Main Forum Container minimized. Expand Tweet Stealth Ships Revealed--What was GSF's META supposed to be? 8 replies Yallia Posts: 1,110 Votes: +322 Level 7 LEVEL 7 Fleet Architect Awards: 8 The Stealth Class

As many of you know BW developed a stealth class for GSF that was never added due to balancing issues. From the information collected, the stealth class seems like it was designed to be a close range attack class (think BLC range) that features stealth cooldowns of various duration and AOE effects. I'm imagining something like a bunch of stealth T1/T2 scouts--no wonder they had balancing issues. This class was developed at the start of GSF, not a mere afterthought once they released bombers. They had developed the models, textures, and ship icons and descriptions. All the assets are in place including the calls for rendering of the models so they can be used. This class was ready for release, but they couldn't balance it without breaking GSF I guess. They even produced 5 different color schemes for the ships. They must have been very disappointed not to make this class work, there was a lot of work here. It's as though when GSF didn't match expectations, the plug was suddenly pulled on the whole project. Seems like our GSF isn't complete at all, instead it was like a proof of concept project that the community rejected and therefore the devs stopped work on it. Some of this info has appeared here and there, but this is the only post to my knowledge that basically gives all the info including models and stats. Enjoy!



Stealth Class: Infiltrator

Number of Ships: 6 (4 Imp, 4 pub), each side has the same Cartel Market ship (last pic).



Ship Specifications



Blasters

Weapon Power Capacity 100

Weapon Power Modifiers 110%/100%/95%

Weapon Power Regen Rate 10

when consumed 4

Weapon Power Regen Delay 1.5



Shield

Shield Power Capacity (per Arc) 1500

Shield Power Capacity Modifiers 120%/100%/90%

Shield Power Regen Rate (per Arc) 150

when consumed 0

Shield Power Regen Delay 6

Shield Bleed Through 0



Hull

Max Health 1350

Damage Reduction 0

Evasion 5%



Engines

Engine Power Capacity 100

Engine Power Modifiers 120%/100%/90%

Engine Power Regen Rate 5

when recently consumed 2

Engine Power Regen Delay 3

Engine Speed unsure, probably close to a strike's speed but slightly slower.

Pitch 1.58

Yaw 0.96

Afterburner Speed Boost 320

Afterburner Maneuverability (Turn) Modifier 25%

Afterburner Maneuverability Regen Time 2

Afterburner Activation Cost 6

Afterburner Consumption Rate 12



Sensors

Sensor Detection Range 15000

Sensor Focused Detection Range 16500

Sensor Focused Detection Arc 1500

Sensor Communication Range 7500

Sensor Dampening 10000







Imperial Ships:



ICA-2B Frostburn (cost 2500 fleet req): The Chiss Ascendancy and the Sith Empire co-developed much of their basic stealth technology (without which cloaking devices would be useless), and construction of the ICA-2B Frostburn is performed deep in Chiss space. The Frostburn is the infiltrator against which all others are matched, able to cloak and interfere with enemy sensors, close in on a foe, and eliminate that foe with powerful short-range primary and secondary weapons. A pilot who fails to execute an enemy quickly, however, must be mindful of the vessel's weak shielding.



ICA-3A - Sable Claw (cost 5000 fleet req): Like the ICA-2B, the ICA-3A Sable Claw is built in Chiss space--but unlike other infiltrator-class ships, the Sable Claw is designed to couple stealth tactics with dogfighting techniques. The Sable Claw has improved defenses, carries more versatile primary weapons and can equip a variety of secondaries other infiltrators cannot (including long-range ship-to-ship missiles). What the Sable Claw gains in combat capability, it loses in sensor capacity and maneuverability; its cloak, however, remains the key to victory.



ICA-X Tormentor (cost 5000 fleet req): Darth Mekhis herself developed the prototype for the ICA-X Tormentor and instructed Chiss engineers on how to bring her fearsome vision to life. This infiltrator-class vessel eschews high-damage secondary weapons in favor of weapons that disable, and it can be equipped with a wide array of technologies designed to baffle foes' sensors. Perhaps most notable is the Tormentor's cloaking field, which can extend to encompass allies--allowing the use of terrifying, otherwise impossible team tactics.



Republic Ships



X5-Whisper (2500 fleet req): Rumors suggest extensive collaboration between the Republic SIS and Kuat Drive Yards during the design of the X5-Whisper--a collaboration which supposedly excluded the Republic Navy. But regardless of its origins, the Whisper is a deadly assassin of a starfighter, possessing powerful short-range primary and secondary weapons along with its cloak and sensor interference systems. When used correctly, a Whisper can hunt down isolated targets, eliminate them at point-blank range, then vanish back into stealth.



X7-Mirage (5000 fleet req): The Kuat Drive Yards X7-Mirage is built to cause chaos, using a variety of prototype technologies to wreak havoc on enemy sensors. Its cloaking field is even capable of hiding allies, allowing a Mirage pilot to coordinate a whole squadron executing an ambush. The Mirage's raw damage output is less than that of its peers, however--its secondary weapons are oriented toward disabling, not destroying. Note that officially, the existence of the Mirage is still classified by the Republic Navy.



Banshee (5000 fleet req): Much to the surprise of competitors, Corellia StarDrive recently agreed to co-develop with Kuat Drive Yards a combat-hardened version of the infiltrator class. The Banshee (named for a Corellian bird of prey) carries versatile primary weapons and can equip a wide array of secondaries--including long-range ship-to-ship missiles, rewriting the rules of engagement for infiltrators. Additional defenses help keep Banshees in the fight, but their maneuverability and sensors can't match those of infiltrators such as the X7-Mirage or the X5-Whisper.



