Skill Updates

[rolonos[IS]]

I will be looking at the following skills this week
Cloak
Hack
Repair
Befriend

Please post below any existing problems you are aware of with each skill.
Please make a separate post for each skill and I am only interested in the player skills not buffs generated by items at this time.

Rolo

[Mattsacre]

Cloak:
JE's group stealth says it can be on while warping....it does on JE not on the group as it says, it debuffs on group when warp is engaged.
JE's group cloak (max lvl cloak) also says can be on while warping....it also stays on JE but debuffs when warp engaged for group.
JE's group stealth and cloak when not engaged during warp stays on..however it is stacking below 0 for a fellow cloaker in group (never did this live) so that others in group can have negative signature (i.e. -.5 sig etc.) zero is zero sig. should not be able to get lower than absolute zero

All cloak JE,JD,JS: While it SAYS (via green text scroll) another skill is active not able to engage at this time, it is atually engaging some other player skills while cloaked, specifically:JS have been able to heal and reactor buff while cloaked (self and group). JD have been able to psi shield while cloaked. JE have been able to E-shield from cloak and (sometimes) shield leech without cloak breaking. They have been able to use devices on self and others while cloaked (live some self centric devices you could..but most other device buffer devices broke cloak).

Cloak graphics: lower levels of cloak often have the cloak shimmer not come off when cloak is broke (via warp or attack etc.) leading one to mistakenly believe you are cloaked when you aren't.

[Mattsacre]

Hack: Haven't played TE recently so player based hack others will have to comment...however MOB based hack is WAY off. If the MOB hack is supost to be at or near player type hack then it seriously needs some alter.

MOB hack: Via hack description it is suppost to hack various items, higher levels can be more specific, but it is never hacks devices as far as I can determine as player hack does. It exlusively hacks engines,shields and reactors.

When reactor is hacked it drains ALL of the reactor juice and you have to rebuild your pool from 0 even after hack falls off, in live there was 2 reactor type hacks
1.recharge rate hack..your rate of reactor recharge was reduced for a static time (usely longer than the other reactor hack)
2.reactor pool hack..it hit your reactor pool for a "unequip" time but once the debuff expired pool bounced back. Both reactor types had the debuff time reduced by items that reduced equip times (thats why greasemonkey devices were desired on certain mobs)

When shield is hacked it drains ALL of the shield juice and you have to rebuild your pool from 0 and even if you or a group member refills shield while in hacked mode it REdrains shield to 0.
1.recharge rate hack...your rate of shield recharge was reduced for a static time (usely much longer than other type)
2.shield pool hack...it never said if shield drain was a JE type leech or a shield type hack, but the mobs that hacked weren't a type that leeched so: It hit your shield for a set dmg like leech but a healer could always refill your shield and not have it redrain like now. If memory serves me right the tengu had 2 hack types one of which was a DoT reactor pool hack (it had the effect of making you lose pool over time..so the TT had to keep healing you to maintain pool...in EFFECT it just drasticly increased damage took while the debuff from the hack was on.

When engine is hacked it makes you unwarpeable..and depending on type of hack unthrustable (unthrust is a drone type, tengu us unwarp)
1. In live it wasn't stackable, they could hack you knock it offline, then when online again attempt to rehack..but hack duration wasn't stackable, specificly the tengu are stacking engine hacks and gravlinks. When more than 1 tengu hack the engine may actually never come on line again(bug that still persists) to bring it back up you have to log to character screen, switchout engine or zone (go to grissom) tengu engine hack is still letting you thrust, just not warp, if they grav you then that thrust is so low the difference is moot
2. drone hacks: their hacks knock off both warp and thrust for x amount of time (this is how engine hack was live..not like tengu currently), they however VERY rarely are getting a rehack right on top of other, this in live had a small window of cool down on same item hack.

I have yet to see a device hack, in live this was one of the hacks that happened random, for periodic used devices this wasn't to bad since it didnt say remove a reactor charge over time buff like a steingard, but devices that were a constant equip type could be real bad (like something with shield cap or resistance like a ivory ward).

