Hey kids, a year later, and a buck short, but . . .what are our current "stealth" ships? Still Sabre, Ex, Eclipse, Prowler? I'm trying to compile a definitive list for fleet building purposes.
Best Stealth Transport
- Thread starter Shadow Reaper
- Start date
If anyone still wants to know, I have a Taurus... I'd be happy to jump into the game and see what its current capacity is - the shielded cargo bay moved to the tail end where the Snub Dock is in the other versions of the ship.
The T is slow. It also has 4x pilot controlled S5 mounts with S4 gimbals. Back in the day when i could get all of th e gimbals to come off (two don't last time i tried) a 4x S5 setup one-shot Hornets. I think the poor speed is to balance the potential punch it has.
Anyone know what the 400i is like stealth-wise in comparison?
The T is slow. It also has 4x pilot controlled S5 mounts with S4 gimbals. Back in the day when i could get all of th e gimbals to come off (two don't last time i tried) a 4x S5 setup one-shot Hornets. I think the poor speed is to balance the potential punch it has.
Anyone know what the 400i is like stealth-wise in comparison?
Richard Bong
Space Marshal
Stealth isn't currently a thing in the PU.
AFAIK the list includes Sabre, Razorback EX, Eclipse, Prowler, Hornet Ghost, Sabre Raven, Vanguard Sentinel (still makes no sense to me) and the Talon/Shrike.
Other ships can be made stealthy but aren't designated as "stealth."
At present, the best stealth transport is the 400i. Much has changed since this thread prior to 3.14, and ships like the MSR, Connie, etc. had their EM sigs boosted so high they'll never function as stealth ships. The 400i however has a tiny sig.
Ok, so there aren't any new additions to the "stealth ship" category. Awesome. Thank you.
Yeah, I imagine that all the "non-stealth" stealth ships will go through an entire gamut of changes, checks and balances, etc, before things are settled. In this context, I'm specifically looking for ships that are designed to be stealth.
The regular old non-stealth ships I'll play around with stealthing as I get into the game.
A topic still near and dear to my cold, dark, low-signature heart..
Before all the components were homogenized by Yogi's team in their impossible quest to achieve some semblance of balance in combat, "stealth" had meaning. It was an actual gameplay style with tradeoffs against military, industrial, civilian and competition components.
Today, it is a meaningless term, other than @Shadow Reaper 's occasional posts about flying around with most of your components turned off. That's a fine way to travel, especially for traders who want to not be noticed, no matter what their cargo. But I don't consider that by itself "Stealth Gameplay".
Previously, with a high level of focus I could finish several different kinds of missions with no one knowing I had ever been there; the Sabre Raven became my money-maker for many patches. The margins to make that kind of play were thin.. a few hundred meters at best, and you better NOT let the guns get too hot or get impatient. It was skill and attention based gameplay as promised.
Yogi has stated that once they are happy with the base level combat, variations in ALL the components will be re-introduced to the game. Personally, I don't think we will see anything resembling what we had until physicalized damage and components make there way into the PU as proper armor is intended to play a role here (see: Terriblepin).
Weapon ranges played a huge part in this as well; if they are not adjusted to allow even small margins then all of this talk will become nothing more than reminiscing.
Before all the components were homogenized by Yogi's team in their impossible quest to achieve some semblance of balance in combat, "stealth" had meaning. It was an actual gameplay style with tradeoffs against military, industrial, civilian and competition components.
Today, it is a meaningless term, other than @Shadow Reaper 's occasional posts about flying around with most of your components turned off. That's a fine way to travel, especially for traders who want to not be noticed, no matter what their cargo. But I don't consider that by itself "Stealth Gameplay".
Previously, with a high level of focus I could finish several different kinds of missions with no one knowing I had ever been there; the Sabre Raven became my money-maker for many patches. The margins to make that kind of play were thin.. a few hundred meters at best, and you better NOT let the guns get too hot or get impatient. It was skill and attention based gameplay as promised.
Yogi has stated that once they are happy with the base level combat, variations in ALL the components will be re-introduced to the game. Personally, I don't think we will see anything resembling what we had until physicalized damage and components make there way into the PU as proper armor is intended to play a role here (see: Terriblepin).
Weapon ranges played a huge part in this as well; if they are not adjusted to allow even small margins then all of this talk will become nothing more than reminiscing.
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Even full stealth ships like the Eclipse will benefit greatly by turning off their shields and weapons but larger ships have other concerns. As mentioned previously, there are no S3 stealth components. If you want to sneak you're stuck with ships using S1 and S2 reactors and coolers. The 400i is rare in that though it sports an S3 shield, it has 3 S2 reactors and 3 S2 coolers. The outcome is you can place a couple Eclipse reactors and leave the third shut down until you've been made, and then flipping on a Genoa will more than double your available power. Stealth coolers lower your lowest IR sig very slightly, but Industrial A Snowpacks will make you shed heat so quickly that dropping back into stealth after an engine burn is a real option. It's worth noting, ships like the Connies, Vanguards and MSR cannot come close to matching the low sigs you can get in the 400i. The combination of low sig and S2 scan makes it useful for sneaking.
Many players would want to point out that the Lancer Max can get some great low sigs and it hauls more than the 400i. However, it is good to note that since it only has a single reactor, it can't mount a stealth reactor and have enough power for all its components. So whether you count ships that can go battle stations or those that cannot would determine what you think of the Lancers as stealth transports.
