Stealth Technology

[Killer_Rabbit]

I have seen a few comments about stealth tech but no one seems to have properly addressed it yet. As the game looks to be focused around visible combat and flying of spaceships it is a fairly logical idea that stealth (Such as making the ship invisible/undetectable in any other forms) could also play an important role such as: cargo pilots trying to fly without being harassed or stealth fighters who are about to launch an attack. However it would also need to have limitations to balance it out such as: weapons not being able to be fired when the stealth tech is being used, lots of infrastructure needed to allow it to be used e.g. panelling to allow the ship to turn invisible and something to generate all the stealthiness. It could also cause the ship to heat up and use lots of power which means it can only be used for a short amount of time as well as the machine used to make this maybe having a cool down time possibly depending on the amount of time it was used for and if it is connected to coolant pipes to cool it quicker. There could also be specialised devices to track down stealth tech that would equally use a lot of power and generate lots of heat. Please do tell me if there are improvements that could be made to this concept or if it is totally unbalanced and ridiculous

 

[Lionard Freezer]

I like the idea (after all im the assasin type in games) but i dont think it would implement well in the game.
We allready have a HUGE world and you could just set up your camp a few hours away from any station. I dont really see the point tbh...
Since we dont have any efficient way to track ships in an area you dont really need stealth technology to be stealthy. just fly your craft to the enemy station when no guards are online, place it somewhere where noone will notice it and just blend in.
Stealth is great in games but i dont think you really need any tech to do so in this game.
then again we havent played the game yet and my opinion might change

 

[PopeUrban]

Unnecessary. There's no way other than eyeballs to detect nearby ships, and space is vast and three dimensional enough to allow a 'stealth approach' in a large number of ways. Literal invisibility would amplify the already difficult task of finding enemy ships to such a high degree, and any countermeasures would effectively amount to required build elements in a game that already has a ton of required build elements.

As a game with large custom ship designs, It isn't really feasible to add much of a meaningful downside to stealth technology. You would only have two avenues to balance it. The first would be limiting ship size by requiring the ship to f in a "stealth bubble" which would make it unusable for the large cargo ships that would need it most. The second would be making it take extreme amounts of power, which isn't really a down side when you consider you can just script a button that says "turn off stealth and reroute all of that power to weapons and thrusters" so you're no really paying a power penalty anyway.

Invisibility mechanics require very precise balance to work in a way that is fun and fair in PvP, and that type of balance is the opposite of starfield's core "custom everything" gameplay.

If you want a stealth ship, You should design a "plug ship" build to blow a hole in an asteroid and bolt in place with enough thrusters on it to actually move the asteroid. Then you've got a spaceship disguised as an asteroid, which is perfect camoflauge in an asteroid field. Now just rig a switch called "Surprise mode" that turns on a mining drill to drill the rest of the way through with a rangefinder to turn on your weapon systems as soon as there's a hole to fire them from.

Bam! Surprise death asteroid!

 

[STEALTH]

I'm going to have to go with a hard no to any "Invisibility" stealth...that stuff will only add cheese mechanics to the game. Want to be "stealth", go low profile in your vessel build with transponder turned off. Would hate to see any game device that allows someone to go actually invisible to the naked eye.

PopeUrban did a good job with talking about all that as far as mechanics and then having to find balance to adding such a game changing mechanic. Just better to keep it out of the game.

 

[Zijkhal]

The furthest I would go if any stealth like technology were to be introduced is a special, expensive and fragile plating for ships that can be manually switched between a couple predetermined paintjobs.

But I think even that is unnecessary, I would rather not have any stealth tech at all, I think it will be hard enough as it is to detect someone as is.

 

[Verbatos]

They have said that there will be no stealth tech whatsoever, if you want to make a stealth craft, just colour your ship so it blends in with space, then make covers for your thrusters so they aren‘t easily visible.
edit: there also wont be many (if any) kinds of long ranged sensors, so you do’t have to worry about those while sneaking around space.

 

[Tumbla]

Since i have heard there i going to be some sort of radar, or ship transponders i think a good "stealth" mechanic would be to add something that allows a ship to hide from those radars. Some sort of jamming device, maybe? Nothing too extreme tho like invisibility where you cant see a ship 5 meters infront of your ship.

 

[Killer_Rabbit]

personally I think a good cloaking not that it would ever be implemented would be stealth cloaked but as you got closer to another player it started to shimmer more so i dunno within 500 metres its obvious your there

 

[Verbatos]

W

Since i have heard there i going to be some sort of radar, or ship transponders i think a good "stealth" mechanic would be to add something that allows a ship to hide from those radars. Some sort of jamming device, maybe? Nothing too extreme tho like invisibility where you cant see a ship 5 meters infront of your ship.

From what I remember, while there are radio transmitters and receivers, there is no radar technology, so we wouldn't need anything to hide from it.

 

[Killer_Rabbit]

The thing is the game uses the endos to detect other ships such as in a battle you aim the weapons not a device so I think for long distances then this stealth would work but since the game relies on visible detection then it seems that at least some sort of cloaking device would have to be used if the game wanted to implement stealth

 

[Brushes]

Maybe a second type of fuel could be introduced that reduces exhaust trail and eng glow, maybe at cost of reduced efficiency or output?

 

[Killer_Rabbit]

That would actually be quite a good compromise in terms of visible stealth