Let's Talk: Cloaking Units

What about mobile cloak/stealth generators that cloak units within a certain range?

Would be cool, but probably only for a minority of players (or a silent majority but who can say?), radar jammers are said to be coming, possibly, post-release...fingers crossed but yea the majority of comments in this thread heavily lean towards people hate surprises so stealth = bad. These people need to go back to supcom, I loved the electronic warfare boat and cloakable commanders there were quite a few imbalances in that game but those weren't one of them.

So there seems to be a basic assumption by many people that "cloaking = micro".

Why?

There are a million different ways that cloaking could be implemented. Why are people instantly jumping to the idea that it will be an implementation where people cannot set up large scale systems to counter it? I find it curious why people seem to have obeyed "Mavor's law" and immediately imagined the implementation in a way which confirms their worst fears. I can think of a couple of ways to do cloaking from the top of my head without there being a focus on micro in the slightest.

There seem to be a lot of assumptions here based on "I can't imagine how to do it well, so it must be bad".

I stand by my assertion that the multi-planet theaters put enough stress on one's powers of perception as is - awesome UI or not. There is simply no gameplay need for player-created stealth/cloak whatever.

Oh there is a genuinely brilliant way to go about this whole vision business - go and find that post of @exterminans on unified intelligence systems. That thing got just about everything covered in an intuitive, realistic and consistent matter. Won't happen, though, since it would require a complete rework of the vision system in PA. Which is why I am very defensive about stealth and cloak.

Currently, but honestly with map controls, notifications, pip and all that stuff its really not as bad as your making out, maybe if your solo-ing across 8 planets yeah thats hard, but I'm pretty sure thats not intended 1v1 play or even some ffa's with individuals participating, but with teams its much much easier. Quite likely a stealth unit detected notification will flash and beep if they pass your detection line and you can click right to it, I think generally this thread is a bit of an overreaction to possibly a commander only ability as well though personally I'd like a stealth unit.

Those are really good ideas of how to tackle the issue at hand, I have to admit. But those have not yet been proposed or even hinted at by Uber so I for one am not holding my breath for them at the moment.
All in all: Could work out great, could be a complete meltdown. Both stances are valid and good arguments have been brought forth for the two of them. So, tea and see, I guess?

The problem there is some of use only have 1 monitor and can't support PIP after the 5 minute mark. Additionally radar blips are difficult to see in PIP because PIP is so small, unless you are concentrating on a single spot, but then it's not given that enemy units will pass through exactly that spot.

About the micro needed to spot or detect cloaked/stealth units - just add alert to it.

Alerts are really useful and I can't wait when they will be customizible as in changing color or maybe sound signal for different alerts. It already is or should be that alerts are displayed only when happening out of the player vision (main one, not PIP). What you think/

I remember the Seraphim scout. You just place that on the mass points and they can't build there. Good times.

Just turning it on and off is easy and can be fully automatic. It's micro heavy because of the reason that you need cloak, which is to sneak units around the back. It demands your attention to avoid detection, and it demands your attention to send detector units or build detection structures where you suspect cloaking activities.

If you aren't using cloak to sneak what are you using it for? If detection is too easily available anyone with half a brain would cover their important points in detection, invalidating cloak entirely.

People are being far too one-dimensional in their analysis of stealth, invisibility and cloaking mechanics in general.

"it's frustrating, I don't like it" - why is it frustrating? Because you dislike investing effort into tactical or strategic counters? Because it cannot be countered for a similar expenditure of cost? Because there is no counter?

"way too micro intensive" - why is it micro-intensive? What implementation are you thinking of when you consider this?

I'd go on, but MadSci has encapsulated my feelings there perfectly.

What do we want from invisibility?

What do we mean by "invisibility"? How does this differ from "stealth"? Why is it frustrating to play against? How could we solve this?

We want a system that promotes tactical and strategic depth while at the same time being counterable. As with any strategy or tactic, sometimes the effort invested to counter may exceed the effort invested to use, depending on the skill of the people involved. However, we should at least aim for parity.

