Further Refinement of Stealth & Detection

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thirdeyed
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Re: Further Refinement of Stealth & Detection

#46 Post by thirdeyed »

Hi Guys,

First of all, I'd like to say you've got a great thing going on with FreeOrion. Its a very nice project, congratulations on the work already done.
Looking forward to more of it!

I'd like to share my feelings about stealth & detection part of the game.

I'm a new player, and at the beginning I wanted to get to know the mechanics and tech tree of the game (4.4 version).
After around 100 turns, I got attacked by AI, which is a good thing, but after a while became somewhat frustrating.

The thing is, that the AI ships attacking me are being hidden all the time. I cannot evaluate if they are orbiting the system, I guess they are not blockading as I can build on the planet, yet all the fleet that I was able to assemble and send there got destroyed (along with planet defences). Once every several turns AI sends troop ships to try to invade/invade planets in the system.

What I mean to say, is that it is frustrating to not able to evaluate what kind of countermeasures I need to take to prevent such actions. I don't know the full tech tree yet.
I don't know what is my detection strength, or what are the chances to detect hostile ships.

Does the planet itself contain any detection strength, or I need to build buildings like interstellar lighthouse, or sending scout ships with scanning components is necessary?
It would seem to me obvious that a planet should be capable of some basic detection - that something is out there.
It would also seem to me natural if hostile ships were (partially?) revealed at least for some amount of time (a turn ?) after they attack.

Currently all I get is combat log.

Also. If my ships return fire, than I would guess that they are shooting to something they can actually "see" :D

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Vezzra
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Re: Further Refinement of Stealth & Detection

#47 Post by Vezzra »

Hm, can you post a screenshot of that system, preferrably from a turn directly after a combat?

AndrewW
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Re: Further Refinement of Stealth & Detection

#48 Post by AndrewW »

Your empire detection strength is given in the top bar towards the right (eye icon), you can hover the mouse over stuff to get a description.

Yes, planets can see things without the need to build something such as a lighthouse.

It could be a monster rather then one of the AI fleets.

I agree with Vezzra here posting a screenshot would help to see what is going on.

thirdeyed
Space Krill
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Re: Further Refinement of Stealth & Detection

#49 Post by thirdeyed »

Here's a screenshot.
I can see now that there's an icon with detection strength.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzlELe ... sp=sharing

Image
Last edited by thirdeyed on Tue Sep 08, 2015 3:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Vezzra
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Re: Further Refinement of Stealth & Detection

#50 Post by Vezzra »

Um, something with uploading that screenshot didn't work. I only see a text saying "Image", but no actual image...

thirdeyed
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Re: Further Refinement of Stealth & Detection

#51 Post by thirdeyed »

Corrected, sorry.

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MatGB
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Re: Further Refinement of Stealth & Detection

#52 Post by MatGB »

Ah, I remember that layout, it's the 0.4.4 quickstart, I nearly wrote a complete walkthrough for that.

Strong guess. Use the sitrep filters and have a look to see if there are 'ancient ruins unlocked' or words to that effect. I have a very strong suspicion that what you have there is a fleet of AI ships equipped with Multi-Spectral Shields, which allow them to hide quite effectively.

The other option is that they're using Asteroid Hulls and they get a stealth bonus from asteroid fields.

I can tell that you've already researched the 'Active Radar' tech, I strongly recommend you push for Neutron Scanner and then either Distortion Modulator and/or Intersteller Lighthouse and build one of them in that system.

Basically, you're behind, but that's fine, you're learning, ideally you should have double the research and production numbers you currently have but we can only work with where you are not where you could be ;-)

Other techs to research priritise are Subterreanean Habitation, symbiotic Biology, Fusion Generation, Industrial Centres, Solar Orbital Generator and Nascent Artificial Intelligence.

You probably want to get as many worlds as you can set to Research, you have enough planets to catch up but you might lose the Gray system temporarily, in the meantime keep your ships out of systems with asteroids and suns until you're ready.

Observation: If you have a ship that survives the first round of combat it should be able to engage the currently hidden ships, stealth only applies until you've fired so from round 2 onwards you can shoot back, but you have to survive the first round of three. However, stealth-in-combat was buggy until relatively recently and was fixed for the new stable release version so I can't guarantee that will actually work properly.

You can win this game (trust me, I played that map once and did nothing for 50 turns, you're ahead of where I was), but it'll take some planning, concentrate your forces, invade Kuiper and get better detection.

(as this thread implies, we're going to be overhauling the stealth mechanics, at least the numbers and how it's explained in game, we know it's not currently brilliant but it does, in theory, work, if you've found a bug it's a new one on me ;-) )
Mat Bowles

Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

thirdeyed
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Re: Further Refinement of Stealth & Detection

#53 Post by thirdeyed »

Yup, Ancient Ruins revealed at Turn 74.
I know I'm behind :) this was just to get to know the basics without getting more into the game (due to lack of time too).

Thanks for the info.

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Sloth
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Re: Further Refinement of Stealth & Detection

#54 Post by Sloth »

Something that i've noticed today is that the species stealth trait has a wrong and imprecise descripton. It reads "Good Stealth: +15 bonus".

A. The bonus is actually +20 (and Bad Stealth is -20, Great and Ultimate look correct)
B. Most players will be under the expression that their ships should be stealthed as well, but the trait only affects planets.

So i suggest renaming the trait to "Good Planetary Stealth: +20 bonus", etc.


I guess the effect on ships was removed, because it was too strong (for reference here is the commit that excluded ships: https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/ ... 74ca036c34), but there could be a separate species trait for ship stealth with reduced numbers (+10, +20, +30?). If it is always too strong for a normal species we could design a species that can't use ship weapons or something similar.
All released under the GNU GPL 2.0 and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 licences.

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MatGB
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Re: Further Refinement of Stealth & Detection

#55 Post by MatGB »

Good catch, on both points, I'm trying to remember to update stringtables as I go when I make changes but, well, must've missed one.

Also, good to know traits used to affect ships as well, I'd been wondering about that and it's definitely something I'd want to see (currently going to propose that using the full spread of up to 200 detection is a very common thing with far more bonuses and maluses available but it'll, well,t ake work).

For what it's worth, my current favourite hull is an overgunned unshielded BioAdaptive Hull with an Absorption Field. You can't see it unless you've got Omni Scanner, it fully repairs itself every turn and gets a complete round of full shots completely free in every combat.

Problem of course is immediately an opponent researches Omni it's completely obsolete in that theatre, which is a shame.
Mat Bowles

Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

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