Stealth mechanics?

[baldamundo]

Does anyone have a good understanding of the stealth mechanics and whether or not or to what extent it's useful?

I'm guessing it might not be that helpful against the AI except to make your civilian ships, scouts, and monitoring stations less obvious targets?

Looking at the information on the components section of the Galactopedia, it seems like:
-Stealth Rating reduces the range at which a ship can be detected (presumably vs the power & range of the enemy scanner)
-Countermeasures is essentially an incoming damage reduction bonus
-Empire Masking Power reduces the chance/range your ships will be identified as yours (so enemies you are at war with will ignore them? or so you can raid without losing reputation?)
-Role Masking Power reduces the chance/range at which your ship's role will be identified, instead appearing as a generic civilian ship
-Jamming reduces the effect of enemy scanners (on just that ship? not the whole fleet?) (therefore amplifying the other stealth effects?) (affects all scanning or just trace scanning?)
-nebula clouds greatly reduce scan range (for ships inside and for ships outside looking in)
-smaller ships are harder to detect or identify (is this "hull size" or max total component "size" capacity or actual component "size" total?)

It seems like none of these stack, except countermeasures. And countermeasures only stacks one from each source - so e.g. two "countermeasures systems" on one ship won't stack, but one "countermeasures system" and one "multi-spectrum jammer" will stack their countermeasures effects.

So your ideal stealth ship should be as small as possible, and be able to fit one each of:
-stealth armour (armour slot)
-countermeasures system (scanner slot)
-trace jammer (scanner slot)
-fleet countermeasures system (scanner slot) - not sure about stacking on these, but I assume you only benefit from one per fleet?

Which means you want something as small as possible, but with at least two scanner slots (preferably more - since scanners and targeting computers would be useful as well), and with at least one armour module - but probably preferably at least three (so you can also include shields and armour). Anything larger, you get diminishing returns - since the size diminishes the stealth, and you can't stack multiple copies of components to mitigate it.

So the best choices look like:
-escorts (smallest combat ships and get a stacking countermeasures bonus - especially heavy escort - downside is only one scanner slot and only two armour slots)
-frigates (similar to escort, but slightly larger and with extra armour slots on some variants)
-monitoring stations
-small or medium troop transports or exploration ships (multiple scanner + armour slots)
-cruisers (larger and no countermeasures bonus except on fleet command cruiser, but they get tonnes of sensors + armor slots)

You'd think exploration ships would be a good choice, but they only get 2-3 scanner slots, and they need two of those for survey scanners, and preferably the third for a regular scanner.

But even after all that, I'm not very clear how useful they can be. How stealthy is a maxed out stealth ship? All it says is "stealth rating: 200, empire masking: 20" but there's no way of knowing what that means in practice. There's potentially a lot of fun to be had here - especially when pirates are expanded on - but i don't know at the moment.

Can you use long range weapons/carriers to stealthily attack the enemy with impunity from outside of scanner range? Or are even the longest weapon ranges still short enough that you'll be detected at that range? Can the enemy fire at an undetected ship? Will the AI return fire on an unidentified ship?

[BTAxis]

I've not found any reason to use stealth in DW2. In DWU I put it on my sensor ships because the AI goes after them when you're at war, but in DW2 they're left unmolested so there's no need. Otherwise, I can't think of any reason why I would want to conceal my ships from anyone's scanners.

[ramnblam]

I'm guessing stealth is going to be primarily useful for lowering the enemies response window when using small attack/raid fleets to perform specific objectives or leaving juicy key systems lightly defended but with stealth detachments waiting nearby to bait an enemy fleet into attacking giving your main defence fleet time to get in and finish the fight. But without being able to gauge distances of scanning and the effect of jamming/stealth in relation, I don't know how viable it will be.

[btd64]

I'm guessing stealth is going to be primarily useful for lowering the enemies response window when using small attack/raid fleets to perform specific objectives or leaving juicy key systems lightly defended but with stealth detachments waiting nearby to bait an enemy fleet into attacking giving your main defence fleet time to get in and finish the fight. But without being able to gauge distances of scanning and the effect of jamming/stealth in relation, I don't know how viable it will be.