SHIP COMPONENTS

Ship Frostburn/Whispher Tormentor/Mirage Sable Claw/Banshee Primary BLC BLC/LLC BLC/Flank/RFL Secondary Graviton Charges/Ion Burst Hull Charges/Plasma Lance Clusters/Ion Burst/Plasma Lance Systems Decoy Beacon/Jamming Field/Mimic/Remote Slicing Jamming Field/Mimic/Remote Slicing Decoy Beacon/Jamming Field/Mimic Engines Koiogran Turn/Power Dive/Retro/Xfer to Shields Koiogran Turn/Power Dive/Retro/Interdiction Drive/xfer to weapons Koiogran Turn/Power Dive/Retro/Interdiction Drive/xfer to weapons Shields Cloak Projector/Cloaking Device Cloak Projector/Cloaking Device/Combat Cloaking Cloaking Device/Combat Cloaking Sensors Comm/Range/Dampening Comm/Range/Dampening Comm/Range/Dampening Armor Lightweight/Reinforced/Deflection N/A ]Lightweight/Reinforced/Deflection Capacitor N/A Range/Damage/Freq Range/Damage/Freq Magazine N/A N/A Power/Ammo/Regen Reactor Large/Turbo/Regen Large/Turbo/Regen N/A Thruster Power/Speed/Turning/Regen Power/Speed/Turning/Regen N/A

New Weapon Specifications

Not all the new weapons have specs for them, I've listed the ones that I have found:



NEW PRIMARY WEAPON:



Flank Cannon (MAG Cannon)

"Manufactured by the Colicoid Creation Nest but of unknown design, the Shrike-class mag cannon rapidly fires a spray of magnetic pellets. Shields are largely ineffective against mag cannons, allowing a significant amount of their damage to apply directly to an enemy's hull. While the cannon is technically no less damaging at longer distances, its inaccuracy makes engagements outside of close range inadvisable."

Range: 500-3000-6000

Damage: 738 DPS ( assuming at 3000 meters)

Rate of Fire: 80 RPM

Power Draw: 18

Arc: 32

Tracking Penalty = 1.2 %/degree



*Same RPM as BLC but much longer range, although less powerful. Reminds me of a cross between HLC and BLC. Very interesting weapon. Not sure what the upgrades were going to be but appears a bit OP atm.



NEW SECONDARY WEAPONS:



Graviton Charges

"Borallis's experimental Compressor graviton charges lock onto enemy vessels like missiles but have a very short range. A graviton charge that hits its target magnetically affixes to the enemy ship and generates its own gravitational field, reducing the ship's speed and maneuverability and causing minor hull damage over a short time period. Graviton charge launchers require a lengthy recharge time; charges cannot be launched in rapid succession."

Range: 3000 meters

Damage 420

Lock-on time: 3 sec

Reload: 12 sec

Ammo: 16

Firing arc: 28 degrees

Had snares (turning and speed)



Hull Charges

"Hull charges are launched towards nearby ships, where they stick to the ship hull and detonate after a short duration. They work like lock-on missiles, but have a very short maximum range and a fairly long cooldown time. They do good damage, and completely ignore their target's shield."

Range: 3000 meters

Damage 745

Lock-on time: 3 sec

Reload: 12 sec

Ammo: 20

Firing arc: 28 degrees

Shield Ignore: 100%



Plasma Lance

"A vessel armed with Czerka's ZN-1 heavy plasma lance can unleash a cone of superheated plasma directly ahead, powerful enough to instantly consume light starfighters. Czerka officially ceased production of the plasma lance some years ago due to legal concerns, but schematics have found their way to both Republic and Imperial arms manufacturers."

Range: 1000 meters

Damage: unknown but must be very high

Firing Arc: 18 degrees

Cooldown: 30 seconds



Ion Burst

"Built by the Santhe Corporation for use by pilots able to close in on their prey, the I-01 radial burst energizer unleashes a short-range ion wave that causes massive shield damage and drains power from enemies in all directions."

Range: 1000 meters

Damage: unknown

Firing Arc: 360 degrees

Cooldown: 30 seconds



NEW SYSTEMS



Decoy Beacon : "Appropriately equipped ships can deploy Santhe ECHO-X decoy beacons--unarmed but well-shielded and armored drones that, thanks to holograms and faked sensor signatures, appear identical to the deploying vessel. The decoy is capable of breaking missile locks and drawing fire, but after traveling forward a short distance will hold its position until its power is drained after a moderate time span."



Jamming Field : ""Drastically" reduces the communications of other ships, so they can't relay position data."



Mimic : " The 79X04 IFF mimic allows a ship to broadcast a false identification signature, appearing as an ally on enemy sensors for a short duration. Available primarily through Nar Shaddaa black markets, the 79X04 is rumored to be programmed by the Exchange crime syndicate."



NEW SHIELDS



These ships all had stealth shields of some kind but no explanations have been given but I think we can make some good guesses.



Shadow Sensors: A Mirrorshard sensor shadow array allows a ship to appear as multiple vessels flying together on enemy sensors. The Mirrorshard array is manufactured by the Umbaran government, provided to outsiders through treaties and intermediaries.



Cloak Projector: Had to be the ability to cloak multiple ships, this is described in the tooltip for the T2 ship (Tormentor/Mirage).



Cloaking Device: Rumors abound regarding the origin of GSI's cloaking technologies, but no one can argue about the end result: the GSI Deep Eclipse starfighter cloaking device is among the galaxy's best. Once activated, the Deep Eclipse's cloak has a very long duration and can be toggled on or off outside of combat. If a cloaked ship suffers damage, triggers weapons or activates another ship system, the cloak immediately fails.



