Romulan Cloak Help

[Balderdasq]

So I've been enjoying the game so far, however there is something I'm having a bit of trouble understanding. The cloak seems to be almost useless most of the time. The shows and even the game's own tutorial portray it as an absolute game changer, but when I activate it, it seems to be a coin flip on whether or not it will actually work. I've tried utilizing ecm to no avail, and even when the enemy ship isn't firing on me, it's still following right on top of me, thus preventing me from getting to a better position (which I thought was the entire point of the cloak). Am I doing something wrong, or is this just a problem with the game?

[kalnaren]

Cloak in SFC works like it does in the board game Star Fleet Battles, it does not work like it does in the movies and TV shows.

Think of cloak as a very advanced ECM system rather than a complete stealth system.

Form the manual page 141:

Cloaking Weaknesses

The cloaked ship must move slower than it normally would. Moving too
quickly will allow enemy ships to gain a lock–on and fire regardless of the
Cloaking Device.

Cloaked ships are also vulnerable to the explosions (t–bombs, mines and
other exploding ships). These explosions can “flash” the cloaked ship and
make it temporarily visible on enemy scanners.

The Lyran ESG is very effective against the Cloaking Device. Since the
ESG applies damage to an area of space, it doesn’t matter if a ship is
cloaked or not. It will take damage from the ESG field and it will become
exposed temporarily to enemy fire control lock–ons.

Normally, ships cannot tractor a cloaked ship since that requires very
sensitive control. If a cloaked ship is exposed by an explosion, an ESG or
by moving too fast, it may be tractored. This is bad for the cloaked ship

If you're cloaking, as you start the fade-out, you need to drop your speed to around 4. Moving much faster gives the enemy a chance to lock on. If you're flashed by mines or t-bombs, the enemy can lock on.

They can still shoot at you while you're cloaked, but the weapons fire is highly ineffective (I don't have the SFB rulebook in front of me and can't remember the exact shift for failure to lock-on). Seeking weapons can't be fired at a cloaked ship.

Because cloaking basically tanks your maneuverability, it has another very powerful usage: protects you while you re-arm those Type-R plasma torpedoes. If an enemy stays close while you're cloaked, remember that you can still drop mines.

You've got a period of vulnerability during the fade-in when decloaking, so you'll have to time that when the opponent has as few weapons in arc as possible. Consider a WW shuttle if you're fighting something armed with a lot of drones.

If the enemy has stayed close to you and you're now de-cloaked, he should be moving slowly and you're now in a good position to fire a Type-R up his ass.

Plasma-armed ships in general are more difficult to play than non-plasma ships, and the Romulan cloak added on top of the general crappyness of old-style and KR-style Romulan cruisers make the Romulans harder to play still.