Having some UEF units with stealth+jamming would be cool tho.
Still worse than pure stealth but better than jamming. Like a unit with stealth and a single jamming blip would be interesting.
Non-Cybran stealth
@melanol said in Non-Cybran stealth:
Let me remind you that broadswords had stealth.
Also when was this?
At least in the FAF repository it never had stealth and the old supcom wiki also doesn't know anything about broadsword stealth.
@melanol You can get surprised by plenty of other stuff, including sudden drops or hidden nuke, or a t4 going underwater. Having radar is not enough, you also have to notice what you scouted and remember about it.
I basically agree with the OP. I think it makes sense for labs to have stealth innately. Maybe one higher tech unit per faction, too. Maybe the Titan, Loyalist, and the sniper bots.
@comradestryker (Re: Stealth field buildings being no use) Indeed... They might if stealth fields didn't create a radar blip.
It feels so counter-productive to drop a few sneaky builders, construct a stealth generator - and know that the enemy now has a structure blip on their radar telling them exactly what you're up to!
I'm guessing it was impossible to have a building under construction give itself stealth?
@sylph_ It would make more sense for transports to have stealth fields for these kind of operations
Structures under construction do not give off radar blips.
It is only when they complete that they give off a radar signature.
Stealth fields do not give a radar blip at all unless the actual structure, (whether being constructed or finished), is visibly scouted.
Or if in range of an omni, but it will remain unknown until vision is applied to it.
~ Stryker
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
@comradestryker But what if you E-stall for one millisecond?
won't it also then show the structure radar blip?
@comradestryker I must have been energy stalling when I tested it!
[edit - actually might have been the CPU-controlled player upgrading radars when income went above 90 mass/second... For how unimportant that distinction is!]
Thankyou for educating me. Now I know that stealth gens are not as utterly junk as I previously thought!
@nex said in Non-Cybran stealth:
@comradestryker But what if you E-stall for one millisecond?
won't it also then show the structure radar blip?
If the structure is not completed, and your power stalls, nothing happens out of the ordinary.
No blip other than the engineers building the structure.
If the structure is completed and your power stalls for a moment, the stealth field will fail and it along with anything it was hiding will become radar-visible for a brief duration until the stealth field reactivates on its own.
~ Stryker
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
@comradestryker said in Non-Cybran stealth:
visible for a brief duration until the stealth field reactivates on its own.
At which point 'dull' blips will remain, to signify a structure that was once seen, but can't be seen right now! [edit - I was wrong about this! Ignore this post, and thanks for correcting me!]
And that's why it's incredibly important not to stall power when using stealth generators to hide buildings!
Stealth generators can be used to hide your ASF or strat bomber horde when they are parked in your base. Otherwise they are basically useless. One of the limiting factors is that stealthed buildings remain discovered if scouted by a scout plane, therefore stealth on structures is much less useful than stealth on units, and a mobile stealth generator is enormously more useful than a static one.
At which point 'dull' blips will remain
No blip will remain.
The only time blips remain is when you have scouted a building and that structure is either destroyed, upgraded or changes ownership.
Regardless, you're correct that you don't ever want to power stall.
~ Stryker
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
@comradestryker My goodness!!! That's wonderful news to me, thanks for educating me, and sorry for spreading false information!
(I guess when I was testing all these things for myself, the fact that the AI in a custom game was upgrading radars without being told to really messed up my understanding of stealth fields!)
Thanks again. x
As I'm trying this out, I'm definitely getting 'blips' for structures that have been scouted, that the stealth field is now trying to hide.
'Grey square' blips are disappearing, but scouted structures don't disappear when stealth is established.
ie. this quote:
@ComradeStryker "The only time blips remain is when you have scouted a building and that structure is either destroyed, upgraded or changes ownership."
Seems to need 'stealthed' added to the list of reasons for a blip to remain.
But UN scouted buildings is the critical part for me, and I'm glad to see that they get removed from radar intel!
@sylph_ said in Non-Cybran stealth:
Seems to need 'stealthed' added to the list of reasons for a blip to remain.
Maybe I'm following you incorrectly, here, but... Stealth doesn't hide structures UNLESS the opposing player(s) have not obtained vision on that structure to begin with. (Or Omni.)
Hence why I didn't mention stealth in that list.
Vision and Omni will break the illusion.
Omni will only reveal the blips.
And vision will grant you the identity of the structures and units and whatnot.
The intel side of the game, barring everything else, is actually quite complex, yeah.
Funnily enough, even with how complex it is behind the scenes, it's actually quite simple and straightforward in gameplay terms.
You either see something, or you don't.
You either know it's there, or you don't.
If something is greyed out, use your best context to figure out if it was upgraded, gifted, or destroyed.
Intel alone is 50% of the battle.
You can't fight (effectively) what you cannot see.
Keep scouting!
~ Stryker
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
@comradestryker said in Non-Cybran stealth:
Funnily enough, even with how complex it is behind the scenes, it's actually quite simple and straightforward in gameplay terms
I agree, it's wonderful how intuitive it all becomes!
I think my understanding was thrown off by custom-game players (AI) upgrading radars to omni.
And I'm super-grateful for you patience in helping me understand it. My 'correction' was only to that one sentence, if taken in a vacuum. x
(Now I'm wondering whether I've missed a simple way of hosting a custom game, for the sake of testing, without having an AI take over one of the players?!)