Always live: unless engine was hacked a device being hacked, or a shield didn't disallow you from warping away and if you still had enough juice in reactor nor did IT stop you from running for it. In fact you could in live change devices and weapons while warping (if you changed something that buffed warp you lost your warp rate until it came on line).

[Mattsacre]

Repair equipment repair or hull?: If equip was meant, in live you could use the equip repair while in warp on a 1 to 1 or self basis, the group repair only repaired on the targeted member while in warp (I liked seeing those little nanobots out front while warping..looked kind of cool), it currently won't allow engaging while/during warp (might mention while in warp repairing it did have the reactor drain..so if you did it long it would drop you from warp for energy lack.

Hull repair: never was useable in warp and as far as I can see is working unless someone else has seen something they will have to chime in.

[rolonos[IS]]

[quote name='Mattsacre' timestamp='1308624371' post='42353']
Hack: Haven't played TE recently so player based hack others will have to comment...however MOB based hack is WAY off. If the MOB hack is supost to be at or near player type hack then it seriously needs some alter.

MOB hack: Via hack description it is suppost to hack various items, higher levels can be more specific, but it is never hacks devices as far as I can determine as player hack does. It exlusively hacks engines,shields and reactors.

When reactor is hacked it drains ALL of the reactor juice and you have to rebuild your pool from 0 even after hack falls off, in live there was 2 reactor type hacks
1.recharge rate hack..your rate of reactor recharge was reduced for a static time (usely longer than the other reactor hack)
2.reactor pool hack..it hit your reactor pool for a "unequip" time but once the debuff expired pool bounced back. Both reactor types had the debuff time reduced by items that reduced equip times (thats why greasemonkey devices were desired on certain mobs)

When shield is hacked it drains ALL of the shield juice and you have to rebuild your pool from 0 and even if you or a group member refills shield while in hacked mode it REdrains shield to 0.
1.recharge rate hack...your rate of shield recharge was reduced for a static time (usely much longer than other type)
2.shield pool hack...it never said if shield drain was a JE type leech or a shield type hack, but the mobs that hacked weren't a type that leeched so: It hit your shield for a set dmg like leech but a healer could always refill your shield and not have it redrain like now. If memory serves me right the tengu had 2 hack types one of which was a DoT reactor pool hack (it had the effect of making you lose pool over time..so the TT had to keep healing you to maintain pool...in EFFECT it just drasticly increased damage took while the debuff from the hack was on.

When engine is hacked it makes you unwarpeable..and depending on type of hack unthrustable (unthrust is a drone type, tengu us unwarp)
1. In live it wasn't stackable, they could hack you knock it offline, then when online again attempt to rehack..but hack duration wasn't stackable, specificly the tengu are stacking engine hacks and gravlinks. When more than 1 tengu hack the engine may actually never come on line again(bug that still persists) to bring it back up you have to log to character screen, switchout engine or zone (go to grissom) tengu engine hack is still letting you thrust, just not warp, if they grav you then that thrust is so low the difference is moot
2. drone hacks: their hacks knock off both warp and thrust for x amount of time (this is how engine hack was live..not like tengu currently), they however VERY rarely are getting a rehack right on top of other, this in live had a small window of cool down on same item hack.

I have yet to see a device hack, in live this was one of the hacks that happened random, for periodic used devices this wasn't to bad since it didnt say remove a reactor charge over time buff like a steingard, but devices that were a constant equip type could be real bad (like something with shield cap or resistance like a ivory ward).

Always live: unless engine was hacked a device being hacked, or a shield didn't disallow you from warping away and if you still had enough juice in reactor nor did IT stop you from running for it. In fact you could in live change devices and weapons while warping (if you changed something that buffed warp you lost your warp rate until it came on line).
[/quote]
I'm Only looking at player skills atm not mob skills. Mob hack is very new code, just implemented in the last month I believe. Will add this to ToDo list but don't expect a quick response.

Rolo

[rolonos[IS]]

Thanks for the other replies. I will be looking at them during the week and this weekend.

