Suggestion for introducing Asymmetrical warfare in Aurora

[Alsadius]

The concern is that it's too easy for ships that jump through to be picked up by the gate defenses. There's already a tech line designed to deal with this - the jump radius techs - and those can be expanded upon fairly easily in various ways.

For example, add a self-jump radius multiplier. Jump drives that are self-jump-only get an extra multiplier to radius. Make it fairly costly, if you like, but there's already a goodly cost in giving every ship a jump drive to take advantage of this. If you can jump a ship in at 5x or 10x the usual radius, and it's well-cloaked, there's a good chance of survival against all but the heaviest defenses. It still allows counter-play, by equipping stations on the JP with huge sensor arrays, but you can still sneak some things through sometimes.

Ideally, this tech would also let them jump back out of the system from a wider radius around the JP as well, so it's not just a one-way mission. I don't know how practical that is, though.

[Graham]

1. The cloak will make the ship almost undetectable by passive sensors but there could be a small chance of enemy passive sensor to randomly detect the ship if it otherwise could. This chance would then depend on the difference in technology level of the competing factions knowledge of cloaking devices.

If the ship can still be detected by actives, then what is the point?

What I say is my proposed changes to jump points combined with the already existing cross-section reduction and thermal dampening technologies are enough to provide the desired effect. i'm not entirely against however versions of these technologies which are more powerful for the same cost, but limited to a duration between a few hours to days.

[Alsadius]

If the ship can still be detected by actives, then what is the point?

What I say is my proposed changes to jump points combined with the already existing cross-section reduction and thermal dampening technologies are enough to provide the desired effect. i'm not entirely against however versions of these technologies which are more powerful for the same cost, but limited to a duration between a few hours to days.

If getting through is automatic, defences become pointless, and this mini-game is boring. If getting through is impossible, nobody will try, and this mini-game is boring. It needs to be possible, but not automatic.

"Possible, but not automatic" basically means falling back on sensor mechanics, but lining them up in such a way that the disadvantage of a known location (which makes it easy to stack sensors there) can be compensated for by players being able to make an effort to minimize the effect of those sensors somehow. That means either extra cloak power, extra range, some sort of ability to blind sensors (that doesn't advertise your position), or a big mechanic change that reshuffles everything. Extra cloak power on jump would be rather odd, blinding seems implausible, and therefore I've been going for range.

That said, a "super-cloak" mode that stepped up cloak power for a limited time, at the cost of heavy resource use of one sort or another (fuel or destruction risk, probably) might be another alternative.

[Froggiest1982]

Wow...where to start?

Firstly I think we have to understand that in Aurora when we use Jump we mean jumping into Hyperspace which is slightly different than the FTL jumps you have in Battlestar Galactica for instance. The hyperspace jump uses hyper-lanes which for strategy games is a blessing and as been already said in this thread even Stellaris did change the system to better exploit the hyper-lanes.
For those who are familiar with Avorion, the following will be more easy to follow. While you have 2 or more systems connected by hyperlinks with or without gates you could still jump from system to system bypassing such lanes to reach also uncharted systems and the limit would then be the radius of your FTL drive. So back to Aurora you should have 2 techs, one for Hyper Jump Drives and one for FTL Jump Drives.

Now I will spare you all consideration as many valid points have surfaced already in this thread but if we really were to introduce such tech I would make it available only AFTER all Hyper Jump Drive techs are discovered. Also, we will have to introduce a variant to the normal FTL theory which is the ability to jump only into known systems meaning a first hyperjump would still be required for us to jump into a system in FTL mode and pretty much getting rid of uncharted systems and FTL exploration possibility. (In Stellaris, you still have systems outside the Hyperlanes by the way which are now more interesting to reach).