Good example of why you want stealth. It restricts enemy sensors and reduces their ability to respond....GP

[Ranbir]

Ever since I saw "auto-spy" on the explorer automation option I am instantly thinking about stealth-spy ships that go into enemy territory for recon missions.

[BTAxis]

I believe those missions actually fly into enemy systems though, and at such close ranges it's essentially impossible to stay concealed.

[baldamundo]

I believe those missions actually fly into enemy systems though, and at such close ranges it's essentially impossible to stay concealed.

Yeah although we don't actually have any real way of knowing what distances stealth is effective at? Unless someone's tested it.

[Erik Rutins]

Does anyone have a good understanding of the stealth mechanics and whether or not or to what extent it's useful?

I'm guessing it might not be that helpful against the AI except to make your civilian ships, scouts, and monitoring stations less obvious targets?

Looking at the information on the components section of the Galactopedia, it seems like:
-Stealth Rating reduces the range at which a ship can be detected (presumably vs the power & range of the enemy scanner)
-Countermeasures is essentially an incoming damage reduction bonus
-Empire Masking Power reduces the chance/range your ships will be identified as yours (so enemies you are at war with will ignore them? or so you can raid without losing reputation?)
-Role Masking Power reduces the chance/range at which your ship's role will be identified, instead appearing as a generic civilian ship
-Jamming reduces the effect of enemy scanners (on just that ship? not the whole fleet?) (therefore amplifying the other stealth effects?) (affects all scanning or just trace scanning?)
-nebula clouds greatly reduce scan range (for ships inside and for ships outside looking in)
-smaller ships are harder to detect or identify (is this "hull size" or max total component "size" capacity or actual component "size" total?)

Stealth rating directly reduces the sensor power of the enemy. Sensor power declines with sensor range. Good Stealth can mean that your enemy doesn't see your attack ship or fleet coming until it's almost reached their system. This greatly diminishes their ability to react quickly to your attacks. If there isn't already a defense fleet at the target, by the time it arrives it will likely be too late. For Empire vs. Empire play, good long range sensors can greatly improve a defense and Stealth is the main counter to those.

Stealth does not help if you are in combat (except for adding countermeasures) or in the same location (same planet/moon/asteroid field). Once you engage, you will be seen but high stealth can get you right up to engagement without being seen. One example of decent stealth in-game is the Vordikar and you may have noticed those can be tough to spot before the attack you.

It can also help hide your space stations if the enemy doesn't actually have a ship near them but is trying to detect them from farther away.

Countermeasures decrease enemy weapon accuracy. Most component bonuses only stack across component types, so if you already have Countermeasures from a countermeasures system, adding a Stealth component or some Maneuvering Thrusters is a way to push that higher whereas a second countermeasures system would not.

Empire Masking Power and Role Masking Power you've got right.

Trace Scanners are countered by Trace Jammers. These are typically the highest power/shortest range and will generally always see through stealth within a system.

So your ideal stealth ship should be as small as possible, and be able to fit one each of:
-stealth armour (armour slot)
-countermeasures system (scanner slot)
-trace jammer (scanner slot)
-fleet countermeasures system (scanner slot) - not sure about stacking on these, but I assume you only benefit from one per fleet?

Which means you want something as small as possible, but with at least two scanner slots (preferably more - since scanners and targeting computers would be useful as well), and with at least one armour module - but probably preferably at least three (so you can also include shields and armour). Anything larger, you get diminishing returns - since the size diminishes the stealth, and you can't stack multiple copies of components to mitigate it.

So the best choices look like:
-escorts (smallest combat ships and get a stacking countermeasures bonus - especially heavy escort - downside is only one scanner slot and only two armour slots)
-frigates (similar to escort, but slightly larger and with extra armour slots on some variants)
-monitoring stations
-small or medium troop transports or exploration ships (multiple scanner + armour slots)
-cruisers (larger and no countermeasures bonus except on fleet command cruiser, but they get tonnes of sensors + armor slots)

When I was able to test Stealth pre-release, I mostly put it on Destroyers and some small Cruisers as well as Monitoring Stations.