Combat Cloaking: Could be that you could stealth during a battle or taking damage?



Changes in the Meta:



T1: Frostburn/Whispher

T2: Tormentor/Mirage

T3: Sable Claw/Banshee



The devs called the T1 the disabler, T2 ambusher, and T3 combat. These were their shorthand names. Interesting to see it because they had shorthand names for everything, which shows how they thought about the ships. For sake of completeness here is how the devs viewed the ships



Scouts:

T1 = speed

T2 = battle

T3 = support

Strike:

T1 = fighter

T2 = attack

T3 = command

Gunship

T1 = sniper

T2 = missile_skiff

T3 = attack_skiff

Bomber

T1 = mine_layer

T2 = drone_carrier

T3 = fighter

Infiltrator

T1 = disabler

T2 = ambush

T3 = combat



The ship specs for the stealth class are a bit surprising. The hull health is higher than both GS and scout, I was thinking it might be a paper-thin ship class, but that's not the case. The shields are also respectable, a bit below strikes, but not bad. Same evasion as strikes. It's a very interesting class because you don't have the engines of a scout or the range weapons of a strike. It's going to be able to deliver high burst damage if you can get at that magical 1000 meters range and use plasma lance or something, but that's not trivial to do. Without the engines of a scout it's going to be a constant struggle with engine power management. If the stealth ship gets caught without cover it's basically toothless and dead. To play it you'd have to be very sneaky, makes sense since it's a stealth class.



It seems that with the stealth class the meta would be stealth counters GS, GS counters bombers, bombers counter scout, and scout counters stealth. Strikes are still unclear. I still think they were designed to be utility, which with the right weapons is OK. For example, look at Flank Cannon, that should be on a strike.



As the game stands GS are very annoying at times because countering isn't easy. Scouts do counter them, but not as well as many in the forums think. In our competitive TDM matches often times the only thing our scouts can do is make GS move. That's good, but sometimes you cannot even do that if their bombers are playing well, it's like being a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. And the scout's effectiveness is sometimes quite questionable. But imagine the stealth class. First, having GS walls would be a lot harder, if you had stealth ships destealth at 500 meters and use plasma lance-BOOM. A GS can't see stealth ships with their shields ability active, so it's a natural counter to the GS. How you would beat this is that you need SENSOR BEACON. It's funny saying it, but the bloodmark would be absolutely necessary in a serious match because the decloaking of sensor beacon protects the GS.



Imagine a T2 stealth build using:

BLC

Plasma Lance

Power Dive

Cloaking Projector

Sensor Dampening

Large Shields

Regen Thruster



You pop cloaking projector, stealth several of your units and insert them into the middle of that GS wall. In the mean time you have your T1 GS ion to neutralize bomber spam. It's a much better way to break the GS/bomber ball. I think the whole GS/bomber exists because stealth isn't there. If they designed all the classes with stealth in mind it makes sense.The game was never designed to be stealthless, it is a very important mechanic that was abandoned in the 11th hour. The game isn't balanced now without stealth. The support ships also become hugely important, like the bloodmark and the Imperium. The Imperium would be great to stealth insert into the middle of a bomber ball. Also the ability remote slicing could be quite useful against stealth ships because it disables their systems ability. Remember that 5th tier of remote slicing disables a ship's shield ability--stealth ships cannot stealth without their shield ability. Also, I was thinking that maybe Plasma Railgun has a purpose here. If you can't stealth while taking damage, that 7 sec DOT is very important. You've decreased the target's evasion by 10% and now they can't stealth for 7 sec. Also, everyone cites the increased accuracy of slug as one of slug's advantages over plasma. However, plasma doesn't need the increased accuracy because stealth ships have the same evasion as strikes. So you could run a mangler with slug/plasma, OR a T2 with Slug and Plasma. The T2 actually wouldn't be bad against stealth. You have two good railguns, HLC, BR for getting away.



Right now Burst is the king of close range fighting, but that changes with stealth, are you really going to want to burst joust something with Plasma Lance? Sensor Detection Range is super important now too. Many of the game's previously mysterious design choices now make sense if viewed through the perspective of a 5 ship class game. I've mentioned a few above, but I'm sure you guys can expand on that :) . Too bad BW can't get back into developing space/GSF gameplay for SWTOR. They had some excellent ideas, which in the case of stealth ships, were far more than just ideas on the white board.