Regarding the ability to jump, again we have to limit based on Radius Reach which will be easy to introduce due to the already existent distance between stars in LY. So if you have a tech level 3 let's say FTL drive Jump which will allow you to jump only 20LY you wouldn't be able to jump further than that. Finally, this is a 1 ship tech only and therefore each ship should have its own drive. Now considering all the above which are essential due to Aurora structure and functionality along with FTL literature out there I think we are going through a wasp nest just because of the JG defence annoyance. So maybe we have another and most simple solution to avoid that? I don't know but Steve does I am sure.

So bottom line: would I do it or want it for Aurora? I don't think so (even if the annoyance of JP defences it's understandable) but if I were to introduce it I would do it with the following limitations:

END TECH or RARE RUIN TECH ONLY (meaning we can disable if we don't want to deal with it)
LIMITED RADIUS RANGE (30LY or 50LY only?)
ONE DRIVE PER SHIP
MILITARY TECH ONLY

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

1. The cloak will make the ship almost undetectable by passive sensors but there could be a small chance of enemy passive sensor to randomly detect the ship if it otherwise could. This chance would then depend on the difference in technology level of the competing factions knowledge of cloaking devices.

If the ship can still be detected by actives, then what is the point?

What I say is my proposed changes to jump points combined with the already existing cross-section reduction and thermal dampening technologies are enough to provide the desired effect. i'm not entirely against however versions of these technologies which are more powerful for the same cost, but limited to a duration between a few hours to days.

I missed to point out that Active would never spot it at all... only passive could get sort of ghost image of where it is and then you would have to use active "depth charges" to disrupt the cloak to make it visible.

I also forgot to mention that the cloak would also cap the speed of the ship depending on technology level as well, that actually would be important.

I would not be against your version of how it could work either.. I just like the cloak model a bit better as it could be used in other situations as well and it is cooler from a story perspective in my opinion.

To me it would be important that ships could reach allot further than just one or two systems as one or two systems often are not far enough to do much of anything. So not only would these ships have to pass more than on JP they also would need very long deployment times, maintenance cycles so they don't break down and lot's of fuel and/or fuel efficient engines in combination with good speed for evading enemy ships. Plus you also might want thermal reduction and hull stealth or just regular Aurora Cloak to reduce TCS.

The cloak could on occasion make it possible for an otherwise inferior raider get the drop on some missile ships in close combat. There are a few other interesting scenarios I could think of.

I also would stress that I don't think these cloaking ships should be undetectable. But it should require you to invest in technology to do it beside regular sensor technology. So... someone who have an advantage in cloaking versus someone with rudimentary "sonar" technology would be very difficult to detect without allot of effort or some luck.

Updated list of cloaking systems...

1. The cloak will make the ship almost undetectable by passive sensors but there could be a small chance of enemy passive sensor to randomly detect the ship if it otherwise could. This chance would then depend on the difference in technology level of the competing factions knowledge of cloaking devices.

2. The cloak can only be used for a limited set of time every time it is activated, it could be more of a soft cap as it would start to eat more and more supplies the longer it is used. This could also be modified by technology.

3. The size of the cloak would scale inversely with the size of the ship in some fashion so big ships would require proportionally larger cloaking devices, this could also be effected by technology.

4. "sonar" like technology could be used to disrupt enemy cloaking devises and increase the chance of passive sensors detecting them.

5. "sonar"buoys could be deployed that also could disrupt cloaking devices delivered by missile launchers.

6. "depth charge" like missiles could be used against suspected cloaked ships to completely disable the cloaking device.

5. A ship can't use any active sensors, fire-controls, launch or recover parasites, drop troops or load/unload any cargo while cloaked.

6. Active sensor can never spot cloaked ships.

7. The cloaking device will put a cap on the ships speed while the ship is using it.

8. A ship making a jump through a JP must use its own jump drive while cloaked.

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

Wow...where to start?