From what I understand of CIG's intentions in these designs, one thing is clear. They fully expected players to use the ping of active radar much more than we choose to. So the EM absorbing skin on ships like the Mustang , Sabre, Eclipse and Sentinel don't matter nearly so much as they intended. I do expect that all Vanduul cap ships will be pinging regularly, and players should plan for this.
Is this all we're hoping for in game? I certainly hope not but it is not true stealth is not working. Some players use it every day. Many players tell themselves that stealth is not in game because they choose hotter components, but we all don't know what we don't know. Stealthed ships could be floating past you all the time and you'd be none the wiser, unless of course you're pinging regularly and finding stuff you didn't know was there.
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You are missing my point. Turning off components reduces signatures; it is NOT bespoke stealth gameplay as we used to have. Also, turned off components drop EM; IR behaves very differently and may NEVER get down to those numbers depending on the ship's engines. And the detection algorithm will select from the highest sig, including cross section for which we have no good player facing metric.
Devil Dog Hog
Space Marshal
It would be cool if we could do some S.E.A.D. (Suppression of Enemy Air Defense) game play as a way to offset some of the drawbacks of the EM and IR sig's. Decoys, drones, and other optional tactics could make doing cargo runs (smuggling) alot more interesting.
Richard Bong
Space Marshal
That is the job of the wild weasel. Be seen so the Iron Hand component can hit the sensors of the air defense systems in the area. (Which is why a stealth Sentinel makes no sense to me.)
Well no, ship cross section does not matter unless your opponent pings.
Stealth was not disabled. The stealth capabilities of specific ships were disabled, especially as with the Sentinel, but the Eclipse works much the same way as it always has. It has tiny signatures that are half that when you switch off the shields and guns. There should be a benefit to that, and there is. The problem I have with stealth is they intentionally screwed up the Sentinel after selling it as a stealth ship. But here's the thing: CIG feels no obligation to honor anything they have said about the ships. They are free to alter each of them in any way that serves their fancy at the moment, under the guise of "balance". There are worse nerfs than the Sentinel, which was my favorite ship and is no longer because of the stealth nerf it suffers. Anyone who owned a Sabre or a Razor and suffered through CIG simply removing a shield has a right to be pissed.
However, IMHO CIG ought to communicate better about why they make these changes. As much as I hate everything I'm mentioning here, I hate the weapons nerfs from 3.14 much, much more. They removed the ability to snipe in game with S5 weapons and above and I do not personally believe this made better gameplay. Unfortunately my love was hit by both the stealth and weapons nerfs and I can't say I'm thrilled with the end result. And of course, there is still no move to give the Sentinel any of the abilities used to sell it. They will probably never give it spike missiles (did you know that's what the Arrester III's were supposed to be?), never give it back it's stealth nor snipe abilities and never give it the ability to mimic the signatures of other ships. All they have given it is the EMP which was never part of the description, and now they've nerfed the EMP.
Yes, I totally agree... my Sentinel remains in buy backs where it will likely stay. heh, my Saber is there too, but for a different problem and I might buy it back.
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I didn't realize they hit these ships so hard. Would it be safe to assume that they plan on bringing stealth back to full implementation once they've got the ship building process fully refined?
Big positively maybe. I haven't been paying attention to it for a while now, but the Sentinel was the ship that brought me into SC in the first place so it was a hard thing to watch it get nerfed. Now to me at least, it's not really worth the money - especially since I switched to a more industry/exploration focus.
It's funny how people react to that sometimes. I still have fighters, just not so many. If you're familiar with organization of the RCAF (or the RAF) at all, more than a flight, less than a squadron.
Thank goodness TEST has Shadow Reaper keeping an eye on this or we'd all be in the dark, thanks for keeping us inforned SR!
I mean, I don't think I'll react badly. But before I judge a ship, I should at least fly the dang thing. That being said, I've divested a huge amount of my ships recently. I'm finding I only ever fly a couple. May end up ditching all of them and just buying a Jav, Idris, or Kraken. May keep my BMM, Defender, and MSR. Maybe Carrack too. I'm just not into having a bunch of shit, lol.
As for having a between a squadron and a flight of fighters, that's impressive. Kudos. But the way my mind is going right now, I can only fly one at a time. So maybe a second fighter as backup, but anything more just feels like clutter at the moment.
No shit eh? The man has his finger in the pulse, that's for sure.
I've done exactly the same - I only every fly my handful of favourite ships anyway and i've stopped putting any more real money in quite a while back. You can buy the small ships in game for a bit of grinding - so it seems silly to keep them all been melting many of my smaller ships and am going to end up with just a small fleet of mostly large (not capital) ships. BMM, Hull D, Perseus, 600i, Retaliator, Vanguard Harbinger, Terrapin are my no question stalwarts.
Any spare credits will be probably spent on buying back either one more big ship (Polaris or Nautilus?) or a few medium size industry ships, Genesis Starliner, Mole, etc.
That's just it; too many ships . . .again. Haha. I've been eyeballing the Polaris and Nautilus as well. I really like them both.
But it just seems really bulky having all these ships, and only ever using a couple. Even the MSR, which I fell in love with when it was concepted, I barely use. I may need to make time for it, haha.
Same. My MSR gone melty melt. Be ruthless mine Owl!!!! xx
Devil Dog Hog
Space Marshal
One might say it would of flown under the radar. Been an invisible issue. Sight unseen. A stealthy oversight of an almost invisible line that was unknowingly there. It could of been hard to track. . . . ok I'm out of puns, someone else take it (if you can find it, ooooooo last one I swear)