The most interesting thing about this info is how it would change the META. What do you guys think? As many of you know BW developed a stealth class for GSF that was never added due to balancing issues. From the information collected, the stealth class seems like it was designed to be a close range attack class (think BLC range) that features stealth cooldowns of various duration and AOE effects. I'm imagining something like a bunch of stealth T1/T2 scouts--no wonder they had balancing issues. This class was developed at the start of GSF, not a mere afterthought once they released bombers. They had developed the models, textures, and ship icons and descriptions. All the assets are in place including the calls for rendering of the models so they can be used. This class was ready for release, but they couldn't balance it without breaking GSF I guess. They even produced 5 different color schemes for the ships. They must have been very disappointed not to make this class work, there was a lot of work here. It's as though when GSF didn't match expectations, the plug was suddenly pulled on the whole project. Seems like our GSF isn't complete at all, instead it was like a proof of concept project that the community rejected and therefore the devs stopped work on it. Some of this info has appeared here and there, but this is the only post to my knowledge that basically gives all the info including models and stats. Enjoy!Infiltrator6 (4 Imp, 4 pub), each side has the same Cartel Market ship (last pic).Weapon Power Capacity 100Weapon Power Modifiers 110%/100%/95%Weapon Power Regen Rate 10when consumed 4Weapon Power Regen Delay 1.5Shield Power Capacity (per Arc) 1500Shield Power Capacity Modifiers 120%/100%/90%Shield Power Regen Rate (per Arc) 150when consumed 0Shield Power Regen Delay 6Shield Bleed Through 0Max Health 1350Damage Reduction 0Evasion 5%Engine Power Capacity 100Engine Power Modifiers 120%/100%/90%Engine Power Regen Rate 5when recently consumed 2Engine Power Regen Delay 3Engine Speed unsure, probably close to a strike's speed but slightly slower.Pitch 1.58Yaw 0.96Afterburner Speed Boost 320Afterburner Maneuverability (Turn) Modifier 25%Afterburner Maneuverability Regen Time 2Afterburner Activation Cost 6Afterburner Consumption Rate 12Sensor Detection Range 15000Sensor Focused Detection Range 16500Sensor Focused Detection Arc 1500Sensor Communication Range 7500Sensor Dampening 10000The Chiss Ascendancy and the Sith Empire co-developed much of their basic stealth technology (without which cloaking devices would be useless), and construction of the ICA-2B Frostburn is performed deep in Chiss space. The Frostburn is the infiltrator against which all others are matched, able to cloak and interfere with enemy sensors, close in on a foe, and eliminate that foe with powerful short-range primary and secondary weapons. A pilot who fails to execute an enemy quickly, however, must be mindful of the vessel's weak shielding.Like the ICA-2B, the ICA-3A Sable Claw is built in Chiss space--but unlike other infiltrator-class ships, the Sable Claw is designed to couple stealth tactics with dogfighting techniques. The Sable Claw has improved defenses, carries more versatile primary weapons and can equip a variety of secondaries other infiltrators cannot (including long-range ship-to-ship missiles). What the Sable Claw gains in combat capability, it loses in sensor capacity and maneuverability; its cloak, however, remains the key to victory.Darth Mekhis herself developed the prototype for the ICA-X Tormentor and instructed Chiss engineers on how to bring her fearsome vision to life. This infiltrator-class vessel eschews high-damage secondary weapons in favor of weapons that disable, and it can be equipped with a wide array of technologies designed to baffle foes' sensors. Perhaps most notable is the Tormentor's cloaking field, which can extend to encompass allies--allowing the use of terrifying, otherwise impossible team tactics.Rumors suggest extensive collaboration between the Republic SIS and Kuat Drive Yards during the design of the X5-Whisper--a collaboration which supposedly excluded the Republic Navy. But regardless of its origins, the Whisper is a deadly assassin of a starfighter, possessing powerful short-range primary and secondary weapons along with its cloak and sensor interference systems. When used correctly, a Whisper can hunt down isolated targets, eliminate them at point-blank range, then vanish back into stealth.The Kuat Drive Yards X7-Mirage is built to cause chaos, using a variety of prototype technologies to wreak havoc on enemy sensors. Its cloaking field is even capable of hiding allies, allowing a Mirage pilot to coordinate a whole squadron executing an ambush. The Mirage's raw damage output is less than that of its peers, however--its secondary weapons are oriented toward disabling, not destroying. Note that officially, the existence of the Mirage is still classified by the Republic Navy.Much to the surprise of competitors, Corellia StarDrive recently agreed to co-develop with Kuat Drive Yards a combat-hardened version of the infiltrator class. The Banshee (named for a Corellian bird of prey) carries versatile primary weapons and can equip a wide array of secondaries--including long-range ship-to-ship missiles, rewriting the rules of engagement for infiltrators. Additional defenses help keep Banshees in the fight, but their maneuverability and sensors can't match those of infiltrators such as the X7-Mirage or the X5-Whisper.New Weapon SpecificationsNot all the new weapons have specs for them, I've listed the ones that I have found:"Manufactured by the Colicoid Creation Nest but of unknown design, the Shrike-class mag cannon rapidly fires a spray of magnetic pellets. Shields are largely ineffective against mag cannons, allowing a significant amount of their damage to apply directly to an enemy's hull. While the cannon is technically no less damaging at longer distances, its inaccuracy makes engagements outside of close range inadvisable."Range: 500-3000-6000Damage: 738 DPS ( assuming at 3000 meters)Rate of Fire: 80 RPMPower Draw: 18Arc: 32Tracking Penalty = 1.2 %/degree*Same RPM as BLC but much longer range, although less powerful. Reminds me of a cross between HLC and BLC. Very interesting weapon. Not sure what the upgrades were going to be but appears a bit OP atm."Borallis's experimental Compressor graviton charges lock onto enemy vessels like missiles but have a very short range. A graviton charge that hits its target magnetically affixes to the enemy ship and generates its own gravitational field, reducing the ship's speed and maneuverability and causing minor hull damage over a short time period. Graviton charge launchers require a lengthy recharge time; charges cannot be launched in rapid succession."Range: 3000 metersDamage 420Lock-on time: 3 secReload: 12 secAmmo: 16Firing arc: 28 degreesHad snares (turning and speed)"Hull charges are launched towards nearby ships, where they stick to the ship hull and detonate after a short duration. They work like lock-on missiles, but have a very short maximum range and a fairly long cooldown time. They do good damage, and completely ignore their target's shield."Range: 3000 metersDamage 745Lock-on time: 3 secReload: 12 secAmmo: 20Firing arc: 28 degreesShield Ignore: 100%"A vessel armed with Czerka's ZN-1 heavy plasma lance can unleash a cone of superheated plasma directly ahead, powerful enough to instantly consume light starfighters. Czerka officially ceased production of the plasma lance some years ago due to legal concerns, but schematics have found their way to both Republic and Imperial arms manufacturers."Range: 