Active Camouflage

[Lazerus Artificial]

I just listened to some old devspeak videos, and noticed a few things in the shield design.
As far as i understand, the plan is to design shields as a bubble.
If you can get close enough, you can fly into the bubble of a big ship (like capitals)

Then i thought...stealth tactics might be interesting.

We have torpedos that are rarely used now.
they have limited ammo, cant deal with shields...

so, what would you think if you could basically build a "Stealth Bomber"?

Replace your shield generator with active camouflage that can be activated with a buttonpress...but as i said, for the cost of your precious shield.
Then you could "infiltrate" the enemy capitalships shields, bypass them, and release a barrage of torpedos right at the shield generator and nuke it.
You could sneak behind enemy lines, break through blockades...
Create ambushes, hit and run tactics, precision strikes...

The effect could be similar to that of a "black hole", you know, distorted background.

Obviously, active camouflage would need downsides, otherwise every trader would jump around with it.
So here are a few things that could balance it:

• Sacrifice your Shield, so only Hull tanks, basically the camouflage field replaces the shield bubble
• Movement makes you blurry and slightly visible but still immune to radar and locking
• Heatseekers would still work (also visible for theoretical thermal optics)
• Damaged ships will only cloak partially
• No FSD while cloaked, it will be deactivated as soon as you charge the drive
• Cloak is limited in time (by energy)
• Hits will make the cloak "flicker" and drain energy
• Obviously shooting deactivates the Camouflage
• After deactivation it needs some time to "recalculate" (like FSD cooldown)

Other things that could be nice combined with Active Camouflage:
Torpedos allready ingame
Bombs basically a huge charge that detonates after a few seconds or with remote controll. Can be targeted and shot down
Hacking this hide somewhere and support your wing with Electronic Warfrare stuff

 

[Iskariot]

I think something cool could be done with your ideas. Of course, as you recognize yourself, this type of tech has the potential to be very unbalancing in a multi player game, but I like the idea.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

I think something cool could be done with your ideas. Of course, as you recognize yourself, this type of tech has the potential to be very unbalancing in a multi player game, but I like the idea.

yup, because most of the times it comes without a downside.
unlimited perfect cloaking for example

 

[GDMNW]

I find it hard enough locating other ships as it is!

I like the idea of active camo, but isn't silent running pretty close to what you're outlining already?

 

[Winterwalker]

• Sacrifice your Shield, so only Hull tanks, basically the camouflage field replaces the shield bubble
• Movement makes you blurry and slightly visible but still immune to radar and locking
• Heatseekers would still work (also visible for theoretical thermal optics)
• Damaged ships will only cloak partially
• No FSD while cloaked, it will be deactivated as soon as you charge the drive
• Cloak is limited in time (by energy)
• Hits will make the cloak "flicker" and drain energy
• Obviously shooting deactivates the Camouflage
• After deactivation it needs some time to "recalculate" (like FSD cooldown)

Pretty cool ... well done for coming up with these balances to Camo advantages ... HIGH End Military Equipment?

 

[Defacto]

Doesn't our ships already detect others thermally? How would this work?

What does this feature make possible that couldn't already work with the silent running system?
This idea has been taken up before and AFAIK FD is not planning on implementing it.

 

[Arithon]

My black painted Asp is virtually a stealth-ship. Looks like one too. Hard to see!

 

[Rekal]

Any sort of tactic with stealth is fun and interesting...unless it's being used against you

A problem I see, all of the ship scanners are based on thermal emissions. So there's no way to prevent lock on with a visual camouflage you're suggesting. Kind of the limitation of thermodynamics and all that; useful work has some measure of inefficiency that is expressed as waste heat. Heat is hard to get rid of, and hard to hide safely.

Currently, the ships are designed to radiate the waste heat and most scanners pick these radiator fins up out of the background very easily. Once you have access to the debug camera next week, you can check them out--they're pretty cool looking (technically hot, but whatever). Zero your throttle then start charging the FSD and switch to the external view. As the heat builds up you'll see them open up completely in an attempt to evacuate the heat build up.

When you activate the current stealth mode the shields turn off, and the radiator fins are closed up causing heat to build up inside the ship. With no heat radiating and no cocoon of charged plasma (your shield), it is much more difficult for the scanners to pick up your ship's emissions to achieve target lock. Scanners still have a minimum detection range though--I think it's 500m but it could be 1km I don't remember--where no matter how stealthy you are you'll be spotted. If your active camo device prevented target lock inside this minimum detection as well it would be very powerful. It would also be very short-lived as the internal heat builds to the point where the hull starts radiating it and makes the ship visible to normal scanners again even with the vents closed. I don't think the minimum detection deal is going to get any traction though.

I think the stealth mechanic could use some attention, just to make it easier to use or more accessible. Smuggling and running away are where the focus should be though.

What about a utility slot like the Shield Boosters coming in 1.2 that does what you're suggesting when you activate stealth mode? It wouldn't change your thermal signature at all, so the minimum detection range would still be there, but it could be used as a bug-out maneuver. Turn tail to run, it's likely your shields are going to be gone anyway, right now if you activate stealth they lose target lock (if you create enough of a gap and you're still cool enough) but can still clearly see you. Add a visual distortion field and it'd be very easy to lose your ship in the dark for a few moments as you gather even more room to make your escape.

Or maybe an internal upgrade to the heat management system. Like a heat sump, that increases the maximum amount of heat the ship can contain before stealth mode becomes ineffective? All the heat normally created while under stealth is directed to the sump until it's filled, then the ship heats up normally. Turn off stealth mode and the ship runs hotter until the sump has cooled back down. Longer stealth times would make smuggling less of a nail biting experience for some players that might want to hit the slot at lower speeds

Hmm, a heat sump could also be useful on ships that run too hot to begin with with the excess heat going to the sump and damage only occurring if the sump is full.

I don't think we'll ever see a way around the minimum detection range and I don't think we'll ever see something like a stealth bomber that's actually viable either because of the heat limitations. But stealth upgrades would definitely be fun to play with.

 

[dbcher]

Klingons !!!

 

[Ghost1]

stealth ships should be considered. I know there are baby's on here that will cry about it being OP. But we have IRST in real life now. So why not make IRST an upgrade for ships so can detect ships in cloak via heat

 

[thahat]

alternatively, a light version of your active cammo might be an easy one? it might use a slot, and optically camouflages your ship, prohibits submodule targeting and hides your orientation on the target indicator on the left. that will give your oponents a dificult time cause they dont know in a 3d enviroment where you are moving, but you ship will still light up like an xmas light on the radar and targeting module though.