So no opinion at all on that aspect ? I think stealthy info gathering and abush are neat possibility.

(sorry for the bumb)

I think it would be interesting for there to be a stealth mechanic revolving around containing a ships heat for a limited amount of time to accomplish stealth (Mass Effect style.) I could see it working like this; a ship with stealth technology would normally not be cloaked, but could be activated for a limited amount of turns until the ship is forces to uncloak, with the amount of turns being determined by the size of the ship and how advanced the stealth technology is.

Well, how about a submarine equivalent? We've got capital ships and aircraft, why not fast stealth ships with their own class?

I came up with an idea for a piracy focused faction which uses stealth and ship boarding to take on enemies. I'll post how it works here in a bit.

I like the stealth / detection idea but it needs to be properly balanced.
Fleets popping out of nowhere and killing you planets before you can respond and then disappearing would be a huge problem. 

As I understand that is when the detection mechanics kicks in to prevent that overkill.

This would be specially nice for pirate attack within your empire (so your military power will be put to use without a war).

And also privaters / unmarked forces that you control that could be use to attack empires you are not at war with.

For that I would put it a mechanic that would allow you to narrow down who the attacker was (based on technology used in the ships and analyze of salvage).

About the submarine equivalent, I don't think it's a good analogy. After all ships are basically subspace ships all considered. It's more a question of making ships low observable or not.

And I don't envision a fully anonymous attack element. (though it could be interesting) , more a initiative thing. The side with stealthier fleets can enjoy : not being attacked first, not being attacked at all or simply a bonus versus some weapons. The whole thing can be mitigated by fleet size (the smaller the less detectable) and modules (that both consume tech and module slot thus making a stealthy fleet consistently less powerful than an equivalent vanilla fleet).

The system is meant to add another axis in the spear vs shield faceoff but also to mitigate the control one has over "nodes". If smallish fleet can realisticaly avoid interception, at least in remote area, one can fight a "insurgency "style (at interstellar scale though) or sort, or simply peeking and moving more freely. 

Of course it can be delicate because we don't want to have the whole "mini ai fleet pestering us all aournd " syndrome. Though is smaller fleets can't easily blockade/annoy you it's mitigated somehow.

To summarize what could be the thing allowing a fleet to stay "stealthy"

+ : small fleet size

+ : stelath related modules

+ : some specific strategic resources ?

* : heroe skills

- : large fleet size

- detector modules

- system enhancement

- system size (the bigger busies systems are more scanned)

- time spent "under the radar" (detection is made each turn)

About the submarine equivalent, I don't think it's a good analogy. After all ships are basically subspace ships all considered. It's more a question of making ships low observable or not.

And I don't envision a fully anonymous attack element. (though it could be interesting) , more a initiative thing. The side with stealthier fleets can enjoy : not being attacked first, not being attacked at all or simply a bonus versus some weapons. The whole thing can be mitigated by fleet size (the smaller the less detectable) and modules (that both consume tech and module slot thus making a stealthy fleet consistently less powerful than an equivalent vanilla fleet).

The system is meant to add another axis in the spear vs shield faceoff but also to mitigate the control one has over "nodes". If smallish fleet can realisticaly avoid interception, at least in remote area, one can fight a "insurgency "style (at interstellar scale though) or sort, or simply peeking and moving more freely. 

Of course it can be delicate because we don't want to have the whole "mini ai fleet pestering us all aournd " syndrome. Though is smaller fleets can't easily blockade/annoy you it's mitigated somehow.

To summarize what could be the thing allowing a fleet to stay "stealthy"

+ : small fleet size

+ : stelath related modules

+ : some specific strategic resources ?

* : heroe skills

+ : specific empire doctrines

- : large fleet size

- detector modules

- system enhancement

- system size (the bigger busies systems are more scanned)

- time spent "under the radar" (detection is made each turn)

- specific empire doctrines .

I agree that stealth and detection provide a lot of opportunities for interesting gameplay. Tying it to modules as you suggest would also create an opportunity cost to being stealthy. But it would still need to be very carefully balanced.

"Hidden nationality" abilities would also be great. There is a chance this role may be filled through minor factions and the marketplace, though.

However, I think I'd prefer if they did not implement stealth mechanics until they also implement an espionage system, so the two feature can receive some interaction.

