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Stellaris Dev Diary #289 - Hide and Seek

A staple of sci-fi that has long been missing from Stellaris is the ability to have fleets and stations capable of being cloaked and hiding from enemy sensors. With the addition of Awareness and improvements to interactions with pre-FTL civilizations, we felt that First Contact was the right place to explore how cloaking could be added to the game in a meaningful way, tying into warfare, exploration and espionage.

When we set out to design the cloaking and counter-cloaking systems our goals were that:
  • Science ships should be able to equip cloaking devices to allow exploration of space regardless of if another empire has closed their borders to you.
  • Observation posts should be capable of being hidden from the pre-FTL civilizations they were observing.
  • Military vessels should be capable of cloaking, with limitations. Cloaking should be balanced such that it is better to cloak frigates or cruisers than battleships.
  • Cloaking should interact with the existing espionage system.

So how does this work in practice?

Cloaking Field Generators are a new type of ship component that is limited to one per ship and occupies either an Aux slot (for designable ships) or a special cloaking device slot (for undesignable ships e.g., science ships or observation posts). The first cloaking devices available can only be equipped on corvettes, frigates, science ships and observation posts. As technology improves so does the cloaking strength provided by the cloaking devices and the size of ship they are capable of cloaking.

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Basic Cloaking Field Generators unlock cloaking for corvettes, frigates and selected civilian ships.

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Advanced Cloaking Field Generators unlock cloaking for destroyers.

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Elite Cloaking Field Generators unlock cloaking for cruisers.

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Dark Matter Cloaking Field Generators unlock cloaking for battleships and titans.

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Psi-Phase Field Generators unlock cloaking for battleships and titans and offer the best cloaking strength in the game.

While cloaked, ships and fleets can ignore closed borders and can’t be detected by normal sensors. This can be useful for a variety of reasons such as having science ships explore and survey systems that might otherwise be blocked off, research anomalies or special projects inside the borders of your rivals or getting a well armed fleet situated to ambush an enemy starbase upon war declaration. Cloaked science ships will also have another trick up their sleeves, being able to perform covert reconnaissance on colonized planets to gather Intel on other empires and increasing the speed at which this Intel is gained. Finally, cloaked fleets and observation posts can’t be seen by pre-FTL civilizations, so using them will minimize your chances of accidentally increasing their Awareness.

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Performing reconnaissance on an enemy can provide a great deal of Intelligence.

Due to the power draw and manipulation of particle fields, cloaking imposes penalties on the shields of ships while cloaked, depending on the type of cloaking device equipped:
  • Ships equipped with a Basic, Advanced or Elite Cloaking Field Generator suffer from 100% Shield Nullification while cloaked.
  • Ships equipped with a Dark Matter Cloaking Field Generator have a reduced penalty of 50% Shield Nullification.
  • Ships equipped with a Psi-Phase Field Generator and any regular shields will suffer from 100% Shield Nullification while cloaked.
  • Ships equipped with a Psi-Phase Field Generator and psionic shields or barriers will not suffer from any Shield Nullification while cloaked.
It’s important to note here that as of 3.7 “Canis Minor”, both Shield Nullification and Armor Nullification have had a slight change. Previously, if a fleet suffered from 100% Shield Nullification (such as being in a pulsar system) and then the nullification was removed (say by leaving the system), their shields would instantly jump back up to full strength. This has been changed so that the fleet has to restore shields back to full capacity via their shield regeneration.

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Spreadsheets are an important part of our design workflow!

The cloaking strength of a fleet is determined by the ship in that fleet with the lowest possible cloaking strength. Thus, in order to be able to cloak, all ships in the fleet must be capable of cloaking. How well a fleet can cloak is described by the stability of the cloaking field of a fleet and can range from Non-Existent to Exceptional depending on the cloaking strength of the fleet.

This stability (or cloaking strength) factors into both how easily a starbase can detect or reveal the cloaked fleet (more on this later) and what penalties (if any) the fleet may suffer from.

It’s worth keeping in mind that, as the cloaking strength of a fleet is determined by the ship with the lowest cloaking strength in the fleet, a fleet of mixed battleships and corvettes will have a lower cloaking strength (and be more easily detected) than a fleet solely comprised of corvettes.

The highest level of cloaking strength and the corresponding cloaking field stability obtainable purely by ship components is 5 (Very High). In order to reach strength 6 or greater and thus the various grades of Exceptional stability, your fleets will require additional sources of cloaking strength, such as finishing Subterfuge traditions or hiding in a nebula.

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Cloaking Strength levels and penalties

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A UNE science ship makes use of a nebula to boost their cloaking strength.

In order to be detected or revealed a fleet needs to be within sensor range of an enemy starbase with a Detection Strength equal to or greater than the Cloaking Strength of the fleet. Detection Strength is normally gained by building Detection Array modules on a starbase, though certain rare technologies can unlock buildings or orders for science ships to further increase this.

