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Suggestion: Cloak-defeating building

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4 years ago
As it says on the tin, this would be a building that defeats cloak within a certain radius of itself. It should be sufficiently expensive that players don't just spam it everywhere, maybe somewhere between 300-500 metal. It would prevent allied units from cloaking as well, meaning it disrupts all cloak, and the disruption field is visible to units in a manner similar to shields (meaning enemy units can avoid the disruption field).

Alternatively, this could be an alternate operation mode of the cornea (where it stops cloaking and starts de-cloaking instead).

The intention behind this suggestion isn't to nerf cloaking units, but to make it less asinine to counter them. Currently there is no real counter that isn't fundamentally impractical. Screening requires a lot of micro and quite a few facs lack sufficiently cheap units. Spamming faradays is expensive and its easy to miss angles.

There are some widgety solutions people have tried, such as autofiring certain units, but the're really annoying visually/audially. We probably don't want to live in a world where cloaking units are countered via advanced LLT AIs.
+2 / -0


4 years ago
Bury an outlaw
+7 / -0
4 years ago
Scythe x100
+0 / -0
4 years ago
Burying outlaws is BS.
+3 / -0

4 years ago
BRrankManored I understand your pain with cloak, but they're supposed to be hard to deal with. Most cloaks die the moment you spot them. This is the reason why you will see me screaming game after game for fleas on the frontline. Fleas defeat cloak. They also spot for artillery.

That said, your suggestion is pretty cool and in would be interesting to see how such a building interacts in-game. It sounds like an easy thing to make and test. I support the idea ... would be cool to see if it adds to the game :)
+0 / -0
4 years ago
BA has(had) it right.

I found some old but gold "Manored's Guide about BA units", where it says "Tracer (intrusion countermeasure system): This device detects moving ground enemy units inside its detection range, even if they are stealthy or cloaked, but it can only keep track of then while they are moving, won't show them on radar, and your units wont react automatically. Not very expensive (or useful :) ). "

Seems ZK has had unit names from/shared with BA anyway, so it should have this intrusion counter unit too, as ZK has a factory that is devoted to having cloaked units.

Just showing some small red pulsing indicator on terrain where approximately a cloaked unit is moving would be nice. Invisible by it self is such a cheat.
+0 / -0
4 years ago
Oh, and in case...

https://springrts.com/wiki/Manored%27s_Guide_about_BA_units
+0 / -0
Well!

I don't remember writing that, but it does somewhat remind me of my writing style and my tendency to list tiny details extraneously. Also I can't think of any reason why someone would falsely slap my name on a wiki guide.

I feel like there shouldn't be a strategy that allows you to squeeze tons of micro out your opponent, inescapably, even if the're willing to throw lots of metal at the problem. If such strategies exist, it creates a situation where a larger number of players can simply overwhelm a smaller number of players with sheer micro, even if the smaller number of players has a better strategy/economy.

That is what cloakies do. If you're willing to micro the shit out of them, you can force the enemy to have to micro the shit out of their own units to defend against you in turn. There isn't a way to throw metal at the problem to prevent this and reclaim your attention.

I'd compare it to air: if a player is microing bombers a lot, you could counter that via fighter micro, or you can build things like chainsaws which are expensive but will take care of the problem for you automatically. You can prevent yourself from being overwhelmed by more bombing attacks than you can pay attention to, if you're willing to pay some metal. Cloaking doesn't have an expensive safeguard like that atm.
+0 / -0


4 years ago
I tend to dislike the idea of a cloak-defeating building on the basis that it is a whole new mechanic that doesn't seem necessary. Fleas exist, simbase exists, Outlaw, Firewalker, Blastwing.
+4 / -0
BRrankManored

"There isn't a way to throw metal at the problem to prevent this and reclaim your attention."

I would have to disagree with this statement. 40-50 Fleas on patrol basically shuts down any cloak in your territory.
+1 / -1
4 years ago
That requires a specific factory. If every factory had an ultra-cheap scout unit, you might have a point.
+0 / -0
Make cheap knock-off outlaws morphable from radar

Edit: actually, add a drone turret, and let it set the drone on a circular patrol pattern around the turret as a unitstate.
+4 / -0
4 years ago
That's a good idea, it would interact with other game mechanics besides cloak.
+0 / -0

4 years ago
Building protection vs cloaked units is very simple. Spam around cheap towers, make flea or raider circle. If u are evil enough use roches around and in such way teach skyte spammers.
This building will not make sense because you will need invest metal in non mobile building who cant defend itself. You will still need porc around or mobile units. And if this building range will be large then your own stationary cloakers can suffer or mobile cloakers.
Main problem is deal with battlefield cloakers. Especially when con can make now cloaking field. And this stationary cloaker who can hide building from radar also is annoying. But mobile decloaker would be op because no more infiltrators un ultis can be used. I would accept only detris as mobile decloaker.
+0 / -0
There is also lotus widget from snoke as i remember. It can be used for limited area scan for invisible units.
Morphable stationary outlaw with more hp would be interesting addition but still would promotes porcing around.
+0 / -0
4 years ago
Add a second, non-damaging beam weapon with the same turret turnrate and range than the primary one and a much more discreet visual and sound effect, call it "scan", and have it beam around in a circle like in the widget to decloak what comes close. Have it stop firing when the primary weapon fires, so the widget isn't used to double the scan rate.
+0 / -0

4 years ago
Just build tremor, firewalker and outlaw, plus fleas and dirtbags :P
+0 / -0

4 years ago
Plz never build tremor. Every nub can rush it from start while only few experienced players can counter it.
+0 / -0
in cluster games i learn nubs like to make big things.. this forces the high rank players to defend the front-lines that the nubs mostly ignore.. but at-least they seem to loose the 1 big unit they have less then the balls of cheap units.

in BA the pro's start at the back and make eco into T3/air spam
in ZK the pro's start at the front and make raiders and capture mex.

also in zk the end game is not just porc and arty.. so many things work its quite varied

but if i had to say what i think ends most games.. Minotaur seems to be a huge killer on flat maps.. pushing in and killing a factory and com
+0 / -0
In my experience BA is not a very porcy game, at least not until the late game when everyone starts making adv metal makers. It does require you to pay a lot more attention to your economy's progression than Zero-K.

Its just that the BA community is ridiculously conservative and loves playing Simcity. I haven't played in years but they used to play mostly in 24/7 Delta Siege Dry autohosts.

Cloaky shenanigans rarely happened in BA. It wasn't due to the seismic detectors, though. They were rarely built. I think it was just because airdrops were generally a more effective way to get units into the enemy's econ if you wanted. Cloaky units were also not as specialized as our scythes, which are basically designed to stab people in the face at the expense of any durability or range.

There is also the matter of maps being proportionally larger and thus giving more space to maneuver in. Rather than cloak, players with such inclinations tended to just send swarms of raiders through unguarded lateral paths. Bombers were also a great option for econ assassination.

Edit: Now that my memory is jogged, I seem to recall adv cloaked crawling bombs being somewhat common, though. They needed a lot of micro but you could seriously blow some fusions up with them. This might have been another reason why the more normal cloaky units weren't used, since if the're gonna die anyways, might as well be suicidal.
+1 / -0
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