Stellaris Dev Diary #289 - Hide and Seek

[Edorath]

"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"

imo, its a stupid staple, and usually makes no sense considering how difficult it acutally is to hide stuff in space, and how sensors actually work usually


hell all you need to do is get some infrared and there is nothing you can hide in space
ESPECIALLY a ship

yeah, it makes no sense for an advanced, space civilization that's at the very least a type 2 on the kardashev scale, and is capable of incredibly advanced technological feats by our standards to be able to trick an infrared sensor or any kind of tech we, a primitive empire by their standards, could possibly come up with.

true
but then again, handwave too much and the science in science fiction becomes magic, and at that point its fantasy
not to mention when it gets to the point of it actively creating misconseptions

yeah! i love hard scifi stuff in stellaris such as space dragons, space necromancers and politicians that do their jobs.

 

[Ajacoba]

That's the point, yes, though I'd say that framing it as 'speedrunning' is framing the point as a pejorative.

The framing question was 'when are you ever going to be in a situation where you need to beat +8 cloaking detection?', which itself was in the context of the nominal advantage of cloaked destroyers over cloaked cruisers. The number of situations where you need to beat +8 cloaking detection are going to be when it actually matters, not when the result is the same whether you're detected or not. The entire cloaking detection is moot if you can win regardless of being detected, or if you can cap the starbase before a reinforcing fleet come in to catch your fleet before it re-cloaks and slips away, etc.

The argument isn't that you can't use it for roleplaying. The argument is against claiming that the roleplay option is a strategic advantage. It can be simultaneously true that Destroyers are best suited at avoiding max-level detection, AND that avoiding max-level detection is utterly meaningless in a strategic competitive sense.

Some bonuses are not worth chasing after.

But wouldn't Cloaking itself qualify as a "bonus not worth chasing after"?
Pushing up your Cloaking level is even more wasteful than pushing your detection, also the moment the enemy expects you to bring cloaked ships they can just design their own ships to hard counter you - can't be that hard to tank an alpha strike and crush a fleet with no shields

 

[DeanTheDull]

But wouldn't Cloaking itself qualify as a "bonus not worth chasing after"?

Yes. Hence the arguments and concerns that cloaking will be an annoyance-tech, and not a major advantage tech.

It might have been worth chasing if the tech weighting increased it for studying primitives, so that it could be drawn early, but the two major draws for it are (a) a mid-tier ascension perk, and (b) a bottom-tier tradition. Otherwise, as described it's a double-win mechanic for the mid-later game. The empires best able to exploit it- and most likely to draw it- are those who are already on the course of a general tech snowball.

Pushing up your Cloaking level is even more wasteful than pushing your detection,

After the initial tech level, yes. You need minimal detection outside of starbase detection range for all of the effect, since only starbases detect.

The primary argument for pushing up cloak-level is to get the better ship weapon categories for a fleet-on-fleet ambush alpha strike, and not the starbase avoidance.

also the moment the enemy expects you to bring cloaked ships they can just design their own ships to hard counter you - can't be that hard to tank an alpha strike and crush a fleet with no shields

Two different arguments apply in SP and MP.

In SP, the AI won't be hard-countering your fleets, because the AI doesn't play to that.

In MP, cloak-meta will still need to be figured, but in general you'd probably aim for bait tactics, and use a fleet whose design counters the counter-cloak fleet builds. IE, if the player goes hard into anti-armor/hull, your visibile/non-cloak fleet goes high on shields to cross-counter.

 

[Maethendias]

yeah, it makes no sense for an advanced, space civilization that's at the very least a type 2 on the kardashev scale, and is capable of incredibly advanced technological feats by our standards to be able to trick an infrared sensor or any kind of tech we, a primitive empire by their standards, could possibly come up with.


yeah! i love hard scifi stuff in stellaris such as space dragons, space necromancers and politicians that do their jobs.

be more condescending

 

[Primarch Victus]

You'll probably have to do espionage...again...wooohoo...more stuff to waste influence on....when the only great defense against getting system sniped is 'filling out your systems'...

Some people love to complain without reason...

 

[Lenk]

Gotta say after relooking at the post for the new Primitivize ships, it kind of makes me wish for a primitive style shipset down the road as that could add more of a visiual distinction. Also for the colony ship, why didn't you guys just reuse the colony ship from the galactic nomads (one that is never seen if someone has Megacorp) that was already in the game instead of just making the colony ship tiny? I think it would fit the style going with these.

