Do engineers auto-find stealth & cloak (Selen) too easily?

I'd love to get a consensus on whether people think stealth/cloaking of the selen are currently a little weak...

When I first started getting into FaF, I was quite shocked at just how well people were able to detect and kill my selens when I rolled seraphim.

I was a little surprised when I was told that 'reclaim' engineers, those that are attack-moving or patrolling, will kill Selens and other hidden units! I thought it needed omni or a bump!

As my ladder rank increased, cloak/stealth on selens only seemed to get more pointless, and I figured I was meeting increasingly savvy selen-spotters!

Only now, though, I realised exactly what the RANGE on this 'magic power' of an engineer is:
The range at which an reclaiming engineer (a-move or patrol) will hunt down a unit hidden from senses (monkeylord, mole, selen - as long as it's impossible to see, the engineer will seek it out.) was alarming to me!
(the engineer's 'hunt and kill nearby selen' range is greater than the weapon range, vision range, and RADAR range of the selen in question!!!)

I noticed that this 'psychic' range can increase even more if we do clever attack orders and pay attention to pathing etc etc, but that's totes impractical for my level! It might be tempting against sneaky cybran ACUs, but since you can't reclaim them, the cybran commander is the only grounded sneak who's immune to this anti-stealth engineer power (thank heavens!)

Part of me wonders whether this crazy-long range has just gone under the radar of any people for years... But I'm not sure at all, and certainly aren't assuming; there's some genius players here!

I love the idea of seraphim trading LAB raids and tricks (inc. ghettos), for a cool cloaking intel method, but it's woefully ineffective from what I can tell, and since realising the engineer's 'anti stealth/cloak' range, I can totally see why!
I find it a particular problem given that the normal behaviour of almost every player is to have engineers attack-moving at various points on the map. I wouldn't mind if it was a specific 'detect stealth' command, but since it's just the a-move or patrol, sneaky Selens get countered without any interaction/effort on the seeker's part.

(Maybe this is an engine issue? Where there is no way of reducing the current crazy range of engineer magic?)

So, I'd love to hear the consensus on whether people think it's currently too easy to hunt Selens down, or indeed find stealthed or cloaked units in general.
Would things be more interesting if hidden selens weren't automatically exterminated so easily? Or would it bring forth problematic gameplay? I'd love to understand this all better.

I didn’t know this, thanks for the info, now I can own Selens even harder. They’re a pretty bad unit that doesn’t do either job as well, and a scout+ LAB combo is virtually just as quick and cheap to produce

Same thing happens to stealth bases. Reclaiming engineer will go out of their way to reclaim buildings they never saw.

Interesting I actually kinda forgot about this since I haven’t seen it in such a long time. I’m pretty sure this is a game engine thing but am curious if there’s a way to fix

It's an engine bug. The engineer that is looking for something to reclaim does not take into account the intel status

A new bug to fix lol

It's not new and since it's an engine bug I doubt it's getting fixed

@jip
Would it be worth experimenting with making the 'cloak' buff, the one that gives selens reduced vision and radar range in XSL0101_script.lua , also modify its energy cost to something huge, like 20,000?

That way, the engineers would still 'go looking' for cloaked selens, but upon finding them, the engineer would just 'point them out' with the reclaim beam, rather than immediately exterminating them?

I'd think this change would be nicer than removing the 'hunting' functionality entirely, while still requiring a little more human involvement both in finding and destroying cloaked selens, and also in the counterplay (rescue the selen fast! )?

(My other suggestion would be to give the cloaked selen whatever commanders have that makes them impossible to reclaim, but I'm unsure what that is, and stopping engineers from seeking out selens at all might be 'too strong'. (Does anyone actually feel that Selens that needed omni or a physical bump would be 'too strong'?)

(ps. quote: "The engineer that is looking for something to reclaim does not take into account the intel status" - Well, they don't seek out units (including uncloaked selens) that aren't stealthed... So they kinda do take intel status into account! Not the way they should though, of course!)

selen functionally impossible to reclaim: you have now autowon half your games by putting 4 on random enemy mexes

needing a physical bump is too strong because it means engies have zero capacity to fight back against them, when there are still plenty of times an engie can reclaim a lab attacking it

@ftxcommando I suggested ONLY getting the energy boost while cloaked.

FWIW 'fight back' isn't the case here - if the selen tries to fight, it is uncloaked, and thus gets reclaimed almost immediately.

But if an energy cost of 'something huge' is bad, perhaps a middle ground? The value of the energy cost boost could be calibrated so that the engineer can reclaim a cloaked selen in whatever time is best for balance. I'm not convinced that "almost immediately" is best for balance, given that it makes selens complete junk compared to other scouts and LABs, without even requiring any player interaction to kill them... But I defer to your judgement, you know better than I!

UNcloaked selens, ie those fighting and such, would still be reclaimed almost immediately, as per current balance. Their energy cost (aka reclaim damage/second) would be unchanged.

The change I suggested ONLY effects cloaked selens getting reclaimed, and is a way to make it take longer.

Basically, what I imagined is that cloaked selens being reclaimed are 'pinned down', and need rescuing by friendly units before they get ground-fired by enemy offensive units. If you feel it's better than the reclaim beam actually kills them, then that's cool too - I just feel it should be a little longer than 'almost instantly' as it currently is.

New exploit: Get a selen to 1hp and let it cloak up then reclaim it for 20,000x the energy value

@redx Don't worry - you don't get any energy while reclaiming wrecks - only mass.
You only get energy from reclaiming un-finished buildings.

(I believe that the buff is lost when the unit dies, too. Not that it matters here.)

@zeldafanboy Selens can be stronger against other labs because of extra range.

@warning_potatopc Yes, I always feel that It's akin to aurora vs striker/mantis/thaam, except much 'closer to the wire'. I find that interaction very fun.
(Still, I don't understand these people that build 30 selens and hit the field with them!)