Rolo

[Tienbau]

[quote name='Mattsacre' timestamp='1308624371' post='42353']
Hack: Haven't played TE recently so player based hack others will have to comment...however MOB based hack is WAY off. If the MOB hack is supost to be at or near player type hack then it seriously needs some alter.

MOB hack: Via hack description it is suppost to hack various items, higher levels can be more specific, but it is never hacks devices as far as I can determine as player hack does. It exlusively hacks engines,shields and reactors.

When reactor is hacked it drains ALL of the reactor juice and you have to rebuild your pool from 0 even after hack falls off, in live there was 2 reactor type hacks
1.recharge rate hack..your rate of reactor recharge was reduced for a static time (usely longer than the other reactor hack)
2.reactor pool hack..it hit your reactor pool for a "unequip" time but once the debuff expired pool bounced back. Both reactor types had the debuff time reduced by items that reduced equip times (thats why greasemonkey devices were desired on certain mobs)

When shield is hacked it drains ALL of the shield juice and you have to rebuild your pool from 0 and even if you or a group member refills shield while in hacked mode it REdrains shield to 0.
1.recharge rate hack...your rate of shield recharge was reduced for a static time (usely much longer than other type)
2.shield pool hack...it never said if shield drain was a JE type leech or a shield type hack, but the mobs that hacked weren't a type that leeched so: It hit your shield for a set dmg like leech but a healer could always refill your shield and not have it redrain like now. If memory serves me right the tengu had 2 hack types one of which was a DoT reactor pool hack (it had the effect of making you lose pool over time..so the TT had to keep healing you to maintain pool...in EFFECT it just drasticly increased damage took while the debuff from the hack was on.

When engine is hacked it makes you unwarpeable..and depending on type of hack unthrustable (unthrust is a drone type, tengu us unwarp)
1. In live it wasn't stackable, they could hack you knock it offline, then when online again attempt to rehack..but hack duration wasn't stackable, specificly the tengu are stacking engine hacks and gravlinks. When more than 1 tengu hack the engine may actually never come on line again(bug that still persists) to bring it back up you have to log to character screen, switchout engine or zone (go to grissom) tengu engine hack is still letting you thrust, just not warp, if they grav you then that thrust is so low the difference is moot
2. drone hacks: their hacks knock off both warp and thrust for x amount of time (this is how engine hack was live..not like tengu currently), they however VERY rarely are getting a rehack right on top of other, this in live had a small window of cool down on same item hack.

I have yet to see a device hack, in live this was one of the hacks that happened random, for periodic used devices this wasn't to bad since it didnt say remove a reactor charge over time buff like a steingard, but devices that were a constant equip type could be real bad (like something with shield cap or resistance like a ivory ward).

Always live: unless engine was hacked a device being hacked, or a shield didn't disallow you from warping away and if you still had enough juice in reactor nor did IT stop you from running for it. In fact you could in live change devices and weapons while warping (if you changed something that buffed warp you lost your warp rate until it came on line).
[/quote]

this is awesome info, yes I only just added mob hacks but the way you describe it working seems a lot better than just a straight forward item removal. I'll leave the player->mob hack for Rolo to fix Unless you want to implement all this Rolo?

[kjeron]

[quote name='Mattsacre' timestamp='1308623847' post='42352']
Cloak:
All cloak JE,JD,JS: While it SAYS (via green text scroll) another skill is active not able to engage at this time, it is atually engaging some other player skills while cloaked, specifically:JS have been able to heal and reactor buff while cloaked (self and group). JD have been able to psi shield while cloaked. JE have been able to E-shield from cloak and (sometimes) shield leech without cloak breaking. They have been able to use devices on self and others while cloaked (live some self centric devices you could..but most other device buffer devices broke cloak).
[/quote]
Its not just cloak, every skill can have other skills used during its activation/while active.
Reposting from another thread:

[quote name='will' timestamp='1306846504' post='41455']
It's a result of the ongoing bug that allows you to use multiple skills at once.

Two skills, Power-down and Cloak, behave differently when used through this bug, since they are continuously active.

