Cybran stealthing

QuietJoy

What can see a cloaked cybran acu?

And what can see cloaked cybran strats?

angelofd347h

You're mixing up stealth and cloak.
Stealth invisible to radar, requires visual or omni sensor to see.
Cloak is invisible to vision but detected by any form of radar.
The com gets stealth followed by cloak so it requires omni to see.
Strats have stealth.

arma473

Materials describing the stealth vs. cloaking thing generally don't do a good job of differentiating between units that have cloak-but-not-stealth, and units that have both-cloak-and-stealth.

For example, the mole can have cloaking, but doesn't have its own stealth. Fire beetles have cloaking but not their own stealth. you can get them stealth by using a unit with a stealth field (like a mobile stealth gen).

The Cybran ACU with the cloaking upgrade gets both stealth + cloaking, so it doesn't need a stealth gen. It would be nice if the ACU or SACU with cloaking also had a small stealth field so you could cloak transports without bringing a deceiver along.

Units that have cloaking generally don't say anything in the in-game tool tips about whether they also have stealth. It's kind of awkward to say "cloaking and stealth" but that would make it clear to the users.

Cyborg16

What often confused me was a stealthed ACU under water. It turns out that the scout/spy planes all have sonar (equal to vision radius, I think), therefore can "see" underwater and spot the ACU.

arma473

Sonar works the same as radar in that it does not reveal stealthed units. There needs to be underwater vision to see a unit that is underwater with stealth but not cloaking (like a stealth ACU or some stealth subs).

Sonar is not the same as water vision. Sonar is like water radar. Lots of units have underwater vision, in the unit DB as "water vision radius." The Unit DB isn't necessary complete. I don't recall offhand if torpedo planes or Czars have some water vision from the weapons they drop. And I thought spy planes had water vision but maybe not.

There needs to be omni to see an underwater unit with stealth and cloaking (a Cybran ACU or SACU with those upgrades)

veteranashe

Irc spy planes and torp bombers range is spherical and don't work as good as you would think.

jcvjcvjcvjcv

@cyborg16 said in Cybran stealthing:

What often confused me was a stealthed ACU under water. It turns out that the scout/spy planes all have sonar (equal to vision radius, I think), therefore can "see" underwater and spot the ACU.

Nope. Only Cybran and Sera Spyplanes have Sonar, with range being equal to the radar range of the spyplane.

UEF and Aeon Spyplanes DO NOT have sonar, although they will still spot underwater stuff in their much smaller omni ring.

See attached; above vision is from the player with the subs; two near each "enemy" spyplane. Bottom is the view from the player with the spyplanes. The most left and right spyplane are the sera and cybran one; they each see two subs. The UEF and Aeon spyplanes only see the sub that is in their red (omni) ring.

So if you are out to hunt ACU's hidden in the water outside sonar range... you better use cybran or sera spyplane or you need to fly right over them and even then their blip will appear only shortly.

Note that in both omni and sonar ring, there is still no unterwater vision.