Firstly I think we have to understand that in Aurora when we use Jump we mean jumping into Hyperspace which is slightly different than the FTL jumps you have in Battlestar Galactica for instance. The hyperspace jump uses hyper-lanes which for strategy games is a blessing and as been already said in this thread even Stellaris did change the system to better exploit the hyper-lanes.
For those who are familiar with Avorion, the following will be more easy to follow. While you have 2 or more systems connected by hyperlinks with or without gates you could still jump from system to system bypassing such lanes to reach also uncharted systems and the limit would then be the radius of your FTL drive. So back to Aurora you should have 2 techs, one for Hyper Jump Drives and one for FTL Jump Drives.

Now I will spare you all consideration as many valid points have surfaced already in this thread but if we really were to introduce such tech I would make it available only AFTER all Hyper Jump Drive techs are discovered. Also, we will have to introduce a variant to the normal FTL theory which is the ability to jump only into known systems meaning a first hyperjump would still be required for us to jump into a system in FTL mode and pretty much getting rid of uncharted systems and FTL exploration possibility. (In Stellaris, you still have systems outside the Hyperlanes by the way which are now more interesting to reach).

Regarding the ability to jump, again we have to limit based on Radius Reach which will be easy to introduce due to the already existent distance between stars in LY. So if you have a tech level 3 let's say FTL drive Jump which will allow you to jump only 20LY you wouldn't be able to jump further than that. Finally, this is a 1 ship tech only and therefore each ship should have its own drive. Now considering all the above which are essential due to Aurora structure and functionality along with FTL literature out there I think we are going through a wasp nest just because of the JG defence annoyance. So maybe we have another and most simple solution to avoid that? I don't know but Steve does I am sure.

So bottom line: would I do it or want it for Aurora? I don't think so (even if the annoyance of JP defences it's understandable) but if I were to introduce it I would do it with the following limitations:

END TECH or RARE RUIN TECH ONLY (meaning we can disable if we don't want to deal with it)
LIMITED RADIUS RANGE (30LY or 50LY only?)
ONE DRIVE PER SHIP
MILITARY TECH ONLY

Some interesting ideas here and I would agree to most of it.

Although if Steve would even consider such a change I doubt he would put it as en end game tech which almost no one would use. Put so much effort into a mechanic pretty much no one will use including himself are something I'm 99.999% sure he would never do. Having is as Rare Ruin tech would fall into the same category in my opinion...

I say it would be something you could unlock after you unlocked the regular hyper jump drives but be a bit more expensive, otherwise there would be no point in including it.

I know many in this thread is afraid of what a system without hyperlane type would be but I don't think it would make the game worse by any means... games such as Distant Worlds have far more interesting and strategic combat than a game such as Stellaris for example and it has no limitation on where you can go except fuel and logistics.

I think that hyper drives should probably cost fuel in order to use and depending on the range it would consume a large chunk of fuel, any such endeavours would almost always need supply and fuel support ships.

I know that allot of people are entrenched in the opinion of hyper-lanes versos hyper-drive strategic combat. In my opinion they can be equally good for different reasons and have no real preference for either.

Here also is a thread where Steve talk about a possible hyperdrive system for Aurora II  http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=3011.0

[iceball3]

I get the feeling that whatever stealth system is in play, the economics of squadron jumping and ordering a large enough task group to immediately split in different directions on entry would outweigh sneaky options in almost any case beside those where the stealth system is patently overbearing. So i have another idea:

-Set the base squadron jump radius to a much higher value than it currently is.
-Allow the construction of a terrestrial facility, or orbital module for a primary, which significantly contracts the jump-squadron radius a targetted jump point to a more manageable level.
-Limit the module to only one per system.

Alternatively, make the module "outgoing", so it's more like
"Squadron jumps leaving this system without allied affiliation to this module's owner have their jump radius significantly reduced."

In the former case, "one per system" allows you to use the device to prioritize specific risky routes to secure, without being able to arbitrarily lockdown whole segments of the galaxy if you get lucky with mineral, or you're an NPR that ignores upkeep.

