THE Forbidden Subject

    In the past, this was something that if even whispered, would cause a thread to be locked instantly. Well after seeing the work Adoxa has done, I wanted to question it a little, but only with this one thread.


    NOTE:
    As of right now, this is THE ONLY thread in which cloaking will be aloud to be talked about. It will be HEAVILY monitored in which posts WILL be deleted or edited if links to download sites or any other form of non-authorized information or files is shared. Please note, this is to prevent the downfall of Freelancer, like that that was experienced years ago do to cloaking.


    Last thing I heard, if someone got a working cloaking mod, they could still use weapons, and even if that was fixed, they could still camp, uncloak, then kill. Now heres' some ideas I've had:

    • Make a working, 100% stealth cloak that has a period after deactivation where no weapons can be used, a cool down period if you will.
    • Make the cloak a new cruise effect. So while you cruise, you're not on radar or seen.


    If you've got an idea, or know more about this subject, then I want to hear about it.

    dont worry, i gave up on preaching the correct use of cloaking *cough* eventhough i consider the majority of used cloak stuff a bit insecure


    however, as cloaking is controlled by FLhook (and by that it would naturally mess up every mod that has a singleplayer mode -> sidenote) your 2 suggestions are clearly possible
    its just a matter of how the server side hook is written
    almost every condition you can imagine is possible if the hook code is changed


    next to that i wouldnt give instructions how to use cloak in public (call me traditional ^^)

    don't worry, I completely understand, thats why I'm not going to say how to cloak. My question though was if there's a way to do it without FLHook. Hook is the biggest reason I dropped out of FL. I've always liked singleplayer, yet hook isn't as well as all I hear is hook can do everything via command line. That just seems more like a cheat then anything.

    Cloaking works as you describe on our server (running FLAC).


    Cloaked ships cannot fire while cloaked. There is a brief period (a couple/few seconds) where you can not fire after uncloaking. Cloaks also only last for a period of time before automatically 'running out of energy'.


    To prevent cloak abuse one can always remove all cloaks from the weapon_equip.ini file... Of course, that would also prevent the use of any cloaks at all.


    If an admin wanted to maintain a cloak he could always rename the cloak to a unique name that a modder would not know.


    Attempts to spawn an item that did not exist in the server files would meet with disappointment.

    No, it's a server console program similar in function to IONCROSS but much more advanced. It does tap into FLHook but is not the FLHook plugin system. It's proprietary and costs money but does a very good job managing your server and blocking cheaters. It's not as configurable as the FLHook plugins, but you don't need to know how to program in order to use it.

    I will not be doing any more work on cloaking (I posted in the old TLR about that). The last thing I did was on TSP, making the cloak equivalent to countermeasures, allowing them to be mounted/unmounted/bought/sold. One day (in the far future) I might try and get the key working, but that would be it.

    adoxa
    Please don't think I was aiming this all at you, I was just using you as an example to try and show how far things have come.


    @Everyone
    I didn't realize this subject was as touchy as it is. Should this thread be removed then? The only reason I brought it up was to try and add a "stealth" ability to future mods, even if it was only to the extent of the Mass Effect version of stealth (can't be detected or seen on radar, but is still visible out of a window). Just let me know...

    In the first Mass Effect, Joker talks about the stealth systems of the Normandy. How their heat signatures are hidden as well as LADAR is absorbed by the hull, making them undetectable. But anyone looking out a window could still see them.


    Since "cloaking" is so strongly disliked, is there a way to make a device able to be turned on for a small period of time that would make it so you couldn't be seen on the radar screen nor be selectable but would still be visible?

    Quote from adoxa

    I will not be doing any more work on cloaking (I posted in the old TLR about that). The last thing I did was on TSP, making the cloak equivalent to countermeasures, allowing them to be mounted/unmounted/bought/sold.

    Can you please link a download here? Or its an offset? Its one thing we could certainly use.

    Sorry Poly, like the first thread said, can't release that. That kind of cloaking almost killed Freelancer when TLR was first born. Plus from my knowledge, NPC's could still see you.