I imagine Amplitude are planning to implement it at some point in a DLC, similar to the 'Shadwos' expansion in EL. Albeit hopefully a bit more fleshed out.

I am going to be a bit of a pessimist on this one. While some degree of information control would be excellent, stealth itself, with actual hiding of units or the like, would be horrible IMO. While it's a common quote that "space is big", it should also be noted that space has two other properties that are particularly relevant to stealth gameplay. One is that space is cold, in fact compared to any organism, computer, or biosphere, it's ridiculously cold. The second is that, as a vacuum, in space the speed of light, and movement of radiation, is terrifically useful.

Since space is cold, true stealth in space is essentially impossible. As mentioned above, the Mass Effect method of internalizing heat is certainly doable, but would have to apply to more than heat. In order for the Normandy to receive signals, it would have to be physically susceptible to radio waves, or some other form of radiation, just radio is the most common. If the Normandy reflects radio waves, it is detectable as it causes a 'ping' of the hit off its body, and if it absorbs radio waves then the area in which the waves were absorbed could conceivably be detected as well. This would apply to any and ALL forms of radiation, whether natural to space or not. For the Normandy to 'see' outside itself, it would have to rely on something, the most likely suspects being lidar (light-wave based mapping where light-waves hit a target and reflect or are absorbed, similar to the radio wave example, and whose differences are noted by instruments on the ship), or again radio waves. Any radiation it sent out to see would also be detectable. As you can see, any kind of attempt to actually hide the Normandy would result in a deaf and dumb ship, as likely to blunder around into something as to make it to its destination.  

-- As a note, I wouldn't be opposed to heroes having such 'true stealth' abilities, with descriptions of liberal use of dust-based technology or similar, but as the dust would very likely have to be directly manipulated to generate these kinds of stealth, I'd feel it would make more sense relegated to heroes. Also, while I wouldn't be opposed on a mechanics standpoint, as it would fit the science-fantasy feel, I'd prefer a smart info war style of information manipulation, so I still wouldn't be too happy with this compromise.

This is where the second issue comes in, and where information control systems can start to edge in over what we would call or envision as stealth. In space your main sensor capabilities are restricted to a few conditions, the most restrictive I'd say is the speed of light (with the second most restrictive just being the sensitivity of your technology, which would affect detection in degrees). Since light waves, radio, even gamma radiation, or some kind of exotic radiation (invented or otherwise), are restricted to the speed of light, you can only see so far in space to an immediately useful degree. This sight restriction is affected by how large space really is. If something is a few light minutes away, let's go with three, you'll have to wait six minutes to detect them using active sensors (where you sent out radiation to find objects), and three minutes to detect them on passive sensors (which would have lower resolutions, and provide you with less useful information, and as a side-note are the only sensors a Normandy style system could attempt to use and remain undetected without handwaving science). Now, we know in the Endless universe that faster-than-light travel exists, but is restricted to strings for the early game when it comes to warping at least. I can't say I'm an expert on the tech tree, so I'll leave it for a knowledgable commentator to tell me if the lore has revealed that ships in-system can travel faster than light. Sensors would mostly be restricted to light-speed, without using faster-than-light probes on two-way trips at least, but I'll leave it up in the air whether the FTL translation of whatever sorts can be detected at those same rates (like if a ship coming off a string can be detected from anywhere in the system immediately, due to some kind of FTL burst eddy, or subspace radiation it gives off). 

Now regular light-speed sensors sound boring, even dangerous if the FTL travel can't be detected using any other means (since it could mean a ship you see now might be somewhere completely unpredictable given an FTL jump), but I would argue that they provide all the restriction needed for a lot of fun to be had. Given their limits, firing at a ship means firing where you have calculated it will be by the time your weapons can make it, which you have to base on your sensor measurements. At the same time, reliance on sensor data, and the 'slow' speed, comparatively, at which it arrives means that a lot of tactics can exist that are highly interesting, all based around controlling the information your enemies have available. In a 4x game, where information is provided to the player, but doesn't have to be done universally, at all times, in particular this kind of gameplay has a lot of potential above and beyond the simplicity of a cloaking device (here I'm thinking Forgotten stealth). Probes or missile equipments that make fleets appear to have more ships (as they exhibit the thermal signatures of full ships, and are physically behind actual ships), flying multiple ships so close together they appear to be one larger ship, equipping a ship with modules that make it appear to be a larger class, or have more/better weapons. These are just some of the most straightforward ways we as players could be given tools to manipulate the information others have on the battlefield in space. 