The latter case, however, could lead to some interesting gameplay: a system can be pretty locked down until you assault a specific asset, however, the asset necessarily is out in the open, attached to the system primary, and accompanied by whatever defenses are floating with it. That it encourages open-space combat as a way to allow you a shot to get past or directly assault jump-point barricades at better odds is an idea I'm liking.

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

I get the feeling that whatever stealth system is in play, the economics of squadron jumping and ordering a large enough task group to immediately split in different directions on entry would outweigh sneaky options in almost any case beside those where the stealth system is patently overbearing. So i have another idea:

-Set the base squadron jump radius to a much higher value than it currently is.
-Allow the construction of a terrestrial facility, or orbital module for a primary, which significantly contracts the jump-squadron radius a targetted jump point to a more manageable level.
-Limit the module to only one per system.

Alternatively, make the module "outgoing", so it's more like
"Squadron jumps leaving this system without allied affiliation to this module's owner have their jump radius significantly reduced."

In the former case, "one per system" allows you to use the device to prioritize specific risky routes to secure, without being able to arbitrarily lockdown whole segments of the galaxy if you get lucky with mineral, or you're an NPR that ignores upkeep.

The latter case, however, could lead to some interesting gameplay: a system can be pretty locked down until you assault a specific asset, however, the asset necessarily is out in the open, attached to the system primary, and accompanied by whatever defenses are floating with it. That it encourages open-space combat as a way to allow you a shot to get past or directly assault jump-point barricades at better odds is an idea I'm liking.

While an interesting idea I don't think it address what I'm after which is more of a low intensity raiding and scouting operations and not full scale invasion or brute force incursions.

The system would need to be able to insert and extract ships to system with stealthy means and the defence of these ships would generally be through evasion. You also would have the need to insert these forces pretty deep into enemy territory, not just one perhaps two system penetration.

The main thing would be that the enemy would not know those ships are even there.

The general problem that I see with widening the jump point entry would be that it seriously could lead to weakening of the JP defence strategy as a whole.

[iceball3]

How exactly do you think the tonnage of this fleet is to be restricted to make it "small scale"? It seems untenable to make the feature make any sense where the scaling of this game comes down to "big things are made of smaller things working together".
Raiding, if anything, should only be meaningfully conducted in systems that are realistically vulnerable to raiding. That is, ones that don't have fully invested JP defenses and sensor screens literally everywhere. If you want a sensor asset in the system, the best you should really be doing is making a civilian vessel with 1 HS sensors, getting there first, and killing the engine. Maybe setting up some DSTS to give higher clarity warning of stuff actually moving through the system.

These scouts wouldn't even be useful for detecting military assets, because the wise thing to be doing from that point on is to just be putting those stealth modules on everything that'll accept them.

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

These scouts wouldn't even be useful for detecting military assets, because the wise thing to be doing from that point on is to just be putting those stealth modules on everything that'll accept them.

Except we have already gone over how that would be highly inefficient from a cost perspective and you would never be able to use your cloak more than occasionally. So any cloaked ship would have to loose the cloak and run normal most of the time. The cloak is only for evading or when you approach a target site that you wish to scout.

For the most part there would be no point in cloaking all ships as it would be better to just make them stronger and attack through the JP instead if you have that much resources for ships.

Moving a large amount of ships through a JP would very likely get a fair amount of them detected and would directly alert the enemy to your activities as the cloak is never a guaranteed thing.

Once a fleet is located or at least their positioning is fairly known a cloaking system would have limited use as there are active ways to hunt them and the cloaks can not be used without limitations. That is now an entire fleet compromised.

Cloaking should only be for smaller squadrons of ships and not for really large ships.

Look at the list above and tell me how you would make an effective fleet of cloaked ships from all those restrictions.