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Oh, and we rearranged the starbase UI to list various previously hidden modifiers.

When a fleet is detected by a starbase, it is either detected or forced to decloak depending on these conditions.
  • If the cloaked fleet is outside of your borders, you’ll be able to see it, with the cloaking visuals, but it won’t be decloaked.
  • If the cloaked fleet is inside of your borders, it will be forced to decloak.

If a cloaked fleet is inside another empire’s borders (and thus is not detected) when you declare war, it will not be forced to go MIA like normal.

Now to hand over to @PDS_Iggy to discuss the new civics!

For this story pack we were always on the lookout for flavorful and fun civics we could add to further explore the themes of First Contact. It was thanks to a helpful comment from one of our betas that Alfray and I started to investigate a generic Low-Tech civic. The aim was to add a civic that could be used in combination with other existing origins to get a pre-FTL feel.

After brainstorming and fusing ideas we came up with a low tech civic in which you start with reduced resources and a very limited jumpdrive.

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Reaching for the stars, no matter what.

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What is out there?

Exploration Vessels are early science ships and Engineering Vessels are simple construction ships.

Alfray and I also wanted to challenge ourselves since civics are often just identical for all government types, so we made a unique one for each government style. In the end we implemented multiple civics that should be able to facilitate many fantasies and builds.

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The Stargazers starting info as well as the Jump Range

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Look at them go!

And before you ask, you can put these jump drives on your other ships. It's even something you will have to you will have to do if you want to get our new achievement:

The Path Not Taken - Have 10 colonies without ever discovering Hyperdrives.

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Déjà vu!

Finally, I'll leave you with an in-game gif of the MSI flagship activating its cloaking field.

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Since espionage and counterespionage is becoming more important due to the emergence of cloaking and new pre-ftl interactions, thusly making the subterfuge tradition tree more relevant, have you considered adding a subterfuge-equivalent ascension perk?

The Unyielding tradition tree has a sort of equivalent in the form of the Eternal Vigilance perk.

The Expansion tradition tree has a sort of equivalent in the form of the Imperial Prerogative perk.

There are other arguable tree-perk equivalencies, though those are some of the most obvious.

Do you think we're gonna get an espionage/cloaking strength ascension perk?

Alternatively and to counter that, do you think that the already existing Enigmatic Engineering ascension perk could provide some bonuses to detection strength/decloaking, just like how it already provides more Encryption strength? This could also make it into a somewhat more competitive perk, both offline (since I assume the AI does use cloaking) and in multiplayer games.
 
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One thought. If a hostile empire starts to fire onto ur cloaked ships upon detection, what prevents the player from abusing this? For example u have a fleet in raiding stance and move that at peacetime into another empires territory. Now u wait/cause them to discover and shoot at you. This then allows ur big fleet to shoot down the hostile empires and raid/rob their pops their planet during peacetime?

Also will we now get swarmed by cloaked science vessels and construction ships sent by the ai to colonize our backyard?

Will a high intel lower the chances for our cloaked fleets to get detected and a high intel of the enemy about us cause the opposit? Can the intel gain from reconaissance be stacked by sending multiple science ships to different planets of the same empire?
Will the chances to get detected rise the longer ur cloaked ships stay in another empires territory? Are the chances for detection higher if u enter the capital system of another empire. It would make sense as thats the one spot an empire should know every nuc and granny of.
So many questions...
 
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If only empires with thise new civics would get a different influence cost calculation for starbases. Then you could have 1.0 jump drive empires that did not expand uniformly.
 
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Can you share what tech draw requirements / weighting is for cloaking?

IE, is it very rare if you don't have primitives, does it get a guaranteed research option from event if you study primitives, etc?


Additionally, will starbase listening post extend the cloak-detection range beyond the system?
 
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Absolutely love this. I've been asking for a low-tech start for a long time (I liked the humble beginnings of the early versions of the game) and this DLC provides several different options for it! Combining the Eager Explorers civic or its variations with one of the new uplifted Origins should make for an awesome underdog challenge.

Cloaking also seems to be done pretty much how it should be, however I hope there is a "decloak" button on the cloaked fleets, so that we can put shields on them and switch between cloaking and shields.
 
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Yay that is amazing.
I love that the new cloaking system now allows me to launch sneak attacks on my enemies.
Yeah your attack fleets are near my border, but my attack fleet is orbiting your capital world. Take that,

But the best part is a step back to old times. Using warp technology and what not :)
Why do I have the feeling that the amazing guys behind New Horizons are going to love the new options available here.
 
This then allows ur big fleet to shoot down the hostile empires and raid/rob their pops their planet during peacetime?
Unlikely in peacetime: now only hostile planets can be attacked. For get hostile planet you should declare war...