So I'd suggest using space, and science fiction/fantasy ideas to their maximum, and avoiding something as mundane as literal physical stealth, hiding, cloaking, etc. . . Give us tools to manipulate the information other players can see, what they perceive as fact or fiction, with a focus on being militarily deceptive. In fact, such a system would not have to be limited to space, but could be used to also make actions taken on planets, buildings that exist there, perhaps entire colonies (although not outposts, I'm thinking specific colonized planets in a system, rather than an entire system under-colonization), similarly throw out false information and either seem smaller/larger, populated by different peoples perhaps, or even to be something altogether different. While I do like the idea of using a limited stealth as Uriak mentioned could be used to generate insurgency possibilities, or limit engagements in certain ways, I'd prefer more thorough info control to exist, of which such a system could be a part. 

While this kind of information control system could exist without any form of true espionage, I do feel it would work to a greater effect with spying acting as a method to break through or detect problems in information, although limiting that kind of countermeasure to espionage would be as much of a mistake. I'd say probably there should be an assortment of technologies, or perhaps even hero abilities and other measures, which could be taken to clarify information, like advanced sensor arrays, sensor probes (in fact that in particular could co-exist with the disguise/falsifying probes technologies), and similar.

samsonazs wrote:

I like the stealth / detection idea but it needs to be properly balanced.
Fleets popping out of nowhere and killing you planets before you can respond and then disappearing would be a huge problem. 

That was the entire gameplay style of a major Endless Legend faction, so I don't think it would be too far off base.

I like the heat containment idea, but it should probably be kept relatively simple. I think it might be interesting to have stealth modules that you can attach to ships that can let them avoid detection on the overworld map for a limited number of turns. They could be recharged either by docking at a friendly system or by spending Dust.

We could also have:

Making weapon x seem like weapon y (probably mainly used to make stronger weapons look like weaker ones/fewer, since that would be a more natural extension of a teching system: kind of tough to pretend you have weapons tech from an era that's not even unlocked).

Possibly as part of faction vagueness, using a minor faction's ships could let you make a fleet seem like NPCs (probably better as a later inclusion, or related to mercenary mechanics)

Related to fleet size: generating an appearance of fleets with specialized probes and one or two ships, where the entire fleet minus a support vessel or two is made up out of whole cloth.

I also think we could combine concepts, taking the idea of keeping a fleet stealthed in such a way that it has more control over engagement, initiative, etc, with the way the hyperlanes will be treated. In so much as it would make sense for the default to be hyperlane travel is 'loud' and visible (even if not with specific fleet compositions), which could evolve to technology allowing it to be 'quiet', but possibly slower as a result, although I'd be fine with speed being equivalent since it would be a later technology, and have countermeasures.

I'd agree that kinds of sabotage, or even planetary infowar, be something more abstract. I do try to keep the fact that turns are like 1-5 years (damn you galactic scale) in mind, but it's tough sometimes to wrap that into the abstraction that is battles, which take place once a turn. In fact, battles are the most problematic part of the turn structure, simply because a real war waged on that kind of scale, with various FTL technologies, could conceivably be resolved in a year with overwhelming force and many battles constantly pushing inward on a weaker faction.

I'm going to run with one of your other points Uriak. I completely forgot to take targeting solutions and computers into account for why physical projectiles fall off over long range, and had for the last few days been considering claiming that lasers/DEW, be the longest range weapon, but they have the same problem. Missiles on the other hand can have their own targeting computers, and even receive more targeting data from their motherships, conceivably even at FTL speeds with the right technology (which would make a good targeting/aiming superiority technology). I'm going to stick with missiles as the longest range weapons now making concrete sense, even if the ranges for such would be quite extended.

Yeah the reasonning behind missiles working at long range in ES1 was sound. Their efficiency being weakened at close range was not, and entirely gameplay dependant. 

We don't know yet how much info you can obtain on opponent fleets. Like can you see their ship designs in details ? If yes, then there could be deceit indeed. 

That's true. I just assumed most information from ES1 would be in, but it's possible they'd be willing to give players less for a more vibrant deception background.