You'd think exploration ships would be a good choice, but they only get 2-3 scanner slots, and they need two of those for survey scanners, and preferably the third for a regular scanner.

If you customize some to scout on enemy systems during war, you can have a design with a very different setup just for that.

But even after all that, I'm not very clear how useful they can be. How stealthy is a maxed out stealth ship? All it says is "stealth rating: 200, empire masking: 20" but there's no way of knowing what that means in practice. There's potentially a lot of fun to be had here - especially when pirates are expanded on - but i don't know at the moment.

Compare the Stealth Rating to the enemy's best ScannerLongRangePower. An easy rule is that if you have Stealth that's close to, equal or higher than your enemy's scanner power, they're not going to see you until you're pretty much on top of them.

A quick example using game calculations: A ships has Stealth 100 and Empire and Role Masking 15 from a TL7 i-Space Stealth Sheath. The enemy has a TL6 Ultra Long Range Sensor with Range of 80,000,000 and ScannerLongRangePower of 160. The stealth ship is Size 500. Normally without any stealth, it would be detected at 80,000,000, Empire confirmed at around 67,000,000 and Role at around 55,000,000. With the i-Space Stealth Sheath, that changes to about 29,950,000 for detection, 9,975,000 for Empire confirmation and it has to be basically in the same location with you to have its role confirmed. Adding in a Mult-Spectrum Trace Jammer would further reduce the Empire Detection range to about 2,475,000 which is pretty much just outside the solar system right before it arrives.

[BTAxis]

One example of decent stealth in-game is the Vordikar and you may have noticed those can be tough to spot before the attack you.

Vordikars are weird though. You can detect that a creature is there with long range scans (though you can't tell what it is, which is how you can tell that it's a Vordikar), and they will be invisible until you're very close. But, ships will fire at them as soon as they enter weapons range, visible or not. It's possible to tell a ship or fleet to attack a cloaked Vordikar, but only if you're zoomed out enough. I think ships also move to engage nearby Vordikars even though they're not visible.

All this means that their stealth isn't really helping them too much.

[Erik Rutins]

One example of decent stealth in-game is the Vordikar and you may have noticed those can be tough to spot before the attack you.

Vordikars are weird though. You can detect that a creature is there with long range scans (though you can't tell what it is, which is how you can tell that it's a Vordikar), and they will be invisible until you're very close. But, ships will fire at them as soon as they enter weapons range, visible or not. It's possible to tell a ship or fleet to attack a cloaked Vordikar, but only if you're zoomed out enough. I think ships also move to engage nearby Vordikars even though they're not visible.

All this means that their stealth isn't really helping them too much.

That's true. Two differences with Vordikars:

1. They are creatures, so as soon as you detect them at all, you see the "creature" marker instead of a circular gray "some kind of ship" marker so it's already much more informative than it would be with a ship, especially if you know that Vordikars like to hang out in certain places.

2. They have another special rule which allows them to have some stealth even in the same location (ship stealth does not allow that). However, ships firing at them before they can "see" them in some cases is a minor bug with that.

Regards,

- Erik

[baldamundo]

Does anyone have a good understanding of the stealth mechanics and whether or not or to what extent it's useful?

I'm guessing it might not be that helpful against the AI except to make your civilian ships, scouts, and monitoring stations less obvious targets?

Looking at the information on the components section of the Galactopedia, it seems like:
-Stealth Rating reduces the range at which a ship can be detected (presumably vs the power & range of the enemy scanner)
-Countermeasures is essentially an incoming damage reduction bonus
-Empire Masking Power reduces the chance/range your ships will be identified as yours (so enemies you are at war with will ignore them? or so you can raid without losing reputation?)
-Role Masking Power reduces the chance/range at which your ship's role will be identified, instead appearing as a generic civilian ship
-Jamming reduces the effect of enemy scanners (on just that ship? not the whole fleet?) (therefore amplifying the other stealth effects?) (affects all scanning or just trace scanning?)
-nebula clouds greatly reduce scan range (for ships inside and for ships outside looking in)
-smaller ships are harder to detect or identify (is this "hull size" or max total component "size" capacity or actual component "size" total?)

