Cloaking is a defensive system.
Overview[]
- During an active cloak:
- The ship's evasion is increased by flat 60%. This increase is unaffected by any factors while the cloak lasts. The total evasion with functioning Engines and Piloting can reach or even exceed 100%.
- Weapons and artillery systems stop charging and cannot target a cloaked ship. However, if your crew or boarding drone or mind-controlled enemy crew is onboard the enemy ship, you will be able to target and fire your charged weapons. Targeting with weapons in advance can help circumvent this limitation: setting a beam trajectory prior to the cloak will make the beam weapon fire if the weapons charge time is <=20 seconds (e.g. Glaive Beam with fully trained crew, Artillery Beam at system level 4). (this limitation doesn't actually affect the enemy, because the AI fires weapons as soon as they are ready, except for occasionally storing up multiple shots for charge weapons or randomly holding up fire during their own cloak)
- Friendly crew cannot be teleported to or from an enemy ship.
- Hacking and Boarding drones hold their position in space. They will continue their move when the cloak is over.
- External combat drones move around the ship, attempting to attack but don't actually fire.
- When an enemy ship is cloaked, you lose vision of its interior unless your crew or boarding drone or mind-controlled enemy crew is aboard the enemy ship. (Upgraded) Sensors, Slug telepathy, Lifeform Scanner augmentation or attached and powered Hacking drone don't provide vision - and without vision you cannot use mind control (against enemy crew aboard enemy ship); however, this does not apply to enemies, who can use mind control against your ship even while you are cloaked (because they don't need vision). Nevertheless, with Sensors-2+ you can still track the enemy crew location and HP values by hovering over the enemy ship room tiles.
- Each system level of Cloaking provides 5 seconds of cloak time, up to a maximum of 15 seconds at level 3.
- When the cloak ends, the system takes 4 ion damage, so it cannot be used again for 20 seconds.
- Firing weapons disrupts cloak, except for beam weapons and artillery systems (both player's and the enemy's). Each non-beam weapon (and non-player artillery systems) fired during cloaking reduces the cloak time by 20% of the full amount of the powered Cloaking system. For example, firing a 5-shot Burst Lasers III will remove 2 seconds from a 10-second cloak (the de-cloaking effect is applied immediately upon firing the first projectile). There are exceptions:
- Ion Charger and Charger Laser I remove 20% of the cloak time with each shot.
- Laser Charger II removes 20% of the cloak time regardless of the number of shots and the de-cloaking effect takes places after the final shot of the charged up volley (e.g. after the 3rd shot of a 3-charge volley).
- Stealth Weapons augmentation completely removes this penalty.
- Cloaking duration can be increased or decreased by adding or removing Zoltan power to the system. (the maximum cloak duration cannot exceed the maximum system level duration, but the minimum duration can be as short as a fraction of a second)
- Your crew doesn't get piloting/engines evasion experience during cloak.
- Hacking and Cloaking systems interaction:
- Hacking pulse prevents a ship from entering cloak (the Cloaking system is locked and cannot be activated).
- Hacking pulse ends an active cloak and puts the Cloaking system on full (20 seconds) cooldown.
- When the hacking pulse disrupts the active cloak, the hacking pulse continues while the Cloaking system enters its cooldown immediately. The Hacking system only enters its (20 seconds) cooldown after the hacking pulse ends (i.e. in 4-7-10 seconds after Cloaking). Thus, the hacked and disrupted Cloaking will be ready earlier than the next hacking pulse. Ionizing (with Stun Bomb) or de-powering (with Zoltans) the active Hacking will allow to reduce the wait time (especially in case with stun bombing, due to a bug). Hacking pulse against non-active Cloaking does not force full cooldown of the Cloaking system; it doesn't halt, nor increases the cooldown either.
- When you kill all enemy crew and win the fight, the enemy cloaking may still be in effect: this will prevent you from retrieving your crew while the cloak lasts. (it is impossible to circumvent this due to inability to damage enemy systems, with weapons or sabotage, after the fight is over)
- Can be used as a blue option in some events.
Tactical uses[]
There are two main approaches to use Cloaking: preemptively and reactively.
The preemptive approach, also called pre-cloaking, means cloaking before the enemy fires its weapons, and is usually utilized from the start of a fight. This allows charging up and firing your weapons before the enemy fires theirs. It is even more beneficial when the enemy weapons are slow and your next cloaking will be ready before the enemy can damage your ship (e.g. with Ion Bomb, Breach Missile, Flak II). If the enemy has Glaive Beam, you can cloak 2 times before the enemy can actually fire it (very helpful if you don't have Shields-6; FIY, enemy Slug ships, along some other ships, can deploy Glaive Beam accompanied by a 1-power weapon as early as in sector 3 on Hard difficulty). In conjunction with Hacking, far more enemy weapons can be safely pre-cloaked. The enemy ship weapons can be virtually paralyzed by utilizing Cloak/Hacking cycle, when the enemy rarely has an opportunity to fire their weapons or deal damage; 100% cloaking evasion allows to safely dodge fast missiles and other weapons and continue the Cloak/Hacking till the enemy gets another chance to fire their weapons. This approach can potentially be more beneficial the more vulnerable your ship is (e.g. weak weapons, no Weapon Control system buffer, beam weapons only with obligatory shields hacking) and if you heavily rely on your first volley to deal damage to enemy. Even later in the fight it is correct to pre-cloak the enemy missile launch when you are close to winning (e.g. when boarding the enemy ship and close to killing off their crew while not having opportunities to disable their weapons), moreso if you don't have 100% cloaking evasion. Of course, there are scenarios when it is better to postpone the cloak (e.g. in pulsar fights, especially when facing multiple enemy combat drones; to finish off enemy boarders by preventing their return with your cloak, then board the enemy ship having less crew to oppose you; etc.) and even take hull damage on unimportant systems or empty rooms to prevent worse probable outcomes and potential losses. Having Zoltan Shield or in encounters with enemy ships with Cloaking it is often better to pre-cloak - but that depends on your winning tactics, your and enemy's weapons/systems/crew. With Weapon Pre-Igniter augmentation the weapons need to be fired first in order to not to reduce the cloaking duration (unless you have Stealth Weapons augmentation).