1000 metersDamage: unknown but must be very highFiring Arc: 18 degreesCooldown: 30 seconds"Built by the Santhe Corporation for use by pilots able to close in on their prey, the I-01 radial burst energizer unleashes a short-range ion wave that causes massive shield damage and drains power from enemies in all directions."Range: 1000 metersDamage: unknownFiring Arc: 360 degreesCooldown: 30 seconds: "Appropriately equipped ships can deploy Santhe ECHO-X decoy beacons--unarmed but well-shielded and armored drones that, thanks to holograms and faked sensor signatures, appear identical to the deploying vessel. The decoy is capable of breaking missile locks and drawing fire, but after traveling forward a short distance will hold its position until its power is drained after a moderate time span.": ""Drastically" reduces the communications of other ships, so they can't relay position data.": " The 79X04 IFF mimic allows a ship to broadcast a false identification signature, appearing as an ally on enemy sensors for a short duration. Available primarily through Nar Shaddaa black markets, the 79X04 is rumored to be programmed by the Exchange crime syndicate."These ships all had stealth shields of some kind but no explanations have been given but I think we can make some good guesses.A Mirrorshard sensor shadow array allows a ship to appear as multiple vessels flying together on enemy sensors. The Mirrorshard array is manufactured by the Umbaran government, provided to outsiders through treaties and intermediaries.Had to be the ability to cloak multiple ships, this is described in the tooltip for the T2 ship (Tormentor/Mirage).Rumors abound regarding the origin of GSI's cloaking technologies, but no one can argue about the end result: the GSI Deep Eclipse starfighter cloaking device is among the galaxy's best. Once activated, the Deep Eclipse's cloak has a very long duration and can be toggled on or off outside of combat. If a cloaked ship suffers damage, triggers weapons or activates another ship system, the cloak immediately fails.Could be that you could stealth during a battle or taking damage?T1: Frostburn/WhispherT2: Tormentor/MirageT3: Sable Claw/BansheeThe devs called the T1 the disabler, T2 ambusher, and T3 combat. These were their shorthand names. Interesting to see it because they had shorthand names for everything, which shows how they thought about the ships. For sake of completeness here is how the devs viewed the shipsT1 = speedT2 = battleT3 = supportT1 = fighterT2 = attackT3 = commandT1 = sniperT2 = missile_skiffT3 = attack_skiffT1 = mine_layerT2 = drone_carrierT3 = fighterT1 = disablerT2 = ambushT3 = combatThe ship specs for the stealth class are a bit surprising. The hull health is higher than both GS and scout, I was thinking it might be a paper-thin ship class, but that's not the case. The shields are also respectable, a bit below strikes, but not bad. Same evasion as strikes. It's a very interesting class because you don't have the engines of a scout or the range weapons of a strike. It's going to be able to deliver high burst damage if you can get at that magical 1000 meters range and use plasma lance or something, but that's not trivial to do. Without the engines of a scout it's going to be a constant struggle with engine power management. If the stealth ship gets caught without cover it's basically toothless and dead. To play it you'd have to be very sneaky, makes sense since it's a stealth class.It seems that with the stealth class the meta would beStrikes are still unclear. I still think they were designed to be utility, which with the right weapons is OK. For example, look at Flank Cannon, that should be on a strike.As the game stands GS are very annoying at times because countering isn't easy. Scouts do counter them, but not as well as many in the forums think. In our competitive TDM matches often times the only thing our scouts can do is make GS move. That's good, but sometimes you cannot even do that if their bombers are playing well, it's like being a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. And the scout's effectiveness is sometimes quite questionable. But imagine the stealth class. First, having GS walls would be a lot harder, if you had stealth ships destealth at 500 meters and use plasma lance-BOOM. A GS can't see stealth ships with their shields ability active, so it's a natural counter to the GS. How you would beat this is that youSENSOR BEACON. It's funny saying it, but the bloodmark would be absolutely necessary in a serious match because the decloaking of sensor beacon protects the GS.Imagine a T2 stealth build using:BLCPlasma LancePower DiveCloaking ProjectorSensor DampeningLarge ShieldsRegen ThrusterYou pop cloaking projector, stealth several of your units and insert them into the middle of that GS wall. In the mean time you have your T1 GS ion to neutralize bomber spam. It's a much better way to break the GS/bomber ball.If they designed all the classes with stealth in mind it makes sense.The game was never designed to be stealthless, it is a very important mechanic that was abandoned in the 11th hour. The game isn't balanced now without stealth. The support ships also become hugely important, like the bloodmark and the Imperium. The Imperium would be great to stealth insert into the middle of a bomber ball. Also the ability remote slicing could be quite useful against stealth ships because it disables their systems ability. Remember that 5th tier of remote slicing disables a ship's shield ability--stealth ships cannot stealth without their shield ability. Also, I was thinking that maybe Plasma Railgun has a purpose here. If you can't stealth while taking damage, that 7 sec DOT is very important. You've decreased the target's evasion by 10% and now they can't stealth for 7 sec. Also, everyone cites the increased accuracy of slug as one of slug's advantages over plasma. However, plasma doesn't need the increased accuracy because stealth ships have the same evasion as strikes. So you could run a mangler with slug/plasma, OR a T2 with Slug and Plasma. The T2 actually wouldn't be bad against stealth. You have two good railguns, HLC, BR for getting away.Right now Burst is the king of close range fighting, but that changes with stealth, are you really going to want to burst joust something with Plasma Lance? Sensor Detection Range is super important now too. Many of the game's previously mysterious design choices now make sense if viewed through the perspective of a 5 ship class game. I've mentioned a few above, but I'm sure you guys can expand on that. Too bad BW can't get back into developing space/GSF gameplay for SWTOR. They had some excellent ideas, which in the case of stealth ships, were far more than just ideas on the white board.The most interesting thing about this info is how it would change the META. What do you guys think? Attached Images Posted Jun 2, 16 · OP · Last edited Jun 7, 16 Like x 8 x 8 List Undo Yallia Posts: 1,110 Votes: +322 Level 7 LEVEL 7 Fleet Architect Awards: 8 Updated for consumption. Posted Jun 7, 16 · OP Vexxial Posts: 1,352 Votes: +353 Level 7 LEVEL 7 Fleet Administrator Awards: 9 I think that some abilities which we previously thought were "broken" make more sense in this new context. Lingering effect comes to mind especially, as its DoT does hardly any damage, but it would effectively prevent any ship being affected by the DoT unable to return to the safety of its stealth field (which I assume would mean the ship would no longer be able to be targeted). Plasma railgun, sensor beacon, and even fortress shield (to counter the surprise attack of the plasma lance) would become useful in this new dynamic.



