Has anyone actually made a working cloak

well, that all depend on what you define as a 'cloak'. The SoA2 Star Trek mod has an at least cosmetic cloak on the Klingon scout frig; however it's an easy thing to make a 'cloak' that allows a ship to remain undetected.

Just make a passive ability, and the buff it will call will have the following boolmodifier, AND ONLY this modifier if you want to still use this ship- 'CannotBeDamaged'. This line will make enemy ships ignore the owner of the ability. Alternately, you can make it a long-duration ability that costs AM, and has an extremely small range. This version can include some other modifiers, but generally the 'CannotBeDamaged' modifier is all you need.

It's likely possible to do a toggleable version as well. The point being with the above paragraphs, it is VERY IMPORTANT to define what you consider a 'cloak'. Something that makes enemy ships ignore your ship, that's EASY. Something that makes a ship invisible on the other hand, I'd say that's a little more complex.

However, I should say that you should check out the Homeworld Mod for Entrenchment. All three of the HW races have some kind of cloaking structure, and the Kadesh have a cloaking frigate.

yea i meant completly invisible, and i am playing around with the entity bool modifiers

thanks! I will check out the homeworld mods

It is impossible to make a complete "invisibility" cloak in sins.

It's an interesting concept, maybe not complete invisibility, but something more along the lines of adaptive camouflage.

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2006-09/first-invisibility-shield for example.

I am not a modder, but I've been a muse of sorts to modders with other games.  So forgive my ignorance.

Is it possible to set the color of a ship to be that of whatever space it's in?  So it mirrors what the environment is beyond it? I guess so, if you look at stealth or invisibility in games such as City of Heroes/Villains. But is it applicable to non-developers?

The texture of the ship model is still there, so it can be vaguely made out if you're visually scanning for it.  If you know one is out there, one can find it, but intially, a great first strike means.

An easy balance to this feature would be an implemantation that could be sold (realistically) via sonar.  This would be an excellent tactic for non-colonizable planets and otherwise "empty" space, but for the cliche planet capture battles, near useless (a sonar tech of some sort, attached to the inhibitors (much like the tachyon).  Another built in preventative to making this ship too powerful would be to apply Star Trek canon...

Plasma Storms for example, can pull the ship out of cloaking.

Sorry, just brainstorming.

Edit: it's canon, not cannon.  Sorry if you caught that.

The problem is that while you can make a ship "dissapear" on the map. Its icon you cant do a damn thing with it. You will always see the icons when zoomed out, and on the empire window. In SoA 2 we made a "compromise" cloak. The ship dissapears. you cant fire on it, nor can it fire on you, but you will always know its there. Its the best we could come up with without forcing the dev's to re-write the sins engine.

Two things. Tradeships dont show up on the empire window, wouldnt it be possible to give another ship that status. Also isnt it possible to change the icons that show up when zoomed out? Could you make your own that is very very small or invisible?

hmm, I just thought of an EVIL trick- write a ship file that HAS NO ICON data; it has build/infocard icons, but no intel/empire tree/zoom-out icons.

Trade ships icons are there, but they can be toggled off in the UI options. Now if someone found a way to auto-toggle the UI icons for cloakable ships then we would be getting somewhere.. I cant do it i am a modeler not a code monkey.

hmm, well, I doubt that anyone turns on the trade ship icons (I don't think I have mine on), so perhaps, perhaps. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think that its off by default

It is off by default.  But aren't trade ships intangible in terms of control? 

1) Could you lock the hard coding and not be selectable in terms of the icon?

2) Can you then apply it to another ship?

Perhaps cloaking ships can be used in concjuntion with trade ships, bodyguards if you will...a new tech.  Players will be less inclined to take them out with a scout or other small firgate (if) a cloaked ship following can return fire.

Or....cloak the trade ships themselves, give it to the TECs, could help offset some balance issues in MP, especially if you're a feeder.

  there are a few interesting directions to look at...

One is to look both at phaseOutHull and the boolmodifiers in the buffs that lead off from the ability.

