Cloaking playtest rules

[cnuzzi]

Have the playtest rules in Comm 104 re: cloaking been officially adopted or abandoned? Or are they perhaps still being considered? I'm curious whether I should start using them or not.

[Steve Cole]

They have not been adopted or abandoned. We cannot do that without playtest reports, and none have been received. Give them a try and tell us what you think.

[Sebastian380]

We've tested them at Battlegroup Toronto. We haven't been as diligent as we should have been in reporting the results but we'll try them again soon and I'll post results here.
In the meantime, I can say that I remember we liked using the play-test rules. They are easy to implement and they work well with seeking weapons.
I found an interesting loop-hole that might be an abuse of the rules or might be a tactical idea.
Specifically, if a cloaked ship at speed 16 is being pursued by a mass of seeking weapons the cloaked ship can Emergency Decelerate and, now being at speed 0, at the end of the impulse all of the seekers lose tracking and come off the map.
Anyway...we like the rules and we'll give them another try soon.

[mjwest]

That's not a loophole. That is an intentional effect.

[Flying Toaster]

How do we properly report playtest results? I had one game with Rom vs Gorn (me with Roms, a brand new player with Gorns), and the cloak was useful because of the new rules. He launched too far out, I was able to slow down and cloak at the start of the next turn to get rid of plasmas.

[Steve Cole]

Email a copy to Mike West and to myself.

I am at design@StarFleetGames.com

[mjwest]

(From a different thread ...)

Just to make sure the "new" cloak rules are going to be in rev 7 of the rule book.

They are still provisional, though I do hope they will make it in.

Please make sure any playtest reports are sent directly to Steve, not just posted to the Forum. They really need to be emailed.

Thank you!

[ncrcalamine]

i have posted 3 or 4 reports 3 or 4 years ago do i need to find them and forward them.

thx nicole

[mjwest]

Probably wouldn't hurt. Plus, anything new would be great, too.

[Steve Cole]

As you suspected, I haven't seen a single report on the new cloak rules.

I might comment that no matter how many reports one person sends in, I cannot evaluate the rule without reports from several different people. So if the 3 or 4 lost reports are found, they still aren't enough.

[ncrcalamine]

fyi
I emailed 12 action reports to Steve from the old proposed cloak forum. 6 by me with discussion that followed, 4 by storyelf, 1 by monty, 1 by grim shade

nicole

[mjwest]

I do remember the reports in the forum. I'll have to hunt down that thread.

The consensus response was that the changes were good.

[Steve Cole]

Not nearly enough playtesting reports to make any determination. Most of the reports lacked key details particularly what both players thought of them. (Only one enemy report and it say the rule was broken.) It has been so many years that I cannot even remember this but it has the smell of "not enough people care for me to go forward."

And intentional effect or not, the emergency deceleration flush seems wildly overpowered to me.

If you think "the consensus" was positive I would have to say look again. The consensus by Romulans was positive; the only non-Romulan report was negative.

I would say time is being wasted by further testing if you don't remove the emergency deceleration rule. But heck, I'm just the guy who has to approve the change so don't let me tell you what to do.

[mjwest]

For the record, the old discussion can be found here: http://www.starfleetgames.com/federatio ... t=cloak%2A

After reading through it, I saw an overall favorable view, where even the most vocal opponent softened, and one proponent weakened on a one point of the changes. Also note that most effort was on a version of the changes that was stronger than what was published in CL. And both sides did post their reactions. The need to drop seeking weapons was the main desire, though. But then, who knows? Maybe my reading comprehension isn't what it used to be.

However, the one thing every single participant agreed on was that the current rules make the cloak not worth the point cost required, if not being outright pointless. To the point that one person admitted they don't bother with Romulan anymore, and another wanted a rule to let them not have a cloak and get their points back.

[mjwest]

Specifically, if a cloaked ship at speed 16 is being pursued by a mass of seeking weapons the cloaked ship can Emergency Decelerate and, now being at speed 0, at the end of the impulse all of the seekers lose tracking and come off the map.

Quick question: When is the emergency deceleration happening? As the rules currently sit, the only time that seeking weapons are removed is when the cloak becomes active. So, if the cloak is active, seeking weapons remain, then the cloaked ship uses emergency deceleration, the seeking weapons still remain. However, if the cloaking ship uses emergency deceleration before the cloak becomes active, then, yes the seeking weapons will go away (if they are not adjacent to the cloaking ship.

So, if you were thinking that using emergency deceleration on an already-cloaked ship was get-out-of-jail-free, then, no, that isn't the case.

If, however, you emergency decelerate prior to the cloak going active, then, it still isn't get-out-of-jail-free, as you had to stop prior to the cloak going active, and it is simply the case that you are starting the cloak while Stopped.

EDIT: Let me explain why this is not a get-out-of-jail-free card.
By rule (2D3a), emergency deceleration must be declared at the start of an impulse, prior to any movement. That means that it must declare the emergency deceleration no later than the start of its fade impulse to gain the benefits of being Stopped when the cloak fully activates. That leaves it fixed in place for the fade impulse, and the rest of the entire turn. So, it isn't "free", as there is a price to be paid.