[iceball3]

The fleets don't necessarily have to move as one unit. Imagine having to deploy active countermeasures to every 20 kkm^2 of a half lightyear wide system, as a fleet breaches, splits and goes into hard stealth throughout the system. Doesn't sound fun to micromanage by any measure conceivable, and not something I'd want to see getting encouraged by mechanics further. Getting sensor coverage over the whole darn thing is hard enough as it is, even with DSTS.
And then, of course, the stealth modules wouldn't be helpful on the outward-facing side of a jump point if there are any sensors worth respect located there as well, effectively doubling the sensors you'd have to cross through just to get to the jump point. If stealth ships were allowed to slip past that, including getting close enough to be point blank, i don't see any reason the AI can't run ramming stealth ships, either, which is it's own can of worms.
Similarly, seeing as actives are completely broken by cloaking, it also means you'll be able to do things like dodge missiles and fighters and just about anything else by entering cloak just as they're engaged. Essentially making the cloak system acting as the "I am now become indestructible" button, effectively. Dreadful. Can even be used to dodge long range missiles even if you give it a warmup period. The sonar systems having a "chance" to disband the cloak is even a more shameful stack upon stack of RNG.
The important thing that absolutely must not be forgotten: how heavy is a cloak in HS, how expensive is it, and how expensive is it's countermeasures? I can't see a situation where both feel like viable, meaningful options. Either running the cloak is an absolute resource burn for the opposing race, as any sane individual would put what's needed to make a jump point airtight, or is not worth using outright, given that any mission attempted will be slapped down instantly, as the opposing race just guarantees that you can't squeeze through the jump point.

Which goes to the next point, this balancing consideration means they're not a solution for asymmetrical warfare at all. If they're strong enough to punch upwards at more well equipped races, then they're also capable of being used to completely squeeze past any defense a weaker race mounts and punch downwards with impunity.

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

The fleets don't necessarily have to move as one unit. Imagine having to deploy active countermeasures to every 20 kkm^2 of a half lightyear wide system, as a fleet breaches, splits and goes into hard stealth throughout the system. Doesn't sound fun to micromanage by any measure conceivable, and not something I'd want to see getting encouraged by mechanics further. Getting sensor coverage over the whole darn thing is hard enough as it is, even with DSTS.
And then, of course, the stealth modules wouldn't be helpful on the outward-facing side of a jump point if there are any sensors worth respect located there as well, effectively doubling the sensors you'd have to cross through just to get to the jump point. If stealth ships were allowed to slip past that, including getting close enough to be point blank, i don't see any reason the AI can't run ramming stealth ships, either, which is it's own can of worms.
Similarly, seeing as actives are completely broken by cloaking, it also means you'll be able to do things like dodge missiles and fighters and just about anything else by entering cloak just as they're engaged. Essentially making the cloak system acting as the "I am now become indestructible" button, effectively. Dreadful. Can even be used to dodge long range missiles even if you give it a warmup period. The sonar systems having a "chance" to disband the cloak is even a more shameful stack upon stack of RNG.
The important thing that absolutely must not be forgotten: how heavy is a cloak in HS, how expensive is it, and how expensive is it's countermeasures? I can't see a situation where both feel like viable, meaningful options. Either running the cloak is an absolute resource burn for the opposing race, as any sane individual would put what's needed to make a jump point airtight, or is not worth using outright, given that any mission attempted will be slapped down instantly, as the opposing race just guarantees that you can't squeeze through the jump point.

Which goes to the next point, this balancing consideration means they're not a solution for asymmetrical warfare at all. If they're strong enough to punch upwards at more well equipped races, then they're also capable of being used to completely squeeze past any defense a weaker race mounts and punch downwards with impunity.

You mentions some concerns that I thought about too, such as dodging missiles. There are several ways you can deal with that. It might be that engaging the cloak will take some time or you could slightly change how missiles behave if a ship disappear. Missiles would go to the last know coordinate of the target and stay there, any missile with a depth charge warhead will detonate and if a ship is revealed it is attacked by missiles that self detect using passive or active sensors. Disable the cloak also make the cloaked ship defenceless for at least a 5 sec turn after the cloak is gone thus vulnerable to really close missiles attacking them in the next 5 sec turn with only CIWS being able to hit them.

