Author Topic: Should humans get a stealth turret?  (Read 2271 times)

Offline Toranth

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Re: Should humans get a stealth turret?
« Reply #15 on: August 10, 2012, 03:42:49 pm »
I think Diazo has it right - The AI does not deal well with cloaking at this time.

Conversely, the player has extremely limited methods of dealing with cloaking.

What, 7 units in the whole game that have tachyon beams?
Tachyon Emitters, Tachyon Drones, Decloackers, and Tachyon Warheads are all human-only ways of dealing with cloak, and these are always available to the player.  Additionally, the Info Bar will tell you exactly how many and what type of ships are cloaked - info I'm not sure the AI even has access to, and doesn't react to if it does.
The AI has a few AI-only anti-cloak methods (Tachyon Guardian, anti-hacking response, etc) but they mostly rely on luck or the human attacking.
Most importantly, the human is *human* and can reason a solution to the problem of detecting a cloaked unit.  The AI is not programmed to do anything right now, so it is completely helpless.

Offline kasnavada

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Re: Should humans get a stealth turret?
« Reply #16 on: August 10, 2012, 03:52:52 pm »
Quote
Most importantly, the human is *human* and can reason a solution to the problem of detecting a cloaked unit.  The AI is not programmed to do anything right now, so it is completely helpless.

Then again, if the AI responded to the cloaking properly, cloaking as it currently is would be nearly pointless. With the tools at their disposal, humans clear (or at least can find) all cloaked units in a few minutes at most (no warheads).

About stealth turrets... what I thought I'd find would be stealth turrets, much like stealth guard posts, which would be fixed turret making ships around it stealthy.

Offline Draco18s

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Re: Should humans get a stealth turret?
« Reply #17 on: August 10, 2012, 04:05:20 pm »
The AI has a few AI-only anti-cloak methods (Tachyon Guardian, anti-hacking response, etc) but they mostly rely on luck or the human attacking.

The AI has:

Tachyon Guardians (as many as it wants)
Tachyon Guard Posts (one on every side of every wormhole)
Space Trains (neigh on indestructible mobile patrollers)

Sure, the AI doesn't know how to scout around and uncover cloaked units like the player does, but that kind of logic could easily be added.  If there are Y cloaked units in the system, run a tachyon guardian around the system covering all structures.  If there were recently cloaked units Right There, Yes, there, Coming out of that Wormhole, move a tachyon guardian over and intercept, based on last known position and vector.

Offline Minotaar

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Re: Should humans get a stealth turret?
« Reply #18 on: August 10, 2012, 04:30:10 pm »

The AI has:

Tachyon Guardians (as many as it wants)
Tachyon Guard Posts (one on every side of every wormhole)

There are no tachyon guard posts, those are the guardians, and there are no mobile tachyon guardians  ;)

Offline RCIX

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Re: Should humans get a stealth turret?
« Reply #19 on: August 10, 2012, 04:32:08 pm »
My name is RCIX, and I Approve of this idea. Especially if it means more goodies on the AI side :3
Avid League player and apparently back from the dead!

If we weren't going for your money, you wouldn't have gotten as much value for it!

Oh, wait... *causation loop detonates*

Offline chemical_art

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Re: Should humans get a stealth turret?
« Reply #20 on: August 10, 2012, 10:27:01 pm »
I had posted this in the open in the hope of attracting both the level of support and any pitfalls.

So far, I've thought of this so far:

There could two, or even three marks for the post.

MK I would cost around the cost around 3k knowledge, and would cloak nearby units while the unit itself is visible. However, unlike turrets, when the comm station on the planet it is on is destroyed, it too, should be destroyed. This I think could work even if the MK II and or III version is abandoned.

MK II are an optional idea. For the cost of around 3k knowledge, this station would be alike to the previous post except it would remain even if the comm station it was on was destroyed...but it would still need supply. So you are paying a premium to keep the factory IV, etc hidden.

MK III's could go a step further and have the post itself be hidden. In return for this neigh invulnerability of the factory IV if you keep the post in supply you are paying a whopping 4k knowledge, or 10k total knowledge...remember an enclave which needs no factory costs 14k...so its an alternative form of fail safe.

Life is short. Have fun.