The other is to look at ceasefire and the boolmodifiers in the buffs there as well. The phase out, will make the ship transparent, not quite the same thing, or you could micro-reduce the mesh to a hundredth using newbeorgs resize tool and then unlist the icons listed in the entity file.

With this and the ceasefire, if you change out the boolmodifiers you can effectively still move and fire and use abilities, but dont know how "fair" that is, but that will be your call as to what to leave in, and what to take out. But as part of the original call, no matter how many modifiers you leave active, the enemy ships will ignore you.

You can test it yourself. it isnt perhaps the "cloak" out of the movies, and isnt toggleable as some would like, as at least with the icons and mesh changes, those are locked as soon as you decide to do it that way. But it is a facsimile.

-Teal

there's only one problem with suggesting the PhaseOutHull bool modifier. It is a redundant modifier, as it applies the all the bool modifiers that disable abilities, engines, weapons, regeneration, and phase drives.

Im the code monkey stress Its easy to do but probably would mess the ai up

have a thought on this. if you want to appearance of cloak you can try ghosting the ships like when they are contructing you can see rigth through them you should try to do that. plus the thing that maeks enemys ignore your ship.

Yea ive already tried finding the ship constuction mesh but i just cant get a fix on the mesh/effect name in order to do that, plus even if you managed to find it you would have to make the ship mesh change from the current used mesh into the ghost form of it!

Whiskey,

                   This can be edited. You can take out the boolmodifiers you want, and leave in those you want, correcting the count of course. Try it, you will see. 

-Teal

The mesh used in the "build" view, isnt referenced in the mesh folder that im aware of, you can check, but i have looked for it there already. It is a good idea, i just haven't found a way to "find" that particular mesh yet though. In addition, the phaseOutHull ability effectively gives the same appearance.    I believe advent illums use the same effect, though finding the mesh they use i havent been able to find.

-Teal

  That is the easy part!!    When you find it, let me know, and i can show you inside the ship entity file the area that calls for the mesh.    Its not hard to change, but it wont change on the fly, like the coding for the starbases allow them to do.

-Teal

Teal-

I've actually made a working mod that makes the Antorak Marauder's Phase Out Hull ability target only itself (capital ships), and have an extremely small range&long duration. To get it to work properly as a 'cloak', the modifier that is needed is the 'CannotBeDamaged' modifier.

PhaseOut- this bool modifier is a redundant modifier in that, if it's the only one you have, a BUNCH of other modifiers (DisableLinearEngines, DisableAngularEngines, DisableWeapons, DisableRegeration, DisableAbilities, DisablePhaseJump) when used, even alone (as I stated above; also an example of the redundancy of the modifier).

The only cool thing PhaseOut does is make the ship mesh/texture look as if it's in phase space.

Very wierdly though, the passive cloaking on the Space Mines has the PhaseOut modifier, but only applies the disable engines modifiers. VERY WIERD. But something to look into; though I must say, weapons without being able to turn are generally useless, unless you have something like the Kol, which can shoot things every which way.

  Sounds like you have been looking at the files, interesting. Yes, the modifiers do different things, and its cool to compare them with other abilities. By mixing and matching what modifiers you include, deleting the others, you get some interesting results. 

Take care, let me see your modified cloak, if its okie?  I would like to see how you changed it.

-Teal

All I did was remove all the modifiers on the Antorak's Phase Out Hull ability except for 'CannotBeDamaged'. Then I upped the duration A lot, and also reduced the range A LOT.

hmm i duno if this is possible but its worth trying. Maybe if u have an ability that switches one mesh to another so basicly taking a ship that is visible and replacing it with on that is totaly or slighly transparent. I duno maybe  

Here's a perfectly working Klingon (or whatever) cloak, I'm using it with SoA2 E101.

Of course there's no graphic effect, but everything else is there

Ability can be toggled on and off.

Thanks Whiskey144 for the "CannotBeDamaged" tip.

