Cloaked ships

[Banichi]

Does anyone have any idea how to represent a cloaked ship in this gaming system. The best idea I've come up with is this.

-The cloaked ship has a stealth rating of 6. This is not modified in any way,eg scouts, close fighters, moving closer to the cloaked ship, being hit already, etc.

-The cloaked ship has to drop its cloak to fire. Once it does this it can't use the cloak for a turn or two, due to recharge time.(kind of like a slow loading trait)

-Ships that are within 15inches can try to take a shot, but must roll 6 to do so. I see this as a "I think there is something out there captain" sort of thing. A lucky pot shot if it breaks stealth and hits. If the cloaked ship is out of 15" then it is pretty much undetectable. Ok, the crew of the hunted ship might know it is around somewhere, (and the gamers will know were it is), but it is too far away to get even a glimmer of a scencor reading.

The ship I am thinking of has a short ranged weapon, so it has to get close. A long ranged ship with a cloak would be kind of mean. And I kind of like the idea of the tension buildup as the ship gets closer, and the hunted ship starts to take pot shots in panic.

 

[H]

is this for a trek conversion?
you should allow rules for the incredible number of ways the federation can see past stealth, ooh look, exhaust smoke ;-)

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Just don't place it on the table until it decloaks. In essence use the hyperspace mastery rule but have the ship act normally as soon as it arrives.

 

[Banichi]

is this for a trek conversion?
you should allow rules for the incredible number of ways the federation can see past stealth, ooh look, exhaust smoke ;-)

Or the "oh look, there's a ship shaped patch of empty space in that dust cloud" :lol: It's not for a trek conversion, and thats all I will say for now.

 

[Da Boss]

You could make it so only those with a Scout trait or using a new Special action "Scan for cloaked vessels" (Or Plot demands I see you now) can see it.

otherwise Stealth 6+ and usual mods - but just say that when it fires it loses stealth for the rest of the turn and regains it in the end phase (unless otherwise removed by crit effects etc)

Stargate Cloaking seems a bit more reliable and I think the same with Farscape ones - can't recal off hand any other shows?

 

[H]

well if it's stargate, I have a load of ship stats that Karlpopli did before he dropped into the realms of lord of the rings online

Cloaked ships are difficult, It depends how good you want cloaking to be, if you want it supreme, then davids idea is spot on, if you want a chance to break it, it's hard to represent if you have a ship moving around that people have to pretend they can't see, and they are making all these random pot shots, when in reality they would be blowing the crap out of what they can see instead!

 

[Da Boss]

Just don't place it on the table until it decloaks. In essence use the hyperspace mastery rule but have the ship act normally as soon as it arrives.

Does seem a nice simple way of doing it - if it decloaks in the move phase a lucky Iniat roll could still blast if first............which also seems to happen in the shows, films etc

 

[Banichi]

Just don't place it on the table until it decloaks. In essence use the hyperspace mastery rule but have the ship act normally as soon as it arrives.

I did think of this, but I want the player to have to get the cloaked ship into position. Not for it to magically appear. Thanks for the Idea and input though

 

[Da Boss]

well if it's stargate, I have a load of ship stats that Karlpopli did before he dropped into the realms of lord of the rings online

Ohh can I see them - its one of my 30 or so projects I toy with now and then!

 

[Lord David the Denied]

Only other way to handle it would be sensor ghost counters, but that's highly dependant on the setting. If your cloaking devices are anything like Star Trek ones you shouldn't even get a whiff of the cloaked ship unless it's malfunctioning, pushing its drives too hard or doing something stupid...

 

[H]

well if it's stargate, I have a load of ship stats that Karlpopli did before he dropped into the realms of lord of the rings online

Ohh can I see them - its one of my 30 or so projects I toy with now and then!

yeah sure, I'll find them tonight and forward them on. these were 1st ed ones though, but upgrades should be easy enough

 

[Banichi]

Ohh can I see them - its one of my 30 or so projects I toy with now and then!

Could I have a peek as well? I think (if I can pester my friends into helping me play test) I might try both methods, the stealth, and LDTD off the table deployment. The only worry I have about the off the table method is that it will make a cloaked ship too strong. And I can't really tone down the ship I have in mind too much without breaking canon.

 

[Banichi]

Only other way to handle it would be sensor ghost counters, but that's highly dependant on the setting. If your cloaking devices are anything like Star Trek ones you shouldn't even get a whiff of the cloaked ship unless it's malfunctioning, pushing its drives too hard or doing something stupid...

I don't think this cloak was quite up to Romulan standards, it was slightly detectable.

 

[Sigmar357]

Your ideas so far sound good to me Banichi and I feel your quite right on the stealth tech difference on b5 to star trek. It star trek they have stealth fields while in b5 they just used advanced senors but i aint expect on technologies form what i could tell from the shows themselfs.

 

[Greg Smith]

Make it stealth 7, that way it is only ever going to get seen within 8" or with the help of a scout.

We played Full Thrust with plotted movement. A cloaked ship plotted its movement without a miniature on the table. It involved a considerable amount of estimation on behalf of the cloaked ship's player. Da Boss' cloaked ships would usually end up leaving the table or decloaking with an enemy battle cruiser behind them.

 

[Da Boss]

yep :lol:

 

[Burger]

Make it stealth 7, that way it is only ever going to get seen within 8" or with the help of a scout.

Except, a roll of 6 is always a pass. You might as well make it stealth 99+... you can still roll a 6 and hit it from any range.

 

[Da Boss]

unless this ship has a special rule ?

 

[Greg Smith]

Good point, Burger.

Cloaking device: declare at the start of the turn whether the device is on or off. If it is on the ship is considered to have stealth 7+, although the normal rule for breaking stealth on a roll of six does not apply. If it is on, the ship may not fire.

You may also want to disallow fighters in base contact automatically beating stealth.

 

[Locutus9956]

well if it's stargate, I have a load of ship stats that Karlpopli did before he dropped into the realms of lord of the rings online

Cloaked ships are difficult, It depends how good you want cloaking to be, if you want it supreme, then davids idea is spot on, if you want a chance to break it, it's hard to represent if you have a ship moving around that people have to pretend they can't see, and they are making all these random pot shots, when in reality they would be blowing the crap out of what they can see instead!

Oooh I'd love a copy of that too if you don't mind hiff, was planning something along those lines myself at some stage but never got round to it.