeed possible to have 'lurking' stealthy ships in enemy systems, it would be interesting if this had benefits for your espionage efforts.

Having a stealthy ship lurking in an enemy system could make espionage missions like 'sabotage' more likely to occur and/or succeed in that system.

I feel that this idea would be an interesting way to make Stealth more than just a statistic. What do you think?

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Black Dawn

We've had some extensive discussions on stealth,
here's the preliminary description of how it will work.

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Yes I read that. I just wanted to propose a way to make stealthy ships 'feel' stealthy, above and beyond 'with 50 stealth I'm detected, with 60 stealth I'm safe'.

What do modern armies use stealth vehicles for? Espionage and information gathering!

A consequence of the described stealth vs. detection game balance would seem to be that a vehicle with high enough Stealth could enter an enemy system without detection.

If this is possible, all sorts of neat gameplay mechanics could result.

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Professor Hernandez, Human ambassador to Silica:
"Hey, rocks are people too!"
Black Dawn

I remember those stealth discussions. That's when I found out I was better suited to art than arguing. Surprise!

Stealth seems like a pretty cool idea to implement into espionage. We really need that espionage section down though to figure out how that works. We also need that species section. And that combat section. And...

Does anybody know if we have a working combat model yet? I've been gone a while so have no idea what we've been up to.

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Hopefully this won't derail the thread, but: by "working combat model" do you mean design or computer program? In either case, no we don't. I've also been busy for the last few months, so haven't been doing as much design stuff as I should be. My next design thread was and is probably going to deal with how to model ship damage. And tzlaine had a kid, so has also been busy.

The mechanics described further on don't appear to support this principal. As it is now, if two enemies have the same stealth and detection meter values, they will never be able to see each other. Is this deliberate?

It seems more reasonable to me that ships with X detection can see ships with X stealth at any distance, and that only a ship with 100 stealth would be invisible to a ship with 0 detection at any range. The addition of detection jamming equipment can still make stealth useful for ships who aren't actively part of the combat (i.e. blockade runners, troop transports, etc.), even when ships are against similar strength enemies.

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"similar-strength enemies" doesn't necessarily mean "equal stealth and detection meters".

Rather, detection meter boosts will be given much sooner and more readily and cheaply and earlier than stealth meter boosts.

But the both meters only go to 100, right? Are we to assume that at the end game, all ships will be invisible, or will there simply be insufficient technology available to allow the stealth meter to begin to approach the detection meter? It seems more intuitive to design around the assumption that both meters will progress hand in hand. When was this design decision made?

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There will be techs sufficient to make the stealth meter approach the detection meter, although equalling or surpassing it will be very difficult, and would be analagous to attacking spearmen with modern infantry in Civ... or real-life.


It seemed / seems simple / intuitive to have each notch of either meter provide benefits. If a ship can be seen at any distance when stealth and detection are equal, then there's no benefit to having more detection than an enemy's stealth.

As well, if there's a smooth transition between equal meters, which means detection at any distance, to slightly higher stealth giving undetectability only at very far distances, then that makes stealth essentially useless unless the stealth meter is overwhelmingly larger than the opponent's detection meter, which would be very difficult to make possible.

I suppose there could be some exponential dependence of detection distance on stealth difference, so that no difference gives visibility at any distance, a 3 point stealth advantage gives undetectability at moderate distances, and a 10 point stealth advantage gives total undetectability, but that makes things quite complicated compared to the current system, in which the distance at which something can be seen is proportional to the difference between the detection and stealth meters. Incrementing either gives the owner an equal, and hopefully clear and understandable, benefit with the current system. They can both progress at the same rate, with a net result of no change in detection distance, but just need to be offset in value so that the detection meter is always higher by some suitable amount.


I don't remember when exactly... (Do you want a date?) It was during the stealth and detection design discussions, which may or may not have been conducted on the forums.

Come to think of it, you're right, also because fleets are probably very rarely going to start more than 500 units apart, meaning that stealth < 50 would always be useless in my system...
A link to a thread would have been ideal.

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

I quite agree you should get some sort of espionage bonus if you are being stealthy. If you just think you're being stealthy however (the other guys have better sensor tech than you thought) you get a penalty.

This can be worked into the rules of the game without requiring any special/arbitrary espionage bonuses/penalties. For example, perhaps a stealthy ship can drop off a spy on an enemy planet without being detected, increasing the espionage meter of the planet. This might be the only way to infiltrate the planet if your resource supply lines don't reach the planet due to distance/blockade/whatever. If you just think you're being stealthy though, you'll go up the the planet, release the spy shuttle and then...

the defense satellites will shoot down the shuttle while the fleet flies in and destroys your "stealthy" ship.

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I really like the idea of spys being dropped off by stealthy ships, but I really hate the idea of being attacked by an invisible fleet.

Maybe smaller ships should have more stealth (due to smaller size). Using weapons and engines should reduce stealth. Perhaps being behind stars and planets should also increase stealth. Maybe the spy could enter on an unpowered asteroid hull and kind of parachute in to the planet?

On another subject are the combat ships we build very different to civilian ships - used for resource supply (or in future versions, trading). There must be lots of ships flying about which are not represented on the galatic map which spys could sneak aboard. I'm thinking that spy insertion should be a quick movie (the first few times only) showing a cool but one-off way of getting onto an enemy planet.

Also if planets have stealth - so they are seen after stars - will they be hard to spot on the combat map? This doesn't seem good. Planets seem to have more stealth than ordinary ships. I know that stealth 0 means automatic detection, but maybe instead negative numbers can be used for stars (-100) and planets (-50) so they are spotted at the correct times on the galactic map, but are always visible on the combat map to a ship without advanced detection equipment. I really think that only a single value for stealth and detection should be used for galactic map and combat map. Ships can be seen really far on the galactic map (as far as stars) but are harder to spot in battles. Does starlane travel make you especially visible?

I think it's been generally assumed that actions such as firing weapons will significantly decrease the stealth of a ship, to the point where the attacker's stealth would have to be absurdly more powerful than the defender's detection to attack without being detected.

"Behind" anything isn't really a good criteria, but the idea of going into orbit of a planet or star to get a stealth bonus, or at higher tech levels, even entering a star to become completely invisible has been brought up before. Presumably ships orbiting a planet would be more visible to the empire owning the planet, though.

I believe that being in a system gives you automatic visibility of all planets in a system. This is necessary at the very least because ships are supposed to fly around planets instead of through them. As for starlane travel making ships more visible, I would think that the main advantage to stealth of staying in a system would be the things that you can do in the system, i.e. hiding in planets, stars, asteroid belts, etc.

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.