A breakdown of invisibility:

Invisibility: the ability to go invisible. Pretty standard.

Cloaking: the active ability to go invisible to either normal vision, infrared or radar. Implemented as an active decision on the behalf of the player controlling the unit(s). Such abilities often feature a timer in addition to other costs.

Stealth: the passive ability to go invisible, etc. Implemented in a number of ways; often units are created with this ability on by default, or this ability activates if the unit has been out of combat for X seconds, or has killed a unit (bizzare, I know, but I've seen it), etc, et al.

These are simply my own definitions I've arrived at after reading this thread and based on my own games modding experience. Generally I don't even know why all of these terms are separate, they're all parts of invisiblity. Whether you've got a Magical Cloak or Stealth Mode is entirely aesthetic, in my opinion.

But hey. Debates go smoother with clear definitions to work from.

Traditional problems with invisibility:

It's often implemented as a binary system (either you're invisible or not). This leads to frustration when countering the system, as well a lack of reliability when using the system yourself.

It's often integrated as an afterthought to the unit or faction's design ("hey it'd be cool if that thing could cloak!"). This results in both poor design at the unit/faction level, and with regards to the overarching game mechanics as a whole.

How do we resolve these traditional problems?

We integrate the system at a deeper level than people are suggesting currently. We rework existing units and their counters to account for the presence of invisibility as a non-binary system.

We integrate multiple layers of invisibility. We separate radar jamming and radar invisibility from unit invisibility and active forms of cloaking. We give a transition-based state to units that are neither invisible or normal (i.e. "revealed". Dawn of War II has a revealed state, but the system again suffers from being roughly binary in nature).

We stop knee-jerking and throwing about random suggestions from random units from other games. That is not how you approach games design.

But that is just that, an assertion. What is the reasoning behind it? Cloaking adds a different broad strategy just like air does, or naval, or nuclear weapons, or planet smashing, or any of the other broad features in the game. Unless one is stating that cloaking requires significantly more attention for the depth it generates than any of these other avenues, then why is it reasonable to throw it under the bus without even seeing how it could be implemented?

I'm seeing a lot of assumptions and assertions in this thread, but very little in the way of actual development of those assertions into a coherent thesis.

Exterminan's system was indeed very interesting, in that it handled cloak as a quantitative extension of intelligence gathering mechanics, rather than as a qualitative flag applied to a unit to turn it into a "cloak" unit. I liked it and I think it would make a great core mechanic for a different type of RTS which I would like to theorycraft on how to put together (although I would not bet on being able to make it - cool ideas are always massively easier than putting them in practice). However, it was also complex, and likely beyond the scope of PA.

Having said that, it is actually reasonable to take a simple approach to replicate some of the depth of that system without going whole hog. The starting point is TA's system of de-cloaking a unit if it got too close to an enemy unit or if it had to fire. This doesn't require specific "detector" units, but some units will naturally be better at detecting than others, as is emergent based upon their properties. Fast, small, and cheap units can cover a large area quickly and are more likely to run into the cloaked units. It also has the natural balance factor that the larger the cloaked force is, the more likely something will run into it, making larger cloaked forces harder to conceal. I think that is a natural and intuitive consequence of such a simple system. If you want to go further, you could specify that the de-cloak range is dependant upon the vision range of the detecting unit, which would enhance scout's abilities to detect cloaked units even further.