Stealth rating directly reduces the sensor power of the enemy. Sensor power declines with sensor range. Good Stealth can mean that your enemy doesn't see your attack ship or fleet coming until it's almost reached their system. This greatly diminishes their ability to react quickly to your attacks. If there isn't already a defense fleet at the target, by the time it arrives it will likely be too late. For Empire vs. Empire play, good long range sensors can greatly improve a defense and Stealth is the main counter to those.

Stealth does not help if you are in combat (except for adding countermeasures) or in the same location (same planet/moon/asteroid field). Once you engage, you will be seen but high stealth can get you right up to engagement without being seen. One example of decent stealth in-game is the Vordikar and you may have noticed those can be tough to spot before the attack you.

It can also help hide your space stations if the enemy doesn't actually have a ship near them but is trying to detect them from farther away.

Countermeasures decrease enemy weapon accuracy. Most component bonuses only stack across component types, so if you already have Countermeasures from a countermeasures system, adding a Stealth component or some Maneuvering Thrusters is a way to push that higher whereas a second countermeasures system would not.

Empire Masking Power and Role Masking Power you've got right.

Trace Scanners are countered by Trace Jammers. These are typically the highest power/shortest range and will generally always see through stealth within a system.

So your ideal stealth ship should be as small as possible, and be able to fit one each of:
-stealth armour (armour slot)
-countermeasures system (scanner slot)
-trace jammer (scanner slot)
-fleet countermeasures system (scanner slot) - not sure about stacking on these, but I assume you only benefit from one per fleet?

Which means you want something as small as possible, but with at least two scanner slots (preferably more - since scanners and targeting computers would be useful as well), and with at least one armour module - but probably preferably at least three (so you can also include shields and armour). Anything larger, you get diminishing returns - since the size diminishes the stealth, and you can't stack multiple copies of components to mitigate it.

So the best choices look like:
-escorts (smallest combat ships and get a stacking countermeasures bonus - especially heavy escort - downside is only one scanner slot and only two armour slots)
-frigates (similar to escort, but slightly larger and with extra armour slots on some variants)
-monitoring stations
-small or medium troop transports or exploration ships (multiple scanner + armour slots)
-cruisers (larger and no countermeasures bonus except on fleet command cruiser, but they get tonnes of sensors + armor slots)

When I was able to test Stealth pre-release, I mostly put it on Destroyers and some small Cruisers as well as Monitoring Stations.

You'd think exploration ships would be a good choice, but they only get 2-3 scanner slots, and they need two of those for survey scanners, and preferably the third for a regular scanner.

If you customize some to scout on enemy systems during war, you can have a design with a very different setup just for that.

But even after all that, I'm not very clear how useful they can be. How stealthy is a maxed out stealth ship? All it says is "stealth rating: 200, empire masking: 20" but there's no way of knowing what that means in practice. There's potentially a lot of fun to be had here - especially when pirates are expanded on - but i don't know at the moment.

Compare the Stealth Rating to the enemy's best ScannerLongRangePower. An easy rule is that if you have Stealth that's close to, equal or higher than your enemy's scanner power, they're not going to see you until you're pretty much on top of them.

A quick example using game calculations: A ships has Stealth 100 and Empire and Role Masking 15 from a TL7 i-Space Stealth Sheath. The enemy has a TL6 Ultra Long Range Sensor with Range of 80,000,000 and ScannerLongRangePower of 160. The stealth ship is Size 500. Normally without any stealth, it would be detected at 80,000,000, Empire confirmed at around 67,000,000 and Role at around 55,000,000. With the i-Space Stealth Sheath, that changes to about 29,950,000 for detection, 9,975,000 for Empire confirmation and it has to be basically in the same location with you to have its role confirmed. Adding in a Mult-Spectrum Trace Jammer would further reduce the Empire Detection range to about 2,475,000 which is pretty much just outside the solar system right before it arrives.

Thanks for the detailed response - this is all really helpful! Maybe could be worth copying the information here into a new page on the in-game Galactopedia? Some of the information is there already, but it's scattered across the different component pages, so is quite hard to get a handle on.