Suggestion for improved Stealth gameplay.

I would like to see much more made of Stealth game play. With this in mind I have a suggestion.

Implement Stealth missions where players are required to collect information without being detected. Missions could be to find a ship holding the required information and to recover said information without ever being detected as a solid contact on the radar by the target ship.

New modules / engineering / utility mount needed to make gameplay viable:
Add Low emissions Grade 4 and 5 power plant modifications to enable thermal signature to be reduced by up to 60% at the cost of drastically increased mass.
Underdriven - New engineering for the thrusters that drastically reduces your drives thermal signature and increases acceleration at the cost of a drastically reduced top speed and increased mass.
Concealing Armour – New hull module that helps block other ships radar from tracking you, reducing your ship signature at the cost of reduced armour resistances.
Stealth – New engineering for the hull reinforcement packages that adds further ship concealment at the cost of even lower armour resistances.
Covert Scanner – utility mount that scans a targets internal data and can then also hack a targets computer to extract information without being detected. The hacking part could be a mini game, which would add some interest.

What I would be hoping for with all the stealth modifications is to be able to build a ship that can remain a vague contact on the radar even with thrusters enabled and within close range, so long as it remains below a certain speed and temperature.

I’d like to see the game play work this way:

You have to find the ship, this can be done with the same method that is currently used to find USS's containing mission targets.

Once you find the ships USS and drop into it then your normal ship scan (when you target and face a ship) will also populate the targets information list in your left panel, if you have the Covert Scanner fitted. Once you have identified a ship holding the required information you do a full scan with the Covert Scanner (similar to how the KWS scans) and gain access to the ships computer. A 4 digit numerical access code prompt would then appear on your HUD where you have to enter the correct code within a time limit. You can enter as many tries as you like but if you fail to get the correct code (see mini game below) before the time limit is up then the ship is alerted to the intrusion and you fail the mission.

Hacking code mini game:
The access code once entered (if not fully correct) would light up any digits that are in the correct place in green.
Any digits that are in the code but that are not in the correct place would light up in yellow.
Any digits that are not in the code at all would light up in red.
This way we could fairly easily work out the correct code.
Once the correct code is entered you gain access and the stolen information is transferred to your ship.

Once you have the information you would still need to get out of there without being detected and return to the mission giver to complete the mission. The information would be lost on ship destruction and the mission would also be lost if you were detected by the target even after you had obtained the information. The whole point is that the target remains unaware that the information has been taken.

Maybe we could also have a 'Covert' rating system for players, similar to notoriety for criminals? Maybe the covert rating goes up by 1 every time you complete say 10 covert missions and goes down 5 every time you fail a covert mission. That way those who want to have careers as 'Covert Operatives' would have a higher covert rating and get benefits from that? (higher covert mission payouts?).

This would make being a 'Covert Operative' a viable career in the game. I could see the Diamondback Scout being used for this purpose and I would love doing this! :D Please make it happen!
 
Heh, I recently added some Ideas for stealth play as well, I think it's time to up the Anti!!! STEALTH PLAY FDEV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [alien]
 
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