 

[Primarch Victus]

I agree 100% with you, Lenk. Luckily, we now have a shipset mod based in the Earth Alliance from the Babylon 5 TV show.

 

[malakhglitch]

I prefer this ship set if we're talking more "primitive" types

 

[lilsaihah]

This doesn't answer the question of how often/when will you actually need to beat +8 detector, because by the time someone can get +8 detector- the dark matter tech era- they could also have taken any number of game-winning setups to have already won... and even if they don't, +8 detector doesn't mean anything if you can conquer the detector before the enemy fleet can engage, because the darkmatter era is also the era where starbases melt. If you are anywhere near parity with the AI, by the time they have detectors you can have jump drives, and just jump in and wipe the detector starbase, rendering it's role obsolete..

The breakpoint will come up against people with Star Fortresses with the Insight tech, which will probably happen earlier than Jump Drives.
The other breakpoints are +2, +4, +5, and +6. T3 cloaking will probably be a T4 tech and you'll need to have +6 on top of the T3 cloaking to be able to exceed the +6 detection breakpoint with a Cruiser. From my understanding of the Cloaking Strength levels, that's impossible without having one of the special Fear of the Dark admirals or a nebula. You have to use Frigates otherwise.
The logic I'm using isn't exclusive to the +8 breakpoint. At every point in the chain of Cloaking, pushing your ship size up will make you struggle against players with tech parity, unless something happens like early Psionic Cloaking.

If you're just wondering about sniping peoples' detectors; the detectors' main job is to prevent you from violating their closed borders before you have even started the war. Jump Drives and Quantum Catapults do the same job as Cloaking in this circumstance as they'll let you leapfrog the front-line citadels. The other thing that these ships will do is alpha strike more effectively, to which the best counter is just going to be Afterburner ships, the detectors are just gravy.

If you're wondering "why should I bother doing this when I can just macro them to death" well yeah, that's the best plan. If your problems are so easy to solve your strategy is just "i win" then... Just do that lol.

Yes. Hence the arguments and concerns that cloaking will be an annoyance-tech, and not a major advantage tech.

It's almost exclusively a timing push tech, exactly the same as a Dark Templar or Banshee timing push in SC2, or the Cruiser timing push in Stellaris.
You kill them before they know you have DTs or Banshees and can put up detectors.
Anybody laboring under the delusion that cloaking will be the new god tech of war is silly.

 

[DeanTheDull]

The logic I'm using isn't exclusive to the +8 breakpoint. At every point in the chain of Cloaking, pushing your ship size up will make you struggle against players with tech parity, unless something happens like early Psionic Cloaking.

Except this context of tech parity isn't going to happen in a meaningful sense.

You won't be struggling against players with tech parity by the Dark Matter age, because it's after the point that player conflicts after your early-game exploration/truce phase have already resolved themselves. The players who dominate the early-game struggle for pops, either directly (conquest) or indirectly (vassals), will tech at different rates than those who don't, and those tech differentials by the dark matter age render the cloaking differential irrelevant.

If you're wondering "why should I bother doing this when I can just macro them to death" well yeah, that's the best plan. If your problems are so easy to solve your strategy is just "i win" then... Just do that lol.

This is, again, the point. Cloaking as a mechanic isn't an alternative to dominant strategies, or an underdog mechanic, and cloaking-detection's relevance is diluted as a result.

It's almost exclusively a timing push tech, exactly the same as a Dark Templar or Banshee timing push in SC2, or the Cruiser timing push in Stellaris.
You kill them before they know you have DTs or Banshees and can put up detectors.
Anybody laboring under the delusion that cloaking will be the new god tech of war is silly.

This is why the argument that +8 cloaking is a relative power difference is also silly- it's not a credible scenario for relevant competition, just an edge case factoid.

 

[Primarch Victus]

I prefer this ship set if we're talking more "primitive" types

This one is too ugly and the ships and stations look too delicate.

