The Empire has fallen and a New Republic is born out of the conflict. But in the ashes of civil war, yet another life stirs...
Designed in utmost secrecy, sometime in the late Civil War era, the TIE Phantom is very unique for a ship it's size in that it has an onboard cloaking device that can totally conceal the ship visually and from scanners. Further, it is one of the few TIE design to be equipped with shields and a hyperdrive, as well allow room for a copilot, opposed to the usual TIE crew of one.
All of these additions don't come without cost however, and the extreme power consumption required by all of the equipment resulted in the TIE Phantom be a bit larger than other TIE designs as well as a bit slower. Finally, it's weapons are formidable when in combat but cannot be used when power is being diverted to the cloaking field generators.
Nevertheless, though the materials needed to produce this machine are highly expensive, they are used to great effect when deployed to nearby systems just ahead of an invasion fleet. Using their stealth technology, they can fully map out enemy positions and bases.
Dang these look sharp
I guess the cloaking devices aren't working then... :(
You, sir, are awesome.
Thanks ;)
Phantomtastic!
The Phantom men... oh wait, already been done
Could 150 of these win a space battle ? :)
yes. on a lvl 1 space station :P or a fleet made up ships designed to fight larger ships
Fantastic work my friend!
idk, I was never a great fan of these... I mean, if they had some powerful weapons, like torpedoes, then you could do some surprise-buttsex attacks, when the oponent leaves his capital ships unprotected against rear attack. but with firepower comparable to a standard TIE Fighter, you would need swarms of them to deal any damage against a full shielded ship.
so they´re like...expensive TIE Scouts :/
You have to think of them as a single-role starship. They have enough weapons to defend themselves...but not to assault a target. They are only the eyes of the fleet, nothing else. For example, deploy them first (the little box you can put a unit in so it warps in first) then immediately cloak. Scout around and find the star base or other high value target...warp in the fleet...BOOM.
The advantage over regular scouts is that you don't have to wait to "ping" again...just cloak and explore. Further, should the enemy stumble upon them before you've found your target, unless its a hero, they are totally safe. Lastly, the FOV of Ping expires after a time...maybe even before you have a chance to decide if you want to warp in the fleet or not...and then, if you see other targets on the edge of your ping...in the regular scout, you can't just move-order and see what it is...you have to wait for Ping to cool down.
the wonderful thing about these is that they can hang out in orbit over rebel planets. so say the rebels knew what you have on your planet. you can secretly have a swarm of these ready to renforce and they would be none the wiser. also hides from zann corruption
Thanks all!
Do you create these amazing pictures with the map editor? If so, is it hard to do?
Yes, they are map editor screenshots. Must faster than starting the entire game and then I have more control over angles and lighting. Its not hard at all :)
Will the cloak ability be a toggle or will it have a limited duration?
Also, will there be a new cloak FX or will it still be that weird Matrix-code-ish FX?
The code thing is going away... I never liked it either. I think solid color will work best. Dark grays for cloaked land units, a violet color for space.
I can't decide what I would like to do as far as duration though... I mean, it's a trade. When cloaked, no weapons...so why not stay cloaked forever if you want? They could technically do that in Rebel Assault anyway, when they were introduced (the player never got to cloak but that's the lore).
A timer is how it currently works though. The only real disadvantage I see is that if one player has no heroes that can detect it...and it's the last enemy unit...then you're screwed unless they are made non-victory relevant... but that wouldn't make sense either.
A slight visual distortion (not unlike Halo's active camo) might also add to the FX, beyond just the solid color.
Will shields also be down when it's cloaked?
Maybe have lengthy cloak (so that you have time to scout without worrying about the cloak falling) with a similarly lengthy cooldown so that you can't jump right back into cloak right/shortly after de-cloaking? (not sure if that's how it works already)
Although...is it possible to give units/buildings/stations a small stealth detection radius? (Though...this could double as an ambush mechanic...)
Yep, stealth detection can be given to any unit so that's possible. Might make good sense for some units to have that too, since any large ship would have some kind of omni-sensor.
I do use the distortion effect in my Halo mod for cloaked elites and it looks really good...the problem is that this is what I'm using for the new power to shield effect so it might be confusing to have it applied in both instances.
Power to shields doesn't also change the unit's color, which might help, especially since power to shields (as I recall) is a bright blue/white versus a (presumably) dark grey/purple.
I figure the short range detection could be some sort of proximity sensor or something (which would explain why the range is short versus being as wide as the ship's sight range).
Technically, neither ability changes the unit's color. Both abilities trigger a visibility setting for seperate, hidden meshes on the same unit. What I could do maybe is attach a particle effect to cloaked units that makes it look like its leaving a trail of energy or something...or like, distorting the light around it or whatever. Might be cool.