Ship Cloaking!!! Modding Editing

The Vasari scout, the "Jikara Navigator," has an ability called Phasic Cloaking which can be unlocked with research (I forget where it is in the tech tree). If you're trying to figure out how cloaking can work in SoaSE, I's suggest starting there.

entityBoolModifier "PhaseOut"

Has an interesting graphical effect of making the model partially transparent, this is how the Vasari scout (Jikara Navigator) fades out when the ability is run.

I don't know much about these modifiers yet and how thet work so any suggestions are welcome.

I've been trying to make a cloak mod for a few days now. So far I can apply the effect to any ship.

There is one problem however.

The only two effects I want for the cloaked ship are 'PhaseOut' and 'Invulnerable'.

When I have just the bool operator 'PhaseOut' it seems that it applies many other attributes, like inability to go through phase lanes, inability to shoot or move, etc. I haven't been able to separate it yet. I'm fearing it's possibly hard coded? I've edited about 30 files so far and still PhaseOut seems to bring many other attributes with it.

*sigh*

Ideas?

I need to know if there is any way to actually make a ship cloak and not be detectable by other races besides a simple invisible effect.

I think even the "simple invisible effect" isn't so simple.

Wait... why would cloaking be good? The game seems to be focused on war... as in, booms and explosions and PEW PEW PEW, not a cloak and hide. Also, what ships are we applying it to? Light ships like scouts and cobalts I can understand, but capitals are bad. Maybe the marauder capitals, but please don't give the Kol Battleship cloaking. PLEASE don't give the Kol cloaking.

No No No, I'm working on a Halo Mod and I am trying to fit the Prowler in somewhere.

I'm not sure if anyone ever played Earth 2150/The Moon Project. I was taking my idea of cloaking from that game. Basically one race could cloak, either by having a special module on the individual units, or having structures in their base which allowed for it. Of course appropriate research must take place first. The effect would be a radius type effect (so it applies the cloak to itself/around it within a certain range)

Earth 2150 was a ground based RTS and not so open as sins is. Currently I'm not sure if the idea would work all that well in sins as far as being able to cloak everything goes. It's just something to experiment with.

Combat would still be heavy, the idea wouldn't be to hide and not attack. You could attack, while being completely invisible. . Of course there would be researchable counters to the cloak ability, such as radar stations or a radar type ability that could be permanently applied to certain ships, and therefore canceling out the cloak.

This is just a rough idea, it may not even be practical.

I'm in the same boat. I personally think its hard coded into the entity bool modifier. Is there any entity modifier that makes ships invisible other than phase out? Like radar jamming or something?

i think i remember something about, an ignore code to make the AI ignore the object

But would it be something that could be toggled? Instead of the AI continously ignoring it.

This is probably a really late reply lol, but i think the star trek mod actually had a clingon ship cloaked.

 

Really? I haven't seen that yet.

This was a serious necro...

Yes, the D-12 klink scout had the ability to "Cloak" however its mostly a cosmetic cloak rather than full undectability

I'll still take that over nothing. Guess I'll take a look at it.

anyone still in there?

If there is, my suggestion is to make your own ability based on the 'PhaseOut' ability. Call it 'Cloak' or something like that, and then it's likely that it'll work. If not, then cosmetic is the only way to go.

EDIT: if anyone's still lookin' at this thread, I think if you look at the buff file, and remove certain modifiers, it MIGHT work.

These are the modifiers for the Vasari Scout's 'Phasic Cloaking' abiltiy-

numEntityBoolModifiers 7
entityBoolModifier "CannotBeDamaged"
entityBoolModifier "DisablePhaseJump"
entityBoolModifier "DisableLinearEngines"
entityBoolModifier "DisableAngularEngines"
entityBoolModifier "DisableRegeneration"
entityBoolModifier "DisableWeapons"
entityBoolModifier "PhaseOut"

The ones you want to remove are the 'DisableLinearEngines' and 'DisableAngularEngines'. You probably won't need to jump it while it's cloaked, so that's up to you to remove that one.