Why does cloaking stop weapon charging?

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The one aspect of the game that doesn't make sense to me is the fact that when a ship cloaks, the weapons systems on the opposing ship stop charging.

I'm trying to come up with a rational for why that would be? I thought about the idea that what I thought was a power build-up period is actually time taken to compute a "firing solution" (as they would say on Battlestar Galactica). But that doesn't make much sense since even today we have laser systems that can auto-aim in fractions of a second.

I searched around on the forum, because I can't be the first person to ask this, but in the world of FTL, what is it about an enemy ship cloaking that stops my weapons from charging up to fire?

In a related question, when I first saw the augment for cloaked weapons, I thought it would allow my weapons to keep charging, even when the enemy was cloaked, but after reading the description a few more times, it appears it keeps my own weapons from interfering with the cloak (something I have never seen happen anyway). What exactly does that augment do?

[5thHorseman]

Game balance. If cloaking didn't stop weapon charging, it would lose at LEAST 50% of its effectiveness. It makes no sense and I won't even bother hand waving, but I love it this way and anybody who plays the DA-SR12 should too

When you fire any non-beam weapon, it depletes your cloak. I don't know by how much but if you fire a Burst Laser 2 while cloaked you'll notice it for sure. Stealth Weapons negates this effect and is quite useful in a cloak/laser strategy.

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Game balance. If cloaking didn't stop weapon charging, it would lose at LEAST 50% of its effectiveness. It makes no sense and I won't even bother hand waving, but I love it this way and anybody who plays the DA-SR12 should too

No, I get that without this functionality the cloak would be barely worth the effort. I guess what I'm trying to come up with is an in-game reason for it to behave this way. Some kind of story that explains why firing up my cloaking device causes my enemy's weapon systems to cease functioning completely.

When you fire any non-beam weapon, it depletes your cloak. I don't know by how much but if you fire a Burst Laser 2 while cloaked you'll notice it for sure. Stealth Weapons negates this effect and is quite useful in a cloak/laser strategy.

Thanks for explaining. I seldom use cloaking, but I do tend to favor burst weapons, so this is good to know.

[UltraMantis]

This pre-beta video on Youtube features Justin struggleing with the RNG and briefly explaining (then) new features of the game. These were teleporting, ion weapons and cloaking. Today it may not make sense, but when cloaking was introduced it was designed to prevent weapons targeting and it made the system more usefull if weapons "froze" and stopped recharging as well. Pretty much like 5thHorseman already explained.

It has also been suggested in the past that preventing weapons recharge isn't nonsensical when you take into consideration that weapons would also have to track and lock on to enemies, and this is impossible/disrupted by cloaking.

Either way, it's a crucial game mechanic because cloak duration is short and cooldown so long. If weapons were ready to discombobulate you as soon as you re-emerged, cloaking would only delay the inevitable AND give a huge advantage to the enemy, since you'd have to get through so many of them.

The video only glances over cloaking (mostly because FTL spares noone, even devs ) but is a pretty cool look into the past. And check out the different looking enemy hulls. And a ghost ship.

[cicobuff]

The OP is not carrying out his own rational to its logical conclusion. If cloak does not prevent charging because modern systems can acquire firing resolution in milliseconds. Why does systems even need to charge? Shouldn't all weapons just fire without wait times?

When cloaked, the cloaked ship can reposition themselves elsewhere. Recall the fight scenes of the enterprise vs cloaked ships in star trek. They always lose precious seconds trying to beat the cloak. Just think of it that way and you'll be fine =)

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The OP is not carrying out his own rational to its logical conclusion. If cloak does not prevent charging because modern systems can acquire firing resolution in milliseconds. Why does systems even need to charge? Shouldn't all weapons just fire without wait times?

The OP mentions that he thought that weapons had charging times as opposed to targeting times. He's not in logical error if you account for everything he says.

My headcanon is that the charge bar is a combination of charging weapons with power and finding targeting solutions. Targeting solutions tend to be more complicated when ships are separated by what could be hundreds of kilometers distance and extremely fast speeds. Obviously it's just a timer, but I like my headcanon better.

[Dontmindme]

To support the idea that weapon times are really a result of discovering a firing solution, consider the fact that "charge times" get reduced by manning the system. This would make no sense (excepting the dreaded Zoltan) if the times were a result of just waiting to be charged.

[5thHorseman]

Of course, the idea that "charge time" is actually "weapons lock time" doesn't really work because if they cloak while your weapons are 1 second from lock, when they come out of cloak you can still lock on in 1 second. Logically, you'd have to start all over from scratch.

And don't even get me started on the logic behind the pre-igniter...

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The OP is not carrying out his own rational to its logical conclusion. If cloak does not prevent charging because modern systems can acquire firing resolution in milliseconds. Why does systems even need to charge? Shouldn't all weapons just fire without wait times?

Actually, I had considered that, but decided that energy weapons powerful enough to smash hull plating on a ship, but which draw power from a reactor with a fixed output, would require a charging time. You can't expect that the ship's reactor is putting out enough power at any given moment to punch through a force shield or smash plating.

That does leave the question of why missile systems take time to charge. The energy payload is physical, built into the missile itself, and no charge time would be required (although a physical loading time would be). And if the missiles aren't self guiding, they would need targeting solutions to be pre-programmed. Since missiles tend to have slightly shorter "charge" times than energy weapons, maybe a significant part of the wait is actually in target acquisition.

But then, as mentioned, when your target comes out of cloak, it seems like you would need to restart your targeting calculations pretty nearly from scratch.

I actually thought it would be interesting if supplying more power to the weapons systems than they required would speed up the charging time. For example, if you have Burst Laser II, which requires two units of power, but you have capacity for four units of weapons power, and route all four units to weapons, the Burst Laser II should charge 25-50% faster, because you are adding more power to it. Then again, if "charge time" is predominantly targeting time, then maybe only a 10% increase.

It actually speaks well of FTL that its realism invites more scrutiny than a FPS where the protagonist carries a small arsenal around in a backpack, and can switch weapons in a fraction of a second.

Tagentially related: I've often wondered why, when I fire two different weapons systems at the same time, the energy "bolts" arrive at the enemy ship from very different directions. I understand that the ships are supposed to be constantly moving and dodging, but if two burst-laser weapons are fired at the same time from the same direction, I would expect to see the laser bursts approach the target in parrallel trajectories.

[cicobuff]

Time in Ftl is abstracted. In such a way that even the individual seconds are unequal to each other. Take for example the running of people through the med bays to heal while they are fighting inside. It's ridiculous since if you can physically be present at a location, why can you just stop mid run and stand and shoot? If we take the point of view that time is abstract, it can mean that the actual fight is a series of hide and seek within the med bays with people dodging, running to healing pods, med supplies and such. Enemies can't heal because the heal pods are keyed to the crew's dna. So we have a nasty gun fights. Mean while ship lasers are blasting away in real time, NOT at a shot once every 10 seconds. In this scenario, the seconds used in the melee fight seems different from the ship to ship combat.

Another way to explain all this is that the laser beam you see fired is actually a summary of countless laser shots. It's showing the one that count in that last X seconds. With that view that even that beams you see are abstracted, things fall into place. We just need our imagination to fill the gaps =)