Default: 21 (Reptile), 22 (LCC), 25 (Saurian), 26 (White Falcon), 27 (Swift Heart), 28 (Fearless Wing), 32 (Bright Heart), 33 (Deth Specula), 36 (D7), 38 (D3 Thorn), 43 (Dwarfstar), 44 (BR4), 45 (BR5), 46 (MCBR), 47 (Red Wind)

Numeric Value: 16

To activate the cloaking device, set the mission to Cloak. This implies you can not tow, intercept, lay mines etc. while cloaked. When your client program won't let you set the Cloak mission, you can also use the Cloak extended mission (via the extmission command possibly) which does exactly the same.

Bird Men that do the Super Spy mission will also cloak when possible.

This standard cloaking device burns fuel to operate. The fuel consumption is Trunc(HullMass * CloakFuelBurn / 100), where hulls lighter than 100kt count as 100kt. After burning that fuel (and the fuel needed to move), at least one kiloton must remain in the fuel tank.

Cloak fuel is burned before movement. When you have too little fuel to support cloaking and movement, the fuel is burned completely and cloaking fails (because movement will consume all fuel so there's nothing left). Cloaking alone will not empty your tank, though. If you have less than X+1 kt fuel, the cloak will not happen at all, and all fuel will be left there.

Cloaking has the following benefits:

  • You can not be seen by others;
  • You can not be attacked by others, but you can yourself attack (by setting a Primary Enemy, config option AllowCloakedShipsAttack). You can not attack planets when cloaked, though;
  • The risk to trigger a subspace mine is lower when you're cloaked;
  • ...plus some other goodies.

Combinations:

  • Cloak + Ramscoop
  • ► 

    (4.0i/3.4k) The Ramscoop produces only half the normal amount of fuel while the ship is cloaked.

  • Cloak + AntiCloak
  • ► 

    (4.0i/3.4k) Anti-Cloak ships do not decloak themselves.

  • Cloak + Hyperdrive
  • ► 

    (4.0i/3.4k) Hyperjumping frees large amounts of energy. Therefore, ships which hyperjump must decloak.

  • Cloak + Chunneling
  • ► 

    (4.0i/3.4k) Building up a chunnel sets free huge amounts of energy, therefore both Initiator and Mate have to decloak.

Preconditions for cloaking:

Cloak Failure: Cloaking can fail under certain circumstances:

  • Random failure (technical malfunction, CloakFailureRate);
  • Too little fuel. May happen due to robbing, web minefield fuel draining, and in certain movement situations.
  • Tachyon field (Anti-Cloak ship). Note that up to version 4.0h/3.4j, an Anti-Cloak ship would have de-cloaked itself all the time;
  • Wormhole travel;

  • (4.0i/3.4k) Ship does hyperjump, initiates a chunnel, or acts as a chunnel mate;

  • Ionic pulse triggered by Super Spy;
  • Ship gets too badly damaged. Ships which get over the damage limit by a mine hit, a glory device or combat must immediately de-cloak;
  • Ship is affected by an ion storm;
  • Ship changes ownership. This is a direct consequence of the fact that all ownership changes reset the ship's mission.

► Note: Note that in PHost before 4.0j (and all 3.x versions), damage taken in combat can be repaired and does not de-cloak the ship. This was considered a bug and fixed in 4.0j.

If the preconditions for cloaking are not fulfilled, the cloaking device will not be enabled from the start on. If one of the preconditions is no longer true, or a cloak failure happens, the cloak will be canceled for the rest of the turn, even if the preconditions are again fulfilled later on. A little bit more plastic: cloaking devices are turned on only once, at the beginning of the turn. Afterwards, they can only be turned off.

The Hosting Stages document lists all places where cloaking can fail.

Relevant Configuration Options: (selection!) AllowCloakedShipsAttack, AllowCloakFailMessages, AllowTowCloakedShips, AntiCloakImmunity, CloakedMineTravelSafeWarp, CloakFailureRate, CloakFuelBurn, DamageLevelForCloakFail, MineHitOddsWhenCloakedX10, WrmTravelCloaked.

Relevant PControl Stages: AntiCloak_1, after BeamUpCredits, after WebDraining, Movement, AntiCloak_2, after Terraforming

Relevant Formulas: Cloaking.