Night vision makes stealth builds obsolete?

I would like to drive in night vision with lights off where defense turrents or system authority ships find it difficult to see or shoot me as I make a getaway after scanning their settlement's private terminal or sabotaged power plant.
 
Makes a lot of sense to me. About the "easily" I'm not so sure though. A smooth transition from space to planet view could be tricky...

There are a few things that can be activated on planet only. Like game wont let you to deploy SRV in flight heh :D Do the same with NV option.
if game detects you are in OC, NV can be turned on. If you are not in OC, NV cannot be turned on.
 
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I agree NV should not be a thing during combat. But it is cool when in an asteroid belt, or near a station, not just when in an SRV. I think those things should be kept in NV too. They could be if the only change to NV was if the effective range was reduced drastically.
 
I agree NV should not be a thing during combat. But it is cool when in an asteroid belt, or near a station, not just when in an SRV. I think those things should be kept in NV too. They could be if the only change to NV was if the effective range was reduced drastically.

Well, then I think easiest solution is...

class shipObject:<stuff>

if(shipObject.mode.Combat)
{ shipObject.NightVision = false };
if(shipObject.mode.Analysis)
{ shipObject.NightVision = true };
 
Well, then I think easiest solution is...
Hmm, the easiest solution is typically what FDev does and that doesn't really turn out well for them. In this case, if NV is available for all these other scenarios then it should be for combat too. Maybe reducing the effective range is not good either but turning it off completely for combat doesn't make sense to me.
 
Hmm, the easiest solution is typically what FDev does and that doesn't really turn out well for them. In this case, if NV is available for all these other scenarios then it should be for combat too. Maybe reducing the effective range is not good either but turning it off completely for combat doesn't make sense to me.

Well, gonna be hard to find the common ground then so everybody can be happy.
 
Maybe a new module or hull type that defeats NV.

Now I could argue we have too much "these types of modules" already. Like so many utilities and optionals (SCA assist, dock computer, whatever) stuff that should be a part of ship IMO and not take valuable space.

As said it would be hard to please everyone. NV was put ingame for surface stuff and it was always showcased on surface. Space NV came later when CMDRs figured out its value.
 
Night vision blows.

What makes you say that?
You mean because it (partially) screws up stealth builds?

For it's intended purpose, I think NV is great.
We really needed to have a proper night-side on planets.
That was (IMO) the first big step FDev have taken toward developing planet surfaces.
And, with proper darkness on planet surfaces, we needed some kind of NV system.

Course, if it'd been up to me, I'd have made it part of an optional module - maybe make it part of the DSS functionality. No DSS, No NV.
That way, combat ships would have to fit a DSS instead of yet another HRP if they want to make use of NV.
Also, I don't really see why FDev couldn't have implemented some kind of graphical tweak so that cold-running ships have a minimal NV signature, somehow.
 
On the other hand: people could read the posting of Morbad. I also yesterday took a look. I can spot a ship and especially its engine trails from further out than the NV registers them.

I think things are fine enough this way. This is not the allmighty NV any more from half a year ago. It was nerfed, it's really not that big a deal any more. There's other things to address. (I could now start on Engineers again... )
 
I agree NV should not be a thing during combat. But it is cool when in an asteroid belt, or near a station, not just when in an SRV. I think those things should be kept in NV too. They could be if the only change to NV was if the effective range was reduced drastically.

But then there is combat in an asteroid belt or over the planet... Should NV suddenly shut down when combat starts?

There is no reason why a cold ship wouldn't be visible but a rock in space would, naturally. I see this as an issue of consistency - but for gameplay reasons I do support stealth builds to not be seen on NV, otherwise they are pointless. So IMO a silent running ship and a ship under a certain heat signature should be invisible to NV.
 
Stealth in Elite has always been about thermals. An interstellar initiative for a visual cloaking would be nice. You could still be locked on to with your heat signature, so you would have to be cloaked an on silent running and far enough away not to be detected.
 
Stealth in Elite has always been about thermals. An interstellar initiative for a visual cloaking would be nice. You could still be locked on to with your heat signature, so you would have to be cloaked an on silent running and far enough away not to be detected.

I like this idea. It means that NV would work as it does now in all cases except with stealth builds, which is what this topic is meant to address. Extra module so that if you want to make a stealth build, you have to sacrifice a slot to fit it. And not necessarily a small one, as an optical profile inhibitor would, I imagine, be bulky and power hungry.
Stealth fighters nowadays are built with radar absorbing materials. You could just as easily provide an armour class made from hypothetical photon absorbing materials which would be an armour/stealth trade off for stealth builds.
 
Stealth fighters nowadays are built with radar absorbing materials. You could just as easily provide an armour class made from hypothetical photon absorbing materials which would be an armour/stealth trade off for stealth builds.

Photon absorbing material. That kind of reads like "thermal resist is set to -75% and any engineering advantage is ignored while stealth is active" to me.
 
Well, then I think easiest solution is...
Having NV work only in analysis mode is an intriguing idea, i give You that. However that still solves little to nothing. One could bind the "switch mode" to something easily accessible and spam the button.
To expand on Your idea maybe mode switching should not be instantaneous but take some time while in normal space and instantaneou in SC so as not to mess around too much.
 
