Cloaking device

Cloaking Device

A cloaking device is an item gained from one of the native vanilla game missions. Below is a spoiler 'how to' for users who do not wish to go about things under the cloak of ignorance.

The device cannot be bought.

It forces your ship to flicker and be removed from radar scanners so people upon whom you fire or even follow can't see you. It also allow users to attack GalCop vipers without fear of fugitive rating.

However, the cloaking device slowly ebbs away at your energy banks, therefore rendering it not only temporary, but also a danger if it runs out in the midst of laser fire. (It is your energy banks which allow you to survive shield failure).

Note also that any kills you make while cloaked do not add to your Elite Rating.

Activation

This is now a regular primeable piece of equipment. See Priming Equipment.

Activation on old versions of Oolite

It is activated by the number 0 above the letters O and P on a standard qwerty keyboard (default settings).

In the older versions, this OXP was more effective, as the NPCs acted in utter ignorance of your existence. Since v.1.80 they are less stupid.

SPOILER ALERT ------- SPOILER ALERT

Highlight this entire space/paragraph to read. The cloaking device mission is informal in the sense you do not get a display screen. On roughly your sixth jump through the 5th galaxy, you shall arrive to meet normally 3 happy vessels. Suddenly, 1 shall fire one you whilst the other just sits there idly. The one that fires on you then turns away - still orange. You could kill them, but better is to wonder where the third ship went? They will start firing on you soon and will flicker visibly, but not on radar. They will be untargetable. Kill them carefully and pick up the cargo. You then have the cloaking device. WARNING - IF YOU MISS THIS MISSION (DEATH, DESTRUCTION OF DEVICE, THEY GOT AWAY) YOU MUST LOAD THE GAME AND TRY AGAIN. THE MISSION DOES NOT COME TWICE!

Repair

Repairing the Cloaking Device is not easy. OXP's which help include

• RepairBots OXP
• Cloak Repair OXP
• visiting a Hacker Outpost from the Anarchies OXP
• visiting the Aquatics Corp HQ in Aqualina and doing them a favour (they might just do you one in return!)

Links

• Oolite_Keyboard_Controls
• I feel very guilty (2009)
• Cloaking device non-quirks (2010)
• Start of Discussion comparing Cloaking Device with Military Anti-Scanner Countermeasures (2011)
• Cloaking Device (2017) altering the effects by altering the Vanilla game code (remember to back-up first!)
• Cloaking Device is not working (2021)