I am back, and I am here to talk about the Cloak action itself, and not on Echo. To do this, I had to fly quite a few Whisper games to remember how it works. For those of you that don't know, the normal cloak action is using a 2 straight template to barrel roll or boost your ship when it decloaks.
To make sure you can cloak before your enemy fires, Whisper takes advanced cloaking device and veteran instincts. This lets her fire at ps 9 and cloaks right after. The problem this brings is that your movement doesn't function the way other ships do. In order to move, you need to decloak, let lower than ps 9 ships move, then move. So, you must really know where a ship is going in order to not get caught out.
I played a few games, and noticed a common joust that would happen against multiple lower PS skill ships. Here are my tips on surviving such an engagement.
This position doesn't look great for Whisper! But, have no fear. Although I have given up positioning to the TIE fighters, I do so to be able to gain positioning over the next three turns with little they can do to stop me. This is of course assuming the Tie swarm player is at the same skill level as me.
We can see that Whisper has found herself straight ahead against 4 TIE fighters. Although Whisper is not in the best spot, she has at least stayed out of range 2. Assuming all crack shots aren't up, she should be okay surviving this with 0-1 shields remaining. When it comes to crack and aces, I really try to get my opponent to spend their crack on different ships. That does mean baiting multiple ships to an opponent, and sometimes ends terribly.
Question time: which ship should Whisper attack?
Because of FCS on Whisper, it is important to attack a ship that she will be able to attack next turn. Her attacking the same ship twice makes FCS insanely powerful. And, Whisper is rewarded for hitting an enemy with a focus token. Whisper also gets to cloak, so attacking this next turn is paramount. Because of the TIE swarms position, I would assume it will be a 3k or 4k next turn. So, I choose the lower right TIE to attack. My now singular goal is to make sure I attack him again next turn.
I assume I can blink off one hull and then get a cloak, target lock, and focus to survive the rest of the round.
Now, I have played this set up and decloaked forward, and there is some merit to that. I would say that if I took too much damage, then I would maybe try that to run away. If you go that route, you need to decloak forward and do a 3 hard turn or a 4 straight and cloak.
I decloak up and back because I am assuming I decloaked down recently. With the decloak action, I feel you have to do something different as many times as possible, so that your opponent cannot guess and risk a block.
If you always decloak toward the edge and 1 hard back in, your opponent will remember and block you forever.
The TIE fighters could have done a 3k instead of 4, but I don't think they would because of the risk of my getting all the way behind them. They also could break formation, but without multiple shots onto whisper, 2 dice primary will never get through by itself. Because they are stressed from the K turn, they cannot barrel roll to block me. They also only get 1 shot on me, 2 if they did something fancy.
No matter where the Tie Fighter went that I target locked last turn, I should be able to shoot it this turn and most likely blow it up.
Now, because the TIE fighters are stressed, I know they have to clear it or at least move forward. So, this is a great time for Whisper to become aggressive. I want to decloak right behind where a TIE fighter is. Because TIE fighters cannot stay still, I know that this spot will be open in just a second or two. If the opponent tries to do something like bump himself, you will still be behind him, and his formation will be broken the following turn.
The opponent goes to clear stress and re-engage with all of its guns. I make my turn in and focus for a shot.
I choose the bottom TIE fighter because I will have the easiest time chasing it down. Because I have been decloaking up with a 1 hard in, I need to change up my approach. I decloak down first.
The TIE fighters do a 3k this time to try and finish off a most likely half health Whisper. Assuming that my opponent is setting up for me to turn in, I do a 2 straight and barrel roll away. I now am out of arc for one TIE and still maintain my shot for all the glorious actions that come with.
When it comes to decloaking in combat with a high PS ship, always remember to:
- Think about where your opponent will be
- Decide where you want to go
- Plan your decloak with all ships still in place
- Plan your movement with your assumption most ships have already moved.
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