Cloaked explorer ships

try to research solar-panels, they should be available early. with them you can have a small frigate scout for a long time.

I agree, Solar Collectors can be very handy.

For an exploration ship, here are some tips/suggestions.

1: Only use Frigate, Destroyer, Light Cruiser and Cruiser hulls. They all can carry 12 engines max. Engines are the basic supply carrying component. Speed is also useful.

2: Toss in a few supply storage help increase range. If you got the tech, do as suggested in the above post and use a solar collector (or more, depending on ship size). Generaly speaking, you don't really need much if any extra supply storage if you have solar collectors on a ship.

3: Remember to add in basic offense and defense, even if just a gun and an armor, just to be on the safe side. A point defense also would be a good choice. You never know when they might be needed to help defend a colony.

4: Do not use ships that require components useless to exploring. Freighters and Colony Ships need some of their space devoted to components useless for exploration, be it cargo carrying components or a colony component. That's hundreds of kt that could have been used for armor, weapons, scanners and supply storage. They also can't have as many engines, and become vulnerable to the faster ships if an enemy tries to destroy it.

5: When designing an exploration ship with a cloaking device, it might be wise to toss in a tachyon scanner (or equivilent) and a long range scanner. That way, if you run into another ship and get close enough, you can tell if they might have (or be close to getting) scanners that can detect your cloaked vessels.

About cloaked colony ships
I will say a cloaked colony ship is handy, be it made using a colony ship or freighter hull. Just have them bring along weapon platforms, troops, satellites and fighters, so the created colony is ready to fend off small attacks until it can get built up. I usually put a satellite bay or two on a colony ship hull for extra cargo capacity and to deploy the sats in an emergency.
Also handy for sneaking through enemy systems to get a planet with ruins when they can't colonize planet type the ruins are on.
One turn, an empire sees an empty world. The next turn, there is a colony with plenty of defenses there.

With Solar panels, if you are running low on supplies, just park it in a system with more then 1 star (you get multiple supplies per star). It will slowly fill up its supplies.

However, with quantum engines you use a lot of supplies per turn (lots of movement) and solar panels are not that efficient unless you have a LOT of them, or have high tech in them. I suppose every little bit helps.

On a side note, once you research solar sails (level 20) you gain + 1 movement for having 1 on your ship. Only 1 counts. It should be that your first movement should be free (no supplies expended) if you have a solar sail.

Freighters can carry supply storage as their 40% freight space requirement.

Not in stock they can't - it's 50%, and pure cargo.

BalanceMod tweaks things a little to make them vastly more utilitarian.

In general - I like the idea of a cloaked scout ship. I will toss in here some seemingly disparate (yet related) items:

> I agree that frigates better for recon ships - no 50% cargo requirement. Disagree about arming them. I use my cloaked scouts as DEW (distant early warning) - they sit out past my colonized perimeter - ONLY coming back when relieved by another scout and ONLY for hardware upgrades. Otherwise, once parked in a location where they can monitor a system, they do not move, stay cloaked and soak up some rays/supplies. The only problem is (see next)...

> Have you ever noticed that when you enter the system of a race previously unknown to you...that you will suddenly make diplomatic/espionage contact - even though your ship was cloaked and they had no LEGITIMATE way of detecting it? (!?) Whatever - just remember to have some defensive spies from almost the beginning - unless you like others spying on you or sabotaging your planets/ships/empire.

> As the level of a particular style of engine advances (ex Ion or Contra-Terrene), the amount of supplies each engine pod can carry increases. (Just in case you hadn't noticed.)

> There is some other tech that can help with resupply problems - the quantum reactor. It USED to be pretty nice, but is (comparatively) crippled in SE V (as opposed to SE IV).

> Give serious consideration to topping out the Light Hull technology (10th level). The beginning frigate size is 250kt. When topped out, that is now 450kt. That could be 10 solar cells - some serious amount of pulling in supplies (especially when solar collectors topped!)

>Also consider pushing scanners - the further you can see, the less likely you are to reveal yourself to enemy ships and the less travel involved in mapping new systems.

Well not sure if anyone brought this up, but I found that 1 stealth armor is best to use for cloaking, since it only takes 1 armor space (30Kt), gives you 54% defense (Lv50) and prevent level 21 scanning, and not only that, it maintenance is alot cheaper for me. It says 1043 minerals and 298 rad, and the best part, it don't use any supplies when cloaking.

When I check out the cloaking device tech, cloaking device use 40kt space, maintenance is 1190 minerals and 595 rad and use 75 supplies per turn. So to me I say scrap this and go stealth.

real use of cloaking device is that you are able to turn it off and attack... for ambush (as example)
instead of this stealth armor works right along... But if your ship is designed exactly for spying, stealth armor is you thing)

... it is just as i suppose

Just so you know - a cloaked ship can't generate supplies from its quantum reactor/solar collector. At least I think it can't from the collector; I know for a fact it can't from the reactor.

is that just balance mod or stock? I know thats for balance but not sure for other mods/stock...

another thing you can do is if your using crystal race tech and the solar cell to fuel your ships you could pick a solar system with 2 stars and make it a base of operations for your scouting ships and then when its secure use large cloak ships to build a star colonize the area so you have a 3 star system. You could also then close the gates...

But if your playn at a lower lvl just making a 3 star system as a hub for your scouts is not a bad idea especially if playn a ancient universe with lots of sectors and huge amounts of space between you and the enemy

I was still able to ambush ships with stealth armor, I cloak my ship went right to them and they didn't see me and then I decloak and attack them, and that was without a cloaking device.