Why would you use "depth charge" randomly... that would be terribly inefficient. They would only be used against suspected ships that you detected with passive first. The sonar is like an active sensor that have a chance to disrupt the cloak thus making it easier to detect it with passive sensors. Once a ship is spotted it would appear as a cloaking contact and you would use depth charge against that contact. The depth charge would have a decent radius, perhaps 5-10 million km or so there is a high chance to disable any cloaking devices. But it would not be 100%.

You could also streamline it more and simply say that a ship that is spotted can be lit up by active sensors. Once you know what you are looking for it can't hide anymore. So, if a ship already is lit up by your actives would not benefit from it's cloak anymore. It would have to get out of both passive and active range before the cloak will have any effect again. This would fix the dodging missiles effect and make spotting finding them allot less micromanagement heavy using "depth charge" warheads.

The attacking the weaker opponent is completely a moot point because smashing through the JP using regular means would still be the cheaper option in that case anyway and just attack normally with your fleet. Also consider all the research you spend on using for the cloaking system to begin with that could be used for other things.

Though... using a cloaking system could still be an option for the one who wishes to explore that path for role-play reasons... it would be a nice story element.

I really don't see many scenarios where the cloaking system would be OP. What size and cost it would be is a balance issue, but I would assume similar to the current cloaking technology perhaps. We also have to understand that Aurora is foremost a role-playing sandbox game. The AI will only do what it is programmed to do. The AI would not be programmed to flood you with cloaked ships, only use them for scouting and raiding purposes. What you as a player use it for is up to you.

If you want to slip past a JP with a larger fleet using cloaking devices they would not only need the cloaking device they also all need their own jump engine and they still would not be 100% to slip past, it would be very likely that at least one or more ship is detected. Once a ship is detected then the use of any "depth charge" would be disastrous to the entire fleet.

The main function of the cloaking system is to enable some asymetrical warfare, not to generally equip entire fleets with them (although it would be a story element for role-play to do so if you wish). The cost and opportunity would not make them worth it in the long run unless you already have a huge lead in both technology and resources in which case it does not really matter how you do it.

[iceball3]

The need for depth charges, which are unreliable, and sonars, which are unreliable, have very significant tonnage implications against any fleet trying not to leave themselves wide open to stealth ships. If the implications weren't serious, then the capabilities of stealth ships aren't very serious either (read: impotent).

You mentions some concerns that I thought about too, such as dodging missiles. There are several ways you can deal with that. It might be that engaging the cloak will take some time or you could slightly change how missiles behave if a ship disappear. Missiles would go to the last know coordinate of the target and stay there, any missile with a depth charge warhead will detonate and if a ship is revealed it is attacked by missiles that self detect using passive or active sensors. Disable the cloak also make the cloaked ship defenceless for at least a 5 sec turn after the cloak is gone thus vulnerable to really close missiles attacking them in the next 5 sec turn with only CIWS being able to hit them.

For any significant measure of range of missile combat, that's more than enough time for a ship to get out of autodetection range of any sensibly sized re-locking onboard missile sensors, as they can't hope to be reliably trying to intercept a target that literally vanished. Considering that you'd be able to break aggro with several hundred points of warhead this way, it seems quite abusable, kinda similar to how AI fires on targets it should know are capable of escaping the edge of the firing envelope trivially. Not good.

You could also streamline it more and simply say that a ship that is spotted can be lit up by active sensors. Once you know what you are looking for it can't hide anymore. So, if a ship already is lit up by your actives would not benefit from it's cloak anymore. It would have to get out of both passive and active range before the cloak will have any effect again. This would fix the dodging missiles effect and make spotting finding them allot less micromanagement heavy using "depth charge" warheads.

Whether you're actually in range of a ship's actives is privileged information, you can only find this out based on the alien race's tech level, firing behaviors, and EM signatures. Is the stealth module just going to expose the information needlessly?