Food for thought Posted Jun 8, 16 Like x 2 x 2 List Undo Close-shave Posts: 1,002 Votes: +266 Level 6 LEVEL 6 Fleet Captain Awards: 7 Looking at the components, I think it was probably for the best that they never released this... All of these ships appear to have the weapons and capabilities to reach close range and demolish a single ship or more in quick succession. BLCs are already strong, the new blasters seem to be almost the same with the advantage of range (and probably the accuracy drop off of lasers/quads).



Seeing as the only counter to those ships would be sensor beacon (which gimps a ship's offense) and TT (which you'd have to be pretty lucky to get a stealther with), it's good that they're out for now. I'd love to see them in the game, but with balanced components. Posted Jun 8, 16 · Last edited Jun 8, 16 Like x 1 x 1 List Undo kittenmitt0ns Posts: 789 Votes: +398 Level 7 LEVEL 7 SRW Recruit Awards: 7 It seems like GS would lean more towards Fortress Shield for this. They could eat the primaries while the secondary could possibly ignore shields, but has a long reload time. The kicker is the enemy has to sneak up literally on top of them to do real damage. 1000m? How many of us actually reliably get up that close when we engage?

I could see using this to pick off stray GS's away from their nest and then forcing them to ball up to defend one another.

Makes you wonder if they did play test with these ships and they couldn't figure out how to make it work (maybe they imagined a full team of these ships stacking and striking at once kind of like old Smash Jugs in arenas). Posted Jun 8, 16 Pseudovector Posts: 420 Votes: +136 Level 5 LEVEL 5 Fleet Lieutenant Awards: 6 Your analysis of the meta with stealth ships seems quite reasonable.



The chassis specs do look quite similar to a strike, but with much higher sensor dampening and slightly less hull and shield.



With potentially 16000m sensor dampening, you theoretically could get right on top of non scouts that only have base sensor range without being detected, without using cloaking devices, assuming you aren't detected by another ship and there isn't another mechanic that will cause the ship to detect you sooner despite the sensor dampening.

All 3 of the stealth ships would be able to do this.



The Flank cannon does look a bit OP. The description suggests that it does most or all of its damage to directly to hull (100% or close to 100% shield piercing) and does the same damage at all ranges (similar to rocket pods). At ~550 damage/shot, that kills anything other than a bomber in 3 hits. At least nothing suggests it has armor penetration, otherwise it'd 4 shot even bombers.

Were there accuracy numbers for the Flank cannon?

The accuracy could make it less OP by being really low at max range, but it seems like it might have to be near 0 at max range to not be OP. The description does suggest this might be the case.



Graviton Charges and Hull Charges seem like they'd be very difficult to lock on in 3s, given their range is 3km, in addition to the usual problems missiles have w/ so many ships having multiple missile breaks.



Plasma Lance does look quite powerful.

The statement "powerful enough to instantly consume light starfighters" suggests that it might 1 shot scouts; damage could be ~2k per shot.



Ion Burst looks like it needs something else to follow up with hull damage to be effective.

It's hard to tell whether the 1km radius is too small to be a useful AOE, or how much larger it can be without being OP.



Decoy Beacon seems like a nice idea, but I wonder whether they will be too easy to distinguish from actual human piloted ships to be useful. I've heard that there are AI's for some games that are pretty hard to distinguish from humans, but I doubt SWTOR can easily put that in the game; if the could, they could probably also create the PVE GSF content people have been asking for.



Mimic. Would this make you untargetable? Thus, nearly unhittable except by railguns?



Shadow Sensors don't appear to be on any ship.

Seems like it might have the same problem as Decoy Beacon: too easy to tell which is the human controlled ship.

It could still be useful in make a team not paying enough attention to over-rotate in defending a node that's only being attacked by 1-2 ships. Interestingly enough, this would be a tactic that works better against experienced players than newbs, but then, you wouldn’t need these kind of tactics to beat newbs.



It looks like we don't know much about the cloaking devices.

Duration and cooldown would be pretty important to figuring out how they can be used.

If there were no CD, since there isn't a combat state the way there is in the ground game, then there is the possibility that you could decloak, fire a few shots (or perhaps just 1), and immediately recloak. That may be OP, so there could be something to make sure you can't just immediately cloak. On the other hand, maybe it would be OK if there are enough counters, like shield disabling abilities and DoTs, as you said.



