Allow different types of stealth

[MRMIdAS]

The amount of mods I've seen that use stealth for the allied spy is unreal, the workaround is to then give dogs a Sensors tag, which lets them see submarines, makes no sense.

SO, have different types of stealth (numbered for convenience) so spy's and subs have different kinds of stealth, that work the same way.

Tags could be

Cloak= - works same as always
cloak.type=1,2,3 - or however many you theoretically need.
Sensors= - works as before
Sensors.type=1,2,3 - which type of stealth it detects, based on cloak.type numbers

[Blade (nadia-xy)]

I'm fairly sure I requested separate cloak sounds for land unit once upon a time that could be accomplished along side this.

[arielby (ariel-bys)]

bUmP

[MT1337 (mt1337)]

In favour of this. Would make cloaking certain land units and introducing 'detector units' more practical (as they won't see subs and such).

[Professor_Tesla (professor-tesla)]

I would use this feature just for the sake of not having to hear the "water submerge" sound for land Stealth vehicles.
EDIT: I just looked and found that there is, in fact, a request made by Blade for this exact feature on the second to last page of issues. The number is #0000251.
EDIT 2: And I just realised that this particular request does not propose to add different cloak sounds.
EDIT 3: Gragh. So many edits. Blade's request does not propose to do what this one does. I would propose something like:

[CloakTypes]
0=Submarine
1=Stealth
2=StealthAircraft
3=Fudge
4=SpyStealth

[Submarine]
Sound={whatever the submarine submerging sound is called}
CanBeDetectedBy=_ANY_NAVAL_

[Stealth]
Sound={stealth shield activation sound}
CanBeDetectedBy=_ANY_VEHICLE_,YAPSYT

[StealthAircraft]
Sound={stealth shield activation sound}
CanBeDetectedBy=_ANY_STRUCT_,_ANY_VEHICLE_

[Fudge]
Sound={radiation death sound}
CanBeDetectedBy=_ANYTHING_

[SpyStealth]
Sound={stealth shield activation sound}
CanBeDetectedBy=DOG,SDOG,YDOG,YADOG

[STLTHTNK]
Cloakable=yes
Cloak.Type=Stealth

where the unit that uses a given kind of stealth can be detected by any unit listed in that stealth type's CanBeDetectedBy list IF the detecting unit has Sensors.

[Beowulf (genkosygin)]

Seems like a lot of work for not enough gain. Really, I don't see how useful this would be except for making the game needlessly complex. This just sounds like an excuse for creating new tech gaps to fill with a new unit. I say don't bother.

[Teleros (teleros)]

Would be useful for distinguishing between naval / land stealth.

[Bug Importer (bug-importer)]

Yes, this would be useful.
      -BTG

[Bug Importer (bug-importer)]

Using this for seperation of naval and ground cloak is indeed a nice idea. Supported.

[Marshall (m-edward)]

Personally I think land cloaking does not make for good gameplay, except in the case of land mines or burrowed units. So I support the separation of land/naval cloak but see no worth in adding new tags/multiple types of cloak.

Cloakable=yes makes the unit cloaked. Naval=yes means submerged/naval-cloak, Naval=no means land-cloak. Simple. And detectors only need to work on their own type.

[Bug Importer (bug-importer)]

From OP:
"Cloak= - works same as always
cloak.type=1,2,3 - or however many you theoretically need.
Sensors= - works as before
Sensors.type=1,2,3 - which type of stealth it detects, based on cloak.type numbers "

Add a tag for specific sounds, and this is a simple enough and sufficiently effective way of accomplishing our goals. Sorry tesla, your way is just too needlesly complex, both for modder and for Ares coders.

[Professor_Tesla (professor-tesla)]

Whatever.

[Black Temple Gaurdian (black-temple-gaurdian)]

Why not just have:
Cloak=string
Sensors=string

and CloakSound= on a per unit basis, defaulting back to normal?

Less tags and it doesn't break the original logic since the string'd be "yes".

[Marshall (m-edward)]

Except Cloak=no would give cloaking too. Besides, I think changing the data type of existing flags is problematic. It would have to be a new flag - NewCloak and NewSensors, say.

[Black Temple Gaurdian (black-temple-gaurdian)]

unless =no was a special value which dissabled the cloaking logic. But fiiine, if yoou want to overcomplicate it...

[Kikou (kikou)]

Can add a parameter, when an unit move, he can't stealth, but when this unit stop moving, he can stealth.

Thats so good with the new stealth system.

Sorry for my english.

[Krozalid (krozalid)]

There is already the CloakStop= tag like what you said Kikou but unfortunately that tag doesn't work right now.

[WoRmINaToR (worminator)]

(in light of the recent duplicate, I thought I might...)

{quote}unless =no was a special value which dissabled the cloaking logic. But fiiine, if yoou want to overcomplicate it... {un-quote}

nonsense. Your idea to change the data type of an already existing flag and then force it to take exceptions is unnecessarily complex. As marshall suggested, starting on a fresh block of code would be much more efficient.

And the more I look at it, the more sense Tesla's idea seems to be making...

Having strictly and individually defined types of stealth with their own sounds and behaviors is a nice idea, actually. The only thing I would change is that I definitely think the "Can be detected by" part for the stealth types should be defined by a "SensorsType=" flag on the individual unit, instead of being defined by the stealth type definition (wow, I just used 4 words in a single sentence beginning with 'defin-'!).

[Renegade (renegade)]

Survived DFD.

[Cabal8616 (cabal8616)]

Definitely a good idea. It'd give way for the ability to have Naval units, stealth units, and burrowed units completely separate rather than having a universal sensor unit that can detect everything.

[regulus (regulus)]

Don't know if this has to be mentioned or not, but the ability for units to be capable of multiple "detections" shouldn't be ignored. A good example is the Mobile Sensor Array from Tiberian Sun.