The attacking the weaker opponent is completely a moot point because smashing through the JP using regular means would still be the cheaper option in that case anyway and just attack normally with your fleet. Also consider all the research you spend on using for the cloaking system to begin with that could be used for other things.

Though... using a cloaking system could still be an option for the one who wishes to explore that path for role-play reasons... it would be a nice story element.

Consider: an  NPR with cloaking technology and aggressive ramming behaviors. There is no sane reason why that race would not be abusing the cloaking tech at every moment available to them.

I really don't see many scenarios where the cloaking system would be OP. What size and cost it would be is a balance issue, but I would assume similar to the current cloaking technology perhaps. We also have to understand that Aurora is foremost a role-playing sandbox game. The AI will only do what it is programmed to do. The AI would not be programmed to flood you with cloaked ships, only use them for scouting and raiding purposes. What you as a player use it for is up to you.

You don't need to convince me to convince you to make your own game, the tools like that exist out there. You're not steve, though, so "i declare balance and design issues in suggestions unimportant" is not so relevant here.

If you want to slip past a JP with a larger fleet using cloaking devices they would not only need the cloaking device they also all need their own jump engine and they still would not be 100% to slip past, it would be very likely that at least one or more ship is detected. Once a ship is detected then the use of any "depth charge" would be disastrous to the entire fleet.

The main function of the cloaking system is to enable some asymetrical warfare, not to generally equip entire fleets with them (although it would be a story element for role-play to do so if you wish). The cost and opportunity would not make them worth it in the long run unless you already have a huge lead in both technology and resources in which case it does not really matter how you do it.

Except. They will need to get past the sensor buoys on the other side of the jump gate too. If the stealth is really strong enough to get 0 km from a target without guaranteed detection, then see the above point about ramming. If not, then necessarily shooting down things on the jump point from afar is necessarily announcing your entrance.

[Zincat]

The AI will only do what it is programmed to do. The AI would not be programmed to flood you with cloaked ships, only use them for scouting and raiding purposes. What you as a player use it for is up to you.

Sorry but I have to strongly disagree with this. This is not a case of "using size one missile salvo to overwhelm PD because I'm abusing the fire control mechanics". THAT is an exploit and the AI should not do it.

If what you propose is implemented the way you wrote, that using "cloacks" is the best TACTICAL and STRATEGICAL solution, then the AI  should definitely do it, else it's just a very dumb AI. It is not a mechanical exploit, it's simply doing the best tactical and strategical choice.
A cloacking system does not breaks balance either if it is very ineffective, or extremely costly. Of the two, I'd prefer the extremely costly way, because that does not imply dice rolls that I may win or lose just because of luck. A costly cloacking system means my successes or failures would be the results of my planning, not blind luck.
If cloacking is cheap and effective then it's just completely out-of-wack balance wise

If it is relatively cheap, then as I wrote  before I can and should build (and the AI should too!) lots of kamikaze cheap ships and flood the enemy territory with them, because they cannot prevent me from doing that!

I don't even need to do that. I can simply make cloacked ships which are faster than the enemy. They don't even need to be that cheap. Just make them faster, and flood the enemy systems with them. Once I'm through a blockade, how is the enemy going to stop me? Jump point defense is the only real defense against an enemy decently faster than me. If that becomes meaningless the only solution is to defend a few key locations with orbital defense bases. How long before that becomes untenable? How long before I control your systems, and you're relegated to staying close to your planets?

Sure, they will eventually all be hunted down, but so what? If they deal more damage than their cost, it is well worth the effort! Plus I disrupt the enemy and probably force him to mobilize his fleets, which makes him weaker in a lot of places.