The reactive approach is used when the enemy weapons are cloak-dodged after they fire. If your cumulative evasion from Engines and Engines/Piloting manning crew skill is 40% or higher, then evasion during cloak will be at least 100%, guaranteeing that every shot misses. Note that beams cannot be evaded; once a beam has started to fire, it will continue firing even if you cloak (even depowering or disabling a beam weapon during combat does not shut off the beam immediately). There are different ways to cloak the enemy weapons fire, the most common are: right when they fire (a), when the projectiles approach your ship and cannot be intercepted (e.g. with defense drones) (b), or when they deplete your shields enough to damage your ship with the following weapons (c). Each of these variants has its use, e.g.: a) If you cloak enemy Ion Bomb/Breach Missile/Flak II right when they fire, you can dodge them indefinitely, if you strip the enemy of their weapons manning bonus; Burst Laser III takes less than 20 seconds to charge, yet it is possible to dodge its 2 first volleys and part of the 3rd volley, as opposed to having to deal with 5 shots on the next and all following volleys if cloaked late, but only if the enemy has no weapons manning bonus. b,c) Sometimes your projectiles will collide with the enemy projectiles or asteroids might absorb those projectiles too, and sometimes it is even possible to deliberately shoot down enemy projectiles with your own weaponry if timed right. Defense drones may fail to destroy the enemy projectiles (or intercept enemy combat drones, which especially matters when you have low or no shields) and they might be heading towards important systems or you can't afford to take hull damage - in this case the cloaking will be used as a last resort, which helps avoid snowballing of problems while also anticipating an opportunity to disable the hazards in time before you would need the next cloak or expecting better evasion outcomes of your ship onward. In some situations you are better off to tank some damage on unimportant systems (even putting some systems on the enemy targeting priority list by powering them on or other means, depending on the system) or even empty rooms, so that when the real harm can hurt your ship the most, you can avoid exactly that with the readied cloak. Another case to postpone the cloaking is to wait and see what system the enemy hacking drone will attach to and disrupt, and adjust your tactics to minimize the harm to you (you don't want to be stuck in Cloaking/Hacking cycle yourself in the Flagship phase 1 fight, when you might be unable to fire your weapons at all! - let the Flagship hack your uncharged weapons and you will be able to fire them before the next enemy cloak, if they take less than 20 seconds to charge); having enough cloaking time to charge and fire your weapons will allow you to potentially destroy the enemy Hacking even if they disrupt your weapons when you fire them and de-cloak (weapons will actually finish firing, once started, if the Weapon Control is disrupted even a moment later).
While level 1 cloaking is sufficient to dodge a volley of enemy weapons, higher levels delay enemy weapons even more. This can give you "free time" to charge your weapons. It can also buy time to escape a bad fight.
Unlike weapons, environmental hazards are not delayed by cloaking - they operate on an independent timer. Anti-ship Batteries and the Rebel Flagship's power surges are such environmental hazards. Using a longer cloak may mean it's not ready for the next ASB or power surge. You may want to use a level 1 cloak, or fire weapons to shorten your cloak time once the hazard has passed (unless you have Stealth Weapons augment installed or have only beam weapons). If Cloaking is powered by Zoltan, moving them out of the room will end the cloak immediately.
At the start of a fight, enemies will use their cloak immediately. They will randomly decide whether to fire weapons freely while cloaked, or hold fire until cloaking ends; this pattern may change throughout the fight.
Enemy ships with Cloaking[]
- Auto-Scout (optional, 1-3)
- Crystal Instigator (1-2)
- Lanius Bomber (optional, 1-3)
- Rock ships:
- Rock Pirate Fighter (optional, 1-3)
- Rock Interceptor / Rock Pirate Interceptor (optional, 1)
- Rock Assault (optional, 1)
- Rock Aggressor (optional, 1-2)
- Rock Assault Elite (1-3)
- Slug ships:
- Slug Pirate Light-Cruiser (optional, 1-2)
- Slug Assault / Slug Pirate Assault (optional, 1)
- Slug Instigator (optional, 1)
- The Rebel Flagship (Phase I only, 2)
Player ships with Cloaking[]
These player ships have pre-installed Cloaking system:
System Upgrades[]
| Level | Cost | Cloaking |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 150 
|
5 sec |
| 2 | 30
|
10 sec |
| 3 | 50
|
15 sec |