But in war: robbing population of planet like Drukhari! Please, yes!
 
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Can cloaked fleets bombard without being decloaked? I assume not, but it would be amazing.

I would love to do a nihilistic acquisition stealth raid fleet.
 
From what i understand cloaking just makes your fleets weaker (depending on cloak level) + opportunity cost of components added.

It only 'weaker' if you care about shields. Which with a free opener+specialization you don't. Otherwise cloak just hurts your speed, which only really matters on defense or if you are attacking while unprepared.
While fleets could be extremely strong battleship-crackers (if built that way), they would be at a disadvantage against other similar fleets without cloaking.
I doubt the devs went so far and made cloaked fleets quasi-invulnerable and then not mention it here with even a single sentence.

No, I think the devs failed to actually consider how combat actually functions in context. It's the same reason why everything the Frigate does, the Cruiser does better. Right down to survivability. No one is building Frigates for anything other than RP value, cause mechanically they suck.

I personally like the strategic benefit we get.
That isn't strategy, that is tactics.
This might actually help reduce doom stacking, because the small, hit-and-run cloaked fleets would not be as versatile as normal fleet compositions.
"Versatility" in combat is bad for the same reason that mixing resources on planets is bad. Efficiency is king. There is nothing in this that remotely hints at touching doomstacking or that 'hit and run' is going to be at all feasible. It definitely won't from the AI. And PVP is largely decided in the first 50 years anyway.
You might still be in need of a main defense force, but would gain massively from a fleet behind enemy lines whose movements can't be seen - even if they'd lose in any major fight - they wouldn't get in one unless you initiate.

For what? The only time that is actually useful is if you are in Total War, and are flipping territory, or, it's a stupid AI who doesn't understand how to press a wargoal. While yes, you can no longer send construction ships to run enemy fleets in circles they will run home to take back that 4 mineral system even though it doesn't actually help them with anything. Players aren't going to care because it doesn't actually do anything. Only the wargoals matter.
 
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You appreciate my point, right?
You're criticizing a gameplay change when all the exposure you've had is around an hour to a forum post.
I predicted almost all of this over a week ago. The only thing we didn't have were the stages on cloaking for hulls. Which is why I couched Destroyers vs Battleships. Piercing weapons will be the weapon de jour though. Missiles are dead with these changes.
 
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Absolutely love this. I've been asking for a low-tech start for a long time (I liked the humble beginnings of the early versions of the game) and this DLC provides several different options for it! Combining the Eager Explorers civic or its variations with one of the new uplifted Origins should make for an awesome underdog challenge.

Cloaking also seems to be done pretty much how it should be, however I hope there is a "decloak" button on the cloaked fleets, so that we can put shields on them and switch between cloaking and shields.
I just fear that combining one of those civics (-10 pops) with something like the payback origin (-10 pops) might cause u to start with an almost empty capital.
 
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One thought. If a hostile empire starts to fire onto ur cloaked ships upon detection, what prevents the player from abusing this? For example u have a fleet in raiding stance and move that at peacetime into another empires territory. Now u wait/cause them to discover and shoot at you. This then allows ur big fleet to shoot down the hostile empires and raid/rob their pops their planet during peacetime?
I might not have been clear here, when I said hostile empires I meant empires you are at war with.
Absolutely love this. I've been asking for a low-tech start for a long time (I liked the humble beginnings of the early versions of the game) and this DLC provides several different options for it! Combining the Eager Explorers civic or its variations with one of the new uplifted Origins should make for an awesome underdog challenge.

Cloaking also seems to be done pretty much how it should be, however I hope there is a "decloak" button on the cloaked fleets, so that we can put shields on them and switch between cloaking and shields.
Indeed, if you are cloaked then you can press the same button to de-cloak.
 
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Cloacking seems good but i expected more. Since Nemesis and the spying mechanic i am wanting a hidden origin. An empire that hides in the shadows has cloacking and even their own homeworld is hidden. Kinda like the endless space's umbral choir. Apparently if we get that will be with the custodians if at all :(
 
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I might not have been clear here, when I said hostile empires I meant empires you are at war with.
I have a big question!

In fact, there are planets in the game that you can attack immediately: primitives. Can we raiding primitives on territory of another empire?
Like: declare war, take a system and broke primitives.
 
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As starbases as static defenses are pretty much useless in the current Stellaris build except in the very early phases, now they seem even less relevant beside as an instrument to force enemy ship to decloak, but to cover at least a bit of a wide empire, you'll even lose useful naval capacity.
And while I understand the logic to "give a little more fight" to the underdogs against the great powers, there is something preventing any war against the IA to become an endless whack-a-mole game to chase countless small flotillas doing guerrilla actions in your space?
 
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