A cheap and effective cloaking system completely breaks any semblance of balance. In fact, its' not asymmetrical warfare at all, it becomes the new normal. It becomes the default solution that every ship should mount, because it can be useful in so many ways both offensively and defensively that building a ship without such cloaking system is suboptimal. Not to mention the extreme tedium involved in the result of having a bazillion one-ship task forces in every system, trying to harass OR prevent harassment from the enemy

And once again, it has nothing to do with roleplay. That is that, this is this. Have you looked at  the attrition rate of airplanes, tanks and infantry in either of the world wars? How many suicide or bordeline suicide operations were conducted? How many lives and equipment thrown in the meatgrinder? And even more so in an space war against aliens which may eat you or turn you into fertilizer?
In a struggle-for-survival war EVERYTHING is completely expendable. You are afforded the luxury of being concerned about losses only if you are so superior compared to your enemy that you're going to win anyway. Or if the consequences of losing are small. The best way to fight in a serious war is always the most cost effective one, and so if kamikaze ships are the best possible solution, you can bet they will be used.

[Jorgen_CAB (OP)]

The AI will only do what it is programmed to do. The AI would not be programmed to flood you with cloaked ships, only use them for scouting and raiding purposes. What you as a player use it for is up to you.

Sorry but I have to strongly disagree with this. This is not a case of "using size one missile salvo to overwhelm PD because I'm abusing the fire control mechanics". THAT is an exploit and the AI should not do it.

If what you propose is implemented the way you wrote, that using "cloacks" is the best TACTICAL and STRATEGICAL solution, then the AI  should definitely do it, else it's just a very dumb AI. It is not a mechanical exploit, it's simply doing the best tactical and strategical choice.
A cloacking system does not breaks balance either if it is very ineffective, or extremely costly. Of the two, I'd prefer the extremely costly way, because that does not imply dice rolls that I may win or lose just because of luck. A costly cloacking system means my successes or failures would be the results of my planning, not blind luck.
If cloacking is cheap and effective then it's just completely out-of-wack balance wise

If it is relatively cheap, then as I wrote  before I can and should build (and the AI should too!) lots of kamikaze cheap ships and flood the enemy territory with them, because they cannot prevent me from doing that!

I don't even need to do that. I can simply make cloacked ships which are faster than the enemy. They don't even need to be that cheap. Just make them faster, and flood the enemy systems with them. Once I'm through a blockade, how is the enemy going to stop me? Jump point defense is the only real defense against an enemy decently faster than me. If that becomes meaningless the only solution is to defend a few key locations with orbital defense bases. How long before that becomes untenable? How long before I control your systems, and you're relegated to staying close to your planets?

Sure, they will eventually all be hunted down, but so what? If they deal more damage than their cost, it is well worth the effort! Plus I disrupt the enemy and probably force him to mobilize his fleets, which makes him weaker in a lot of places.

A cheap and effective cloaking system completely breaks any semblance of balance. In fact, its' not asymmetrical warfare at all, it becomes the new normal. It becomes the default solution that every ship should mount, because it can be useful in so many ways both offensively and defensively that building a ship without such cloaking system is suboptimal. Not to mention the extreme tedium involved in the result of having a bazillion one-ship task forces in every system, trying to harass OR prevent harassment from the enemy

And once again, it has nothing to do with roleplay. That is that, this is this. Have you looked at  the attrition rate of airplanes, tanks and infantry in either of the world wars? How many suicide or bordeline suicide operations were conducted? How many lives and equipment thrown in the meatgrinder? And even more so in an space war against aliens which may eat you or turn you into fertilizer?
In a struggle-for-survival war EVERYTHING is completely expendable. You are afforded the luxury of being concerned about losses only if you are so superior compared to your enemy that you're going to win anyway. Or if the consequences of losing are small. The best way to fight in a serious war is always the most cost effective one, and so if kamikaze ships are the best possible solution, you can bet they will be used.

Well, the cost would not be cheap so I don't see how this is even remotely in line or an argument against having such cloaking technology in the game. My mentioning the AI is because of the fact that it is not economically viable to do what you suggest...look at what is needed for this to work... and defenses against it would be far cheaper too.

But it would be viable as a roleplay thing as you can SM all the needed tech for a faction for example... That is what I meant.

You might gain an advantage some times and sometimes not... but is that not the point about balance?