Using any device/skill will render you visible and vulnerable to mobs/players without ending the skill, and you still suffer any drawbacks of the skill, such as the reduced recharge of power-down, the energy drain of cloak, the reduced speed/maneuverability of L1 cloak, the "unable to fire weapons while cloaked", and the "unable to prospect while hidden".

The primary exploits of Power-down and Cloak have been fixed, there is no more god-mode, but the negative side affects remain.

As far as the player can tell, they are still under the affects of cloak/power-down, but to everyone else, players and mobs, they are no longer cloaked/powered-down.
[/quote]
Stealth Strike is the only exception I've seen to this, it is activated only when the player exits cloak from their perspective, not when everyone else sees their cloak end. If they activate another skill while cloaked, and don't ever manually end cloak, stealth strike will never activate, even though their cloak has really already ended.

Edit: You also lose the chance for half/zero damage while cloaked when you use a skill while cloaked. Edited June 21, 2011 by will

[kjeron]

Hack: hacked shields
When a player hacks a mobs shields, it deals energy damage(all skills currently deal energy damage) equal to [Mobs Current Shield Value] - [1/2 Mobs Max Shield Capacity], effectively reducing it's current shield value to 1/2 is max capacity. Once a mobs shield is below 50% max capacity, hacking their shields does absolutely nothing.

[rhobix]

Cloak:
If you activate another skill while cloak is powering up, you get a message saying something along the lines of "Another skill is already in use", but the second skill seems to activate anyway, and further more, the ability to fire weapons when you've cloaked (to decloaked) seems to be disabled when you do this, so you have to drop cloak manually before you can fire your weapons. I've only use combat cloak these days, so that's where I've seen it. I don't know if it applies to the other levels of cloak as well.

[rolonos[IS]]

[quote name='Mattsacre' timestamp='1308623847' post='42352']
Cloak:
JE's group stealth says it can be on while warping....it does on JE not on the group as it says, it debuffs on group when warp is engaged.
JE's group cloak (max lvl cloak) also says can be on while warping....it also stays on JE but debuffs when warp engaged for group.
JE's group stealth and cloak when not engaged during warp stays on..however it is stacking below 0 for a fellow cloaker in group (never did this live) so that others in group can have negative signature (i.e. -.5 sig etc.) zero is zero sig. should not be able to get lower than absolute zero

All cloak JE,JD,JS: While it SAYS (via green text scroll) another skill is active not able to engage at this time, it is atually engaging some other player skills while cloaked, specifically:JS have been able to heal and reactor buff while cloaked (self and group). JD have been able to psi shield while cloaked. JE have been able to E-shield from cloak and (sometimes) shield leech without cloak breaking. They have been able to use devices on self and others while cloaked (live some self centric devices you could..but most other device buffer devices broke cloak).

Cloak graphics: lower levels of cloak often have the cloak shimmer not come off when cloak is broke (via warp or attack etc.) leading one to mistakenly believe you are cloaked when you aren't.
[/quote]

how recently have you tested the group cloak as I cannot duplicate with latest release.

[kjeron]

[quote name='rolo' timestamp='1309084371' post='42625']
how recently have you tested the group cloak as I cannot duplicate with latest release.
[/quote]

Group cloak is now properly cloaking the entire group, within range.

Group stealth is also now cloaking the entire group, within range, which it shouldnt. It was working properly before, the JE should be cloaked, while the rest of the group only gets a signature reduction, and usable while warping.

When a JE uses Group Cloak, the rest of the group is getting the "Unable to fire weapons while cloaked" message, preventing them from shooting while still draining energy as if they did. They have to use a skill or another non-weapon equipment to end the affect and allow them to shoot. They will still have the cloak icon until the JE ends the skill, even though they're no longer cloaked. They should be able to end the affect just by firing their weapons.

Warping with either skill is working, but it does however cause a graphical bug that ends the cloaking visual whenever you enter warp. Your still cloaked and still have the Buff Icon, but your ship is visible to you rather than seeing the cloak "outline" of your ship. It reverts back to appearing cloaked shortly after you exit warp.