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Original post by Sandman That would make it appear black. It would be useful for hiding in shadows, but you'd stick out like a sore thumb in broad daylight. To be invisible, you need to be able to transmit light straight through.

D'oh! I knew that... rookie mistake, consider this amended. I more had Predator or Ghost in the Shell gear in mind.

EDIT: Actually, maybe this should be two systems? Maybe there's the reflective cloak, which can be seen thermally, and the shunt, which sucks in light. This gives armors that have dual modes.

Or is that overly complicated?

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It would not be hard to develop a device capable of spraying the ground with dust, or filling the air with some kind of powder or gas that interferes with the devices operation. This would reveal all invisible creatures in that area in one fell swoop, either by ruining the invisibility effect or by making it impossible to avoid leaving footprints behind. You mention sprinklers and smoke bombs etc, but if the invisibility tech is widespread then specialist anti-invisibility devices are likely to be developed along similar lines, but more effective.

I agree with (in fact, am counting on) this sort of countermeasure. However, countermeasures themselves do not exist in a vacuum, as there are "counter-countermeasures." Consider that first you have to know where your enemy is in order to use a countermeasure. For instance, with dust:

• Will it blow away naturally?
  
• Can it be eroded or altered with nanotech?
  
• Can it be fixed in place or removed by electrostatic means?
  
• How much area do you have to cover?
  
• When is the enemy attacking, and from what direction?
  

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Sonar and other non-EM detection methods would also work, limiting the effectiveness of the tech in avoiding intrusion detection systems and so on. Furthermore if the wearer is only invisible to a range of wavelengths of light, then other wavelengths will become more useful for detectors and countermeasures.

Yes, I can see more exotic vision systems coming online, such as those that use low-energy X-ray scattering like those new airport security stations. This is a good thing for creativity, I think.

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Also, a truly invisible creature is also a blind creature - eyes, cameras and any other form of visible detection system have to be able to absorb light to detect it, and any light that's being absorbed is light that isn't being transmitted. You'd either need some other way of seeing where you're going (sonar, some form of vision goggles that operate on non-visible wavelengths that aren't covered by the cloak, etc) or the dark spots of the eyes would provide a clue that an invisible creature is nearby. (it would still be quite hard to spot though)

Okay, it's almost cliche, but I think it might be cool to consider this as a tell-tale of your enemy moving about, along with reflective image distortion.

[Edited by - Wavinator on September 2, 2005 11:09:20 PM]

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Original post by Iron Chef Carnage I'd add that most actions, like firing or communicating or operating a vehicle, would give away your position rather quickly, so there's a sort of continuum between visible technowarrior and invisible zulu warrior. Both can get kills, but neither is always the right choice.

You're right. If stealth detection is a matter of catching things like comm bursts and heat signatures on door panels, I think there's an additional dividend: You get more stuff to buy (quantum walkie talkies? heat-sink gloves?[grin]) and it enhances any gameplay involving HUDs because they'll be less artsy and more functional. (Eh, in theory, anyway).

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You have one filter that detects body heat, one that detects electronic signatures, and one that tracks movement. I think. SInce the spies have clever ways to hide and some active camo like what you describe, these have to be cycled through almost constantly to catch the little buggers.

Predator's vision in the AvP games is like this (and you can be blind to warning signs if you stay in one mode too long).

I have mixed feelings about view switching. On the one hand, choice is always good. But sometimes I've wished for a user controlled cycling mode. That mode, however, would relieve the player of some of the risk of managing how they use a resource.

Not sure about that, overall...

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If a detection visor was the anti-invisibility loadout, and there was some way to transmit enemy locations to allies, then one guy with detection could spot for all the shooters. Now that I think of it, it would be like a Science Vessel in StarCraft when you're fighting Dark Templars. Of course, the guy with the big glasses would be the natural target, and the tactical consequences progress from there. Just a thought. You don't seem to be going the route of detection.

I do see what you mean, but I think that works in Starcraft because you're expected to have multiple points of tactical interest. What if it's just you versus an army, Rambo style?

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But... if you do, you might want to also look at the system used in Deus Ex.

Stupid #$*$*@! game won't install on my machine, but I have this. Thanks, I'll give it another shot when I get more time.

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Original post by The Shadow Nose Purple (standing on a nearbye hill with a sniper rifle): Noobs... they never learn. Why bother with invisibility when I can just use a sniper scope to follow their footprints?

[lol] (Seriously, this cracked me up!)

Thanks, that vignette would illustrate that invisibility should not be a dominating strategy if there's enough inference evidence.