 

[Soranya]

"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"

imo, its a stupid staple, and usually makes no sense considering how difficult it acutally is to hide stuff in space, and how sensors actually work usually


hell all you need to do is get some infrared and there is nothing you can hide in space
ESPECIALLY a ship

You Sir have no idea what you ar talking about.
Especially in Space

 

[Mcgan]

Eh, here's the entire script for the first tech.

Spoiler: Basic Cloaking

tech_cloaking_1 = {
    cost = @tier2cost3
    area = physics
    tier = 2
    category = { field_manipulation }
    ai_update_type = all
    is_rare = yes
    prerequisites = { "tech_shields_2" }
    weight = @tier2weight3

    potential = {
        has_first_contact_dlc = yes
    }

    # Unlocks Active Reconnaissance
    feature_flags = {
        active_reconnaissance_unlocked
    }

    prereqfor_desc = {
        hide_prereq_for_desc = component
        custom = {
            title = "TECH_UNLOCK_CLOAKING_1_TITLE"
            desc = "TECH_UNLOCK_CLOAKING_1_DESC"
        }
    }

    weight_modifier = {
        modifier = {
            factor = value:tech_weight_likelihood
            OR = {
                research_leader = {
                    area = physics
                    has_trait = "leader_trait_expertise_field_manipulation"
                }
                research_leader = {
                    area = physics
                    has_trait = "leader_trait_curator"
                }
                research_leader = {
                    area = physics
                    has_trait = "leader_trait_fotd_scientist"
                }
            }
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = @ap_technological_ascendancy_rare_tech
            has_ascension_perk = ap_technological_ascendancy
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = @federation_perk_factor
            has_federation = yes
            federation = {
                has_federation_perk = rare_tech_boost
                any_member = { has_technology = tech_cloaking_1 }
            }
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = 5
            has_tradition = tr_subterfuge_adopt
        }
    }

    ai_weight = {
        modifier = {
            factor = 1.25
            research_leader = {
                area = physics
                has_trait = "leader_trait_expertise_field_manipulation"
            }
        }
    }
}

By the way, there is something I've been wondering for a while: is there any reason I'm missing to use research_leader several times within a single modifier like this:

Spoiler: Basic Cloaking Snip

modifier = {
    factor = value:tech_weight_likelihood
    OR = {
        research_leader = {
            area = physics
            has_trait = "leader_trait_expertise_field_manipulation"
        }
        research_leader = {
            area = physics
            has_trait = "leader_trait_curator"
        }
        research_leader = {
            area = physics
            has_trait = "leader_trait_fotd_scientist"
        }
    }
}

Instead of regrouping them like that:

modifier = {
    factor = value:tech_weight_likelihood
    research_leader = {
        area = physics
        OR = {
            has_trait = leader_trait_expertise_field_manipulation
            has_trait = leader_trait_curator
            has_trait = leader_trait_fotd_scientist
        }
    }
}

I mean, I'm wondering if there's any problem with it that I'm not aware of, since I don't remember seeing it even once? Does it not work?

 

[SurrealGoblin]

Forgive me if this was already asked, but if you take one of the new pre-ftl civics alongside a hegemon or common ground origin, will your buds also have a pre-ftl civic?

 

[Ajacoba]

Forgive me if this was already asked, but if you take one of the new pre-ftl civics alongside a hegemon or common ground origin, will your buds also have a pre-ftl civic?

definitely not, they said the civics are way too complicated for AI and if you were to force spawn them they won't expand beyond the home system until they unlock regular FTL-drives

 

[Varren]

Which makes for a hilarious Hegemon start. Presumably your people are very good at bluffing.

 

[TranscendentalDragon]

Which makes for a hilarious Hegemon start. Presumably your people are very good at bluffing.

wouldn't you immediately lose the hegemon title, seeing as you're significantly less powerful?

 

[SurrealGoblin]

definitely not, they said the civics are way too complicated for AI and if you were to force spawn them they won't expand beyond the home system until they unlock regular FTL-drives

Thank you! I felt like I had a reason to think not when I read it, but didn’t see anything about origins glancing through it this morning.

 

[malakhglitch]

This one is too ugly and the ships and stations look too delicate.

But that's the whole point! It's primitive. The Interstellar Vehicle Venture Star from James Cameron's Avatar is a good example.

 

[Primarch Victus]

Warships need to look tough to pass the message that messing with that ship is a bad idea. But the ships of that shipset utterly and completely failed to deliver the message.