So what would such a system mean in terms of how one would act? It means that the decision to sweep an area for cloaked units is very simple - just set some fireflys on area patrol. They will fly around, and likely run over the cloaked units. Throw an alert in, and the players micromanagement of the incident is severely curtailed. That isn't micromanagement in the slightest. In fact, as a larger economy can produce more scouts, I would say it is a very macro-friendly solution. It also adds dynamic counter-play on both sides. Suppose I've identified an undefended enemy energy farm, and I want to sneak some cloaked raiders in to take it out. The enemy has multiple options to stop me, such as simply building turrets, walls, or screening with scouts. Suppose he chooses the latter with fireflys. I have multiple options to counter that too. I could send in an air-superiority force to wipe out the scouts, paving the way for my cloaked force. I could try to assault elsewhere to try to draw the scouts away, or I could give up and add AA to my force, which will mean he can see I'm coming when the spinners shoot down the fireflys. In fact, such a system creates a whole wealth of options which adds diversity and longevity to the strategic metagame. Options which would be lost if we abandon cloaking before looking at how it could even be implemented. Deception has always been a key mechanic in the RTS genre and adding more options to allow people to use or defeat it is a good thing.

Here is a general exercise when it comes to these things, that I think people might want to try. Whenever you hear a mechanic that you don't like the sound, before you say "I don't like X so I don't think it should be in the game (replace X with nukes/cloaking/weather/anti-missile/Tanky commanders/T2 air/megabots/shields/upgrades/bananas)", try the following thought experiment. Assume that the feature you have a problem is going to be an important part of the game. Then ask yourself what you would need to do in order to make it fun and engaging without just giving up and removing it. Try and simplify your idea as much as possible. Any idea can be made fun if you are willing to put enough effort into it, so try to come up with the minimum effective solution as to how that mechanic could be fun. If your minimum effective solution is still really complicated, or ends up being very different from how PA is at the moment, then chances are that it's a mechanic that doesn't fit well, and cannot be made to fit well easily. However if you can describe your fun variant of the system in less than a couple of bullet points, then you may be onto something. I believe cloaking is the latter of these two scenarios.

I'm fine with cloak or stealth. If the

I think this is a good idea. For me, it would be ok if units who got cloaking abilities are only hidden when they don't move. This could create some interessting situations.

The problem with cloak and stealth is its binary nature. I will just plonk down this link here detailing a system in which stealth emerges naturally from the system itself instead of being tacked on and creating all manner of crazy repercussions.
If there has to be stealth in core PA I advocate a system akin to one proposed - not the binary thing that was present in Supreme Commander. Let alone the abomination that is StarCraft-style stealth.

edit: Sorry for not replying to your points for now, madscientist, such a volume of text deserves a more indepth answer. Wanted to get that 'binary-stealth'-thing, though.

Stealth doesn't have to be binary at all, it could be a range thing, give all radars multiple circles, radar range and stealth reveal range then the onus is on the sneaking player to be wary of units/structures when they issue orders to that unit(s). I like the linked discussion in theory, but that is where it ends as it is needlessly complex which brings us back to the binary debate for various things in a way, not ideal, but simple and for game-play simple is normally best; For nukes i get that everyone's sick of that approach to nuke/anti after several games that did it that way, but for stealth and cloaking a binary solution doesn't pose the problems people think it does, it's a neat, simple relationship thats clear, concise and readable - I think people are using Binary as the new bogey-word as much because they want to come across as complicated, edgy, modern etc... as much as it is about wanting depth added, in most cases the solutions offered are bordering on the ridiculous, and are normally backed up by three page essays explaining their complicated solution. If it needs more than a page its too much.

... cloaked/stealthed ... ARMIES .... .... micro? ... .... yeah no ...

now what is it ... stealth or cloak?

It doesn't need much/any micro for cloak, or stealth shouldn't be a problem, did you read any of the counter arguments or just jump on the bandwagon after the OP? Notification snapping and detection ranges can easily help a detecting player use even just one pip or no pip to close the hole on stealth, bt things should invariably flit through on occasion this is good and absolutely not to be feared. Seriously and not for the first time i ask how the heck did you guys want subs if not like this?! The relationship between sub, sea units and whatever unit sinks them is pretty bloody clear and the micro part, you can prbly sumberge/unsubmerge them -- problem? hell no.

@DalekDan ... congratz for misreading what i have written ... ... there is a reason my i capped "armies" ...

oh, well ok then, clearly i need a coffee... but my points stand for other readers/posters.