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So if a player goes into battle and wants to stay hidden, he can carry a device which looks kind of like a gladiator shield. Then, when he activates it, it projects a large ultra-realistic holographic screen in front of him that shows the area behind him.

I have no logical excuse why you couldn't cloak 360, but this is too dang cool an idea to pass up. It reminds me tactically of siege towers, except for stealth. (Okay, need a good reason why it can't be 360... maybe something bad happens if you're completely surrounded? I always resort to "alien artifact" btw, if I can't figure out the tech, so the tech's not a problem, just the gameplay limitation)

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And with the holographic thing... you could have the hologram replace certain objects with illusions.

I think holograms in general make for some good stealth / theiveing opportunities, but with certain specific limits, such as giving themselves away in low light conditions or as an ambient power source.

Holograms might be deployed in large scale (battlefield?) conditions where you can't get close enough to use corroborating sensors. I think they work best to disguise things in limited ways, like making a field of tanks look more numerous than it actually is. But they're pretty limited if the enemy is reading heat, or radar return, etc.

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Original post by Jotaf Well, if 2 shunts can't get near each other because they will be disrupted, it means that anyone with invisibility will *always* have to work solo!

No, this is what I meant by "non-synchronized." Basically, there'd be some sort of way of putting them in synch so that you could see your allies and not cancel one another out.

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When invisible, your eyes can still be seen floating in the air. So from any angle except your front, you're effectively invisible; from the front, you're considered "barely visible". This means that in this situation, you can be easily spotted from a medium to short distance, especially if you're moving.

I'm starting to like this. Keep in mind, though, there could be suits in the game world with pinprick cameras. This would mean that fighting against an SAS squad would involve looking for pixels! (?!)

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But wait - your invisibility device can detect when you close your eyes, so since you don't need to see, it can render you *completely* invisible! There's a special key that does exactly this, it fades the screen to black while you hold it, and then back to normal when you release it.

Hmmm... you've got not smell or touch, some I'm reluctant to do this.

What about this: What if you could snapshot an area and project it like some sort of Matrix-like VR hologram. When you enter this mode, you're completely invisible, but you're working off of old level information?

I'd just hate for you to be staring at a blank screen.

Follow up question: Blundering into an army

What would your reaction be to the possibility of walking into a battalion of invisibility-cloaked troops and having to fight your way out?

Consider that...

• It's an open-ended game, so you don't have to be there
  
• You can't die, but you can't also quickload (so you'd be captured upon defeat and have to escape)
  
• You probably did so as a result of ignoring evidence (footprints, moving shrubs, fleeing animals, etc.)
  
• You probably did so as a result of not gathering intel about the area, or as a result of a rare story event (a secret invasion)
  
• You yourself weren't using adequate cloaking technology
  

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Original post by Wavinator Follow up question: Blundering into an army What would your reaction be to the possibility of walking into a battalion of invisibility-cloaked troops and having to fight your way out?

If I understand the concept and use of invisibility in your game, it would be acceptable if it made sense. There'd have to be the following conditions:

• There has to be a reason for the army to be invisible. If the technology is expensive, I doubt an army would cloak itself just because a small party of adventurers walked by. So there would need to be another reason for them to be there and invisible.
  
• If the army is on the way somewhere for a secret invasion, they are unlikely to stop the attack or blow their cover just to fight little ol' you. It's possible that they'd just ignore you if they think you hadn't spotted them.
  
• I'm not entirely sure how something as large as an army could be moving around, even while invisible, and not be fairly obvious to detect (unless they are in some exotic craft like hoverships)
  

Oh, and one other thing I thought of: if invisibilty technology is very wide spread, wouldn't soldiers be expecting people to use it? If so, then wouldn't low-tech stealth technology, such as ordinary camoflage, or just hiding behind things and sticking to the shadows, be unexpected? This is assuming that people don't have infra-red or other methods of seeing people.

Saving on art assets? :)

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Original post by Ketchaval Saving on art assets? :)

LOL the thought just crossed my mind that Wav could use this feature so much that he wouldn't need any 3D models at all ;)


Seriously though, it's true that microcameras replacing floating eyes would be a very good idea. But looking for pixels is not fun at all; you might as well say that the cameras are so tiny that they are impossible to see, so effectively the user is completely hidden.

I think that invisibility is so powerful that it should come with a catch.
It makes sense, not to mention it's cool, to make someone who is invisible stay on his toes -- after all, he's on an infiltration or preying in on someone. It should have the same feeling as "staying in the shadows".