Now I don't know if it was just the mod, but in a devnull test myself and an enemy started using cloaked scouts but the problem was that the cloak disengaged at the start of every turn. We could slip through defences but the other side could always see the ship afterwards.

hm... the last thing what i thought - maybe cloacking device costs less research points? only 1 level phisics + 1 level of cloacking devices, instead of 20 level of armor

but yeah.. when stealth armor is able - there is no more need for clocking device

I'm almost certain that was a bug introduced in the previous patch that was fixed by 1.74.

yeah I think I remember a similar bug where every time you loaded a save game the cloak was deactivated...I think the patch fixed it

Stealth armour has a lower "potency" than a cloaking device, although IIRC in a max tech game they both cannot be detected with standard sensors. But it takes less powerful tachyon/equivalent sensors to discover a ship using stealth armour.

If your going to use cloaked freighters for exploration, you might aswell load up troops in that freighter. That way, when you run into a juicy world that is not yet aware of your presence, and is undefended with troops or too many platforms.

This advantage works extra well when the alien doesn't have tachyon sensors or mines installed yet ;P

Personally I've been scounting a game with freighters with troops, and I'm happy with the result.
Normally I would have done so with Frigates.

A downside to making a first contact with a troop invasion is that ehm... the aliens might get the wrong impression of you and might asume that you are hostile... How weird is that ?!

~Myrath

I good idea is mod the game to allow supply and ord storage count on cargo ships using this line

Ability # Type := Storage Cargo Space Amount
Ability # Description := Name counts towards cargo space requirements.
Ability # Scope := Space Object
Ability # Range Formula := 0
Ability # Amount 1 Formula := 0
Ability # Amount 2 Formula := 0

and maybe creating a beefed up Cloaking device

here try this

Name := Cloaking Device I
Description := Field generated around a starship which passes all energy around the ship and has the effect of rendering it invisible.
Picture Number := 35
Maximum Level := 20
Tonnage Space Taken Formula := 40
Tonnage Structure Formula := 40 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 10)
Cost Minerals Formula := 1000 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 10)
Cost Organics Formula := 0
Cost Radioactives Formula := 500 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 5)
Supply Amount Used Formula := 100
Ordnance Amount Used Formula := 0
Can Be Placed On Vehicle Types := Ship, Base, Satellite, Drone
Can Be Placed In Ship Sections := Inner Hull, Outer Hull
Component Type List := Technological
General Group := Shields
Custom Group := 0
Number Of Requirements := 1
Requirements Evaluation Availability := AND
Requirements Evaluation Allows Placement := TRUE
Requirements Evaluation Allows Usage := TRUE
Requirement 1 Description := Empire must have at least tech level 1 in Cloaking.
Requirement 1 Formula := Get_Empire_Tech_Level("Cloaking") >= (1 + ([%Level%] - 1))
Number Of Abilities := 1
Ability 1 Type := Cloak Level
Ability 1 Description := Prevents level [%Amount1%] scans (if your vehicle has supply remaining).
Ability 1 Scope := Space Object
Ability 1 Range Formula := 0
Ability 1 Amount 1 Formula := 4 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 1)
Ability 1 Amount 2 Formula := 0
Weapon Type := None

Name := Cloaking Device II
Description := Field generated around a starship which passes all energy around the ship and has the effect of rendering it invisible.
Picture Number := 35
Maximum Level := 20
Tonnage Space Taken Formula := 40
Tonnage Structure Formula := 40 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 10)
Cost Minerals Formula := 1000 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 10)
Cost Organics Formula := 0
Cost Radioactives Formula := 500 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 5)
Supply Amount Used Formula := 100
Ordnance Amount Used Formula := 0
Can Be Placed On Vehicle Types := Ship, Base, Satellite, Drone
Can Be Placed In Ship Sections := Inner Hull, Outer Hull
Component Type List := Technological
General Group := Shields
Custom Group := 0
Number Of Requirements := 1
Requirements Evaluation Availability := AND
Requirements Evaluation Allows Placement := TRUE
Requirements Evaluation Allows Usage := TRUE
Requirement 1 Description := Empire must have at least tech level 1 in Cloaking.
Requirement 1 Formula := Get_Empire_Tech_Level("Cloaking") >= (1 + ([%Level%] - 1))
Number Of Abilities := 1
Ability 1 Type := Cloak Level
Ability 1 Description := Prevents level [%Amount1%] scans (if your vehicle has supply remaining).
Ability 1 Scope := Space Object
Ability 1 Range Formula := 0
Ability 1 Amount 1 Formula := 6 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 1)
Ability 1 Amount 2 Formula := 0
Weapon Type := None

you might like to add this on them to make them use the suppply that they store

Ability 2 Type := Ordnance Storage
Ability 2 Description := Provides storage for [%Amount1%] units of ordnance.
Ability 2 Scope := Space Object
Ability 2 Range Formula := 0
Ability 2 Amount 1 Formula := 200 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 100)
Ability 2 Amount 2 Formula := 0
Ability 3 Type := Supply Storage
Ability 3 Description := Can store [%Amount1%] units of supply.
Ability 3 Scope := Space Object
Ability 3 Range Formula := 0
Ability 3 Amount 1 Formula := 200 + ([%Level%] * 150)
Ability 3 Amount 2 Formula := 0
note that the supply used has been halved to 100 to also improve it

enjoy

"I good idea is mod the game to allow supply and ord storage count on cargo ships using this line "

Balancemod did that. Or at least something similar.