Having NV work only in analysis mode is an intriguing idea, i give You that. However that still solves little to nothing. One could bind the "switch mode" to something easily accessible and spam the button.
To expand on Your idea maybe mode switching should not be instantaneous but take some time while in normal space and instantaneou in SC so as not to mess around too much.

Yes, there is a hotkey but it doesnt matter, If switched, NV will just turn off as soon Combat mode is activated. So you can activate analysis and its on. But if you press hotkey again and go combat it auto goes off, etc... Cant "cheat" the system. As long as "shipObject.mode.Combat" is true, NV is off.
 
WRT seperating NV from pewpew - make it glare super bright around weapons and thrusters with a visual partial whiteout to approximate the dazzle effect of light amplification being oversaturated by intense lightsource? Although all the engineering measures and countermeasures I outlined earlier on in this thread would work, and create new gameplay styles rather than just trying to balance two incongruous things. Stealth has been inadvertendly pulverised by the nerf hammer it will take more than just a tweak to NV to make it viable again.

That is well thought out and I hope you are copy pasting from your suggestions thread as it will sink without trace on page 3 of a stealth thread.

Thanks bro, it was actually the other way around, I started as a reply in this thread, then realsised it was looking like a forum whinge, so turned it around to what you seen, after submitting it I realised it was too good to let it go to waste on this thread so copy pasta'd it into a new thread in suggestions.

But then there is combat in an asteroid belt or over the planet... Should NV suddenly shut down when combat starts?

There is no reason why a cold ship wouldn't be visible but a rock in space would, naturally. I see this as an issue of consistency - but for gameplay reasons I do support stealth builds to not be seen on NV, otherwise they are pointless. So IMO a silent running ship and a ship under a certain heat signature should be invisible to NV.

You are right, rocks and cold ships should react to the NV pulses the same, unless the ship has special engineering :cool:
 
Yes, i know, but still gimbals and turrets can be used as "fixed" to a degree, albeit with lowered damage output.
And once spotted it's hardly possible to ever go incognito like it was before.

While it's true that turrets can be set to forward fire and gimbals can be fired forwards without targeting, it doesn't negate all the other stuff. A ship that relies on a combination of laser turrets, gimbaled cannons and seeker missles is basically left with some half damage fixed lasers, some incredibly hard to use 3/4 damage cannons and a few basically unusable missiles.

You might not be able to go fully incognito, but you can definitely ignore a significant amount of fire from most weapons. Granted, most players that use KB&M controls have it quite easy with fixed weapons, but even they can be difficult to use with non-hitscan weapons like PAs as the player would lose access to the leading target reticule. There is the issue with AI being near 100% accuracy with fixed weapons even without target lock to help with leading, but that's an AI issue rather than an issue around the mechanics themselves.
 
This is an example of what stealth looked like during it's heyday (before the heat changes that made firing while silent overly difficult and way before Engineered effects like emissive):
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq9TDEvg-tU


I personally didn't have any problem with the system back then...stealth was not at all insurmountable. Yes, a ship that could remain silent was very hard to target with gimbals (fire at will turrets actually didn't care much, but they were very rarely used at the time since the only things weapons could do were damage and turret damage was always poor) and even if you did get close enough to resolve the target (and they auto-resolve if they fire at, or even try to lock missiles/torpedoes on, you...at any range), the low thermal signature dramatically reduced the gimbal arc.

That said, there were huge trade offs to decent stealth (not the least of which being no shields) and the possibility of encountering such loadouts encouraged more loadout variety.

Main issue was playing a version of the 'cup game' with a bunch of FASes that looked identical and thus could not be reliably focused in wing combat.

A more recent stealth encounter, but also pre-NV:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiHk9hMpLIA


Anyway, NV, in it's post-nerf state, is far less a hindrance to stealth than past changes like weapon heat loads.

Generally, either there is nothing else around and you know where the silent running ship is because it's the only susupicious unresolved contact on sensors, which you can further pinpoint any time it's thrusters flare up, if it passes in front of anything not the same color, or just gets close enough to eyeball...OR there is a lot of sensor clutter around and NV highlights all sorts of stuff, making it of only modest utility in isolating a stealth ship.

There is the issue with AI being near 100% accuracy with fixed weapons even without target lock to help with leading, but that's an AI issue rather than an issue around the mechanics themselves.

AI isn't that accurate. Higher ranks are quite good, better than me, but no more so than top CMDRs.

My SLFs (especially if I am piloting them) last way longer against a squad of Elite NPC rail Eagles and Asps than against a veteran CMDR packing rails.
 
Anyway, NV, in it's post-nerf state, is far less a hindrance to stealth than past changes like weapon heat loads.
I'm curious about this NV nerf. What exactly was nerfed and how? As a stealth pilot myself, I'm not a fan of how NV work(ed). I'd rather it be more like RL night vision vs. "Tron / Battlezone" outlining. That would have made it useful on the dark side of planets but a disadvantage in the presence of bright light. The boost from my Vulture should completely blind NV IMO (leaving it "saturated" for a period of time).
 
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