Cloak projector looks like it might be a good way to get bombers to a node without getting intercepted by gunships and scouts.



Would cloaked ships be able to capture/hold nodes?

In the Odessen warzone, stealthed players cannot, but that wouldn't necessarily have to be true in GSF.



I don't see anything in the description of Sensor Beacon that explicitly states that it can detect cloaked ships.

It would make sense for it to detect them, though.

Do we know what its range is?

Also, both the T1 and T3 scouts can have sensor beacon.



Would drones and turrets be able to shoot cloaked ships?

Would cloaked ships still trigger mines?

If they do, then stealth ships may be a very good counter to a gunship wall, but still have difficulty dealing with a bomberball.

You mention using ion AoE to clear bombers spam, but I find that in trying to countering a bomber ball, I usually end up just shooting gunships most of the game. If I don't I just get shot by gunships. If we can push away or kill all the gunships, only then do we have a chance to ion the bomber nest.

For example, the last match of the most recent super serious night (Zyrieas PoV doesn't really show this that clearly, since she was so focused on trying to kill bombers with her quads and pods Flashfire. Or maybe it does, considering how many times she was killed by railguns).



If a sensor beacon in the middle of the bomberball is all it takes to counter stealth ships, I'm not sure if they will really help that much against the bomberball, aside from forcing one of their ships to be something that would otherwise be suboptimal.

The bomberball w/ sensor beacon might be very hard to counter, despite the 1v1 meta being what you described. Posted Jun 13, 16 Like x 1 x 1 List Undo kittenmitt0ns Posts: 789 Votes: +398 Level 7 LEVEL 7 SRW Recruit Awards: 7 Sriia's ss match her team was outmatched. She charged in trying to get her team to move up and play more aggressively (by killing the enemy nest). It didn't work because she didn't receive much support (teammates moving up to ion enemy gs's targeting her). She knows her role as a scout well and how to disrupt GS/Bomber lines, but no one can do it alone.



Cracking a big nest takes more than any one ship type as I'm sure you're aware. It takes teamwork. If you add stealth into the mix you could have one sneak around and flank them. When the team begins their attack on the nest they would get the jump on the Ion gunship in the back and suddenly you don't have to worry about that Ion anymore. I don't think you'd really want more than one or two stealth on a team. It also seems like stealth would be more for TDM type games. I know as a GS I try to be aware of my surroundings as much as I can be while shooting others (minimap is my best friend), but if a stealth got the jump on me there's not much I could really do.



My guess is you can't take a node while stealthed, but turrets wouldn't shoot you either while stealthed.

Good question on the mines though. Posted Jun 13, 16 Like x 1 x 1 List Undo Rafeei Posts: 1 Votes: 0 LEVEL 0 SRW Recruit Herro Posted Jun 16, 16 Halkian Posts: 62 Votes: +33 Level 2 LEVEL 2 SRW Recruit Awards: 1 Rafeei wrote: Herro



First of all, thanks for compiling, organizing, and posting all of this info Yallia, it was a fascinating read.



I don't have many thoughts on how the META itself would change (though reading through the above posts has been very interesting), but there are a few things I would like comment on.



The first thing that struck me as odd when reading through the post, was the Frostburn/Whisperer's primary weapon options: just BLCs. While you can't really ask for a better option, I did find it hard to believe that there weren't any others. That would make it the only ship with any component that is limited to just one choice wouldn't it?



That observation aside, I can definitely see why they ended up leaving these ships out of the game. And though disappointing on some levels, I'm personally glad that they didn't make it in considering how the META has ended up in their absence. In fact, I'm surprised the META we're stuck with today is anything close to as balanced as it is given that it's missing not just one intended class in strike fighters, but two including stealths.



Again while it's difficult to see all of this GSF development time gone to waste, I think the game might be better off without them, even disregarding balance issues. For instance, so many matches of Starfighter are relatively uncoordinated pugs in which I can't imagine something like a stealth ship being competently used, particularly when trying to stealth teammates' ships. Just think of how difficult it is to determine where teammates are with respect to your own ship given the current UI, which makes using something like repair probes (or cloaking projectors) a challenge.



Granted the above paragraph is mostly irrelevant concerning voice premades, or perhaps if these cloaking abilities are much easier to use than I'm guessing (radius of over 5k?). Assuming there aren't any difficulties making use of cloaking, then that might bring with it an entire batch of issues on its own.



I can't help but think that if stealth ships were in GSF today that TDMs timing out would be the norm and not the exception. Games ending on time happens often enough as is, but just imagine if (on an eight player team) half of the players were stealthed for a large chunk of the game, on both teams. If you could only see 2-5 members of the opposing team at any one time regardless of where you are on the map then it seems as if the game would be greatly slowed down. Slow games involving gunship and bomber stacks are already a top complaint of GSF, but you can actually see the opposition in that situation.



Furthermore, if there was some degree of coordination involved, I fear that some games would end up with enemy scouts roaming the map with TT and sensor beacons fishing for the enemy team that got a lead and decided it was a good time to disappear. All that said, the above thoughts would hold almost no bearing on domination games, and I certainly may be overestimating the effect on TDMs.



My other concern about these ships is how much worse they might make the learning curve for gsf. I know there's no shortage of hacking complaints or stories of people "disappearing and then killing me out of nowhere" in the current version of gsf, when in reality nothing out of the ordinary ever took place, and the ships were always in plain sight if they had known where to look. The thought of trying to explain to a confused new starfighter player that "yes, there really could be a stealth ship right next to you at any given moment and you'd have no idea" is an unpleasant one. Most new players have enough trouble understanding what killed them without stealth involved.