AbilityCloakKlingon.entity

TXT
entityType "Ability"
buffInstantActionType "ApplyOrRemoveBuffToSelf"
instantActionTriggerType "AlwaysPerform"
buffType "BuffCloakKlingon"
effectInfo
    effectAttachInfo
        attachType "Center"
    smallEffectName ""
    largeEffectName ""
    soundID "Cloak2"
toggleStateOnNameStringID "IDS_ABILITY_CLOAKACTIVE_NAME"
toggleStateOnDescStringID "IDS_ABILITY_CLOAKACTIVE_DESCRIPTION"
needsToFaceTarget FALSE
canCollideWithTarget TRUE
moveThruTarget FALSE
isUltimateAbility FALSE
maxNumLevels 1
levelSourceType "FixedLevel0"
aiUseTime "OnlyInCombat"
aiUseTargetCondition "Any"
isAutoCastAvailable TRUE
isAutoCastOnByDefault FALSE
pickRandomPlanetToExploreForAutoCastTarget FALSE
ignoreNonCombatShipsForAutoCastTarget TRUE
onlyAutoCastWhenDamageTakenExceedsPerc 0.800000
useCostType "AntiMatter"
antiMatterCost
    Level:0 0.000000
    Level:1 0.000000
    Level:2 0.000000
cooldownTime
    Level:0 1.000000
    Level:1 1.000000
    Level:2 0.000000
orderAcknowledgementType "ONGENERALORDERISSUED"
researchPrerequisites
    NumResearchPrerequisites 0
nameStringID "IDS_ABILITY_CLOAK_NAME"
descStringID "IDS_ABILITY_CLOAK_DESCRIPTION"
hudIcon "HUDICON_ABILITY_PHASECLOAK"
smallHudIcon "HUDICON_ABILITY_PHASECLOAK_ACTIVE"
infoCardIcon ""

BuffCloakKlingon.entity

TXT
entityType "Buff"
onReapplyDuplicateType "PrioritizeNewBuffs"
buffStackingLimitType "ForAllPlayers"
stackingLimit 1
allowFirstSpawnerToStack FALSE
buffExclusivityForAIType "ExclusiveForAllPlayers"
isInterruptable FALSE
isChannelling FALSE
numInstantActions 1
instantAction
    buffInstantActionType "PlayPersistantAttachedEffect"
    instantActionTriggerType "OnDelay"
    delayTime 0.000000
    effectInfo
        effectAttachInfo
            attachType "Center"
        smallEffectName ""
        largeEffectName ""
        soundID ""
numPeriodicActions 0
numOverTimeActions 1
overTimeAction
    buffOverTimeActionType "DrainAntiMatter"
    drainAntiMatterRate
        Level:0 1.000000
        Level:1 1.000000
        Level:2 0.000000
numEntityModifiers 0
numEntityBoolModifiers 3
entityBoolModifier "DisableWeapons"
entityBoolModifier "CannotBeDamaged"
entityBoolModifier "DisableRegeneration"
numFinishConditions 2
finishCondition
    finishConditionType "AntiMatterDepleted"
finishCondition
    finishConditionType "OwnerChanged"

Here's the string:

StringInfo
    ID "IDS_ABILITY_CLOAK_NAME"
    Value "Cloak"
StringInfo
    ID "IDS_ABILITY_CLOAK_DESCRIPTION"
    Value "Cloaks the vessel, making it invisible to enemies. Antimatter is consumed and weapons cannot be used while cloaked."
StringInfo
    ID "IDS_ABILITY_CLOAK_CHANG_DESCRIPTION"
    Value "Prototype cloaking device, allowing to fire weapons while cloaked. Consumes antimatter."
StringInfo
    ID "IDS_ABILITY_CLOAKACTIVE_NAME"
    Value "Decloak"
StringInfo
    ID "IDS_ABILITY_CLOAKACTIVE_DESCRIPTION"
    Value "Decloaks the vessel, allowing for normal operation and combat."

(why can't I use simple UBB

The Starbases and I believe the platform defenses use more than one mesh and are used to add or change out meshes in Entrenchment, though i havent tried yet to see if any of the other ships can be modified in this way to have more than one mesh call, so that a player could "switch out" the visible mesh for the "invisible or phased out" one. Would be an interesting experiment though.

-Teal