Of course, I could be drastically overestimating the negatives that this ship class might bring with it, but this is what came to mind.



I think the number one disappointment for me upon reading this post was the realization that there are enough ship models completed and ready to fly in order to have cartel ship versions for all of the existing GSF ships, and it never happened. From what I understand, a few of the current cartel ship models were ripped from other parts of the game, so why they chose not to take advantage of already completed ship models that were actually designed for Starfighter is beyond me.



Is it just me or with a little imagination could the images in the OP be cartel versions for in order:

1) Condor/Jurgoran

2) Sledgehammer/Decimus

3) Rampart/Razorwire

4/5) Could maybe be T1/T3 scout cartels in a pinch, but this is where most of the imagination would come in...

6) Pike/Quell

7) Clarion/Imperium



Perhaps not, but this seems like such a missed opportunity to do just what they've done before for cartel ships in repurposing other models: there's even exactly the right number to give each ship it's own cartel version. The surprising part is that it was an opportunity to get some return on work they've more or less already done, and you'd think they'd be all for that right?



Anyhow, thanks again to Yallia for putting this together, and everyone else who responded with their thoughts: it was well worth the read. Hello there.First of all, thanks for compiling, organizing, and posting all of this info Yallia, it was a fascinating read.I don't have many thoughts on how the META itself would change (though reading through the above posts has been very interesting), but there are a few things I would like comment on.The first thing that struck me as odd when reading through the post, was the Frostburn/Whisperer's primary weapon options: just BLCs. While you can't really ask for a better option, I did find it hard to believe that there weren't any others. That would make it the only ship with any component that is limited to just one choice wouldn't it?That observation aside, I can definitely see why they ended up leaving these ships out of the game. And though disappointing on some levels, I'm personally glad that they didn't make it in considering how the META has ended up in their absence. In fact, I'm surprised the META we're stuck with today is anything close to as balanced as it is given that it's missing not just one intended class in strike fighters, but two including stealths.Again while it's difficult to see all of this GSF development time gone to waste, I think the game might be better off without them, even disregarding balance issues. For instance, so many matches of Starfighter are relatively uncoordinated pugs in which I can't imagine something like a stealth ship being competently used, particularly when trying to stealth teammates' ships. Just think of how difficult it is to determine where teammates are with respect to your own ship given the current UI, which makes using something like repair probes (or cloaking projectors) a challenge.Granted the above paragraph is mostly irrelevant concerning voice premades, or perhaps if these cloaking abilities are much easier to use than I'm guessing (radius of over 5k?). Assuming there aren't any difficulties making use of cloaking, then that might bring with it an entire batch of issues on its own.I can't help but think that if stealth ships were in GSF today that TDMs timing out would be the norm and not the exception. Games ending on time happens often enough as is, but just imagine if (on an eight player team) half of the players were stealthed for a large chunk of the game, on both teams. If you could only see 2-5 members of the opposing team at any one time regardless of where you are on the map then it seems as if the game would be greatly slowed down. Slow games involving gunship and bomber stacks are already a top complaint of GSF, but you can actually see the opposition in that situation.Furthermore, if there was some degree of coordination involved, I fear that some games would end up with enemy scouts roaming the map with TT and sensor beacons fishing for the enemy team that got a lead and decided it was a good time to disappear. All that said, the above thoughts would hold almost no bearing on domination games, and I certainly may be overestimating the effect on TDMs.My other concern about these ships is how much worse they might make the learning curve for gsf. I know there's no shortage of hacking complaints or stories of people "disappearing and then killing me out of nowhere" in the current version of gsf, when in reality nothing out of the ordinary ever took place, and the ships were always in plain sight if they had known where to look. The thought of trying to explain to a confused new starfighter player that "yes, there really could be a stealth ship right next to you at any given moment and you'd have no idea" is an unpleasant one. Most new players have enough trouble understanding what killed themstealth involved.Of course, I could be drastically overestimating the negatives that this ship class might bring with it, but this is what came to mind.I think the number one disappointment for me upon reading this post was the realization that there are enough ship models completed and ready to fly in order to have cartel ship versions for all of the existing GSF ships, and it never happened. From what I understand, a few of the current cartel ship models were ripped from other parts of the game, so why they chose not to take advantage of already completed ship models that were actually designed for Starfighter is beyond me.Is it just me or with a little imagination could the images in the OP be cartel versions for in order:1) Condor/Jurgoran2) Sledgehammer/Decimus3) Rampart/Razorwire4/5) Could maybe be T1/T3 scout cartels in a pinch, but this is where most of the imagination would come in...6) Pike/Quell7) Clarion/ImperiumPerhaps not, but this seems like such a missed opportunity to do just what they've done before for cartel ships in repurposing other models: there's even exactly the right number to give each ship it's own cartel version. The surprising part is that it was an opportunity to get some return on work they've more or less already done, and you'd think they'd be all for that right?Anyhow, thanks again to Yallia for putting this together, and everyone else who responded with their thoughts: it was well worth the read. Posted Jun 17, 16 Like x 1 x 1 List Undo Tweet Quick navigation ------------------------------------------------------------------ SRW Dreadnought Public Forum News & Annoucements Dreadnought Open Discussion Dreadnought Basics ------------------------------------------------------------------ SRW Dreadnought Private Forum Dreadnought Theory ------------------------------------------------------------------ SRW GSF Public Forum News & Announcements GSF Open Discussion GSF Ship Builds ------------------------------------------------------------------ SRW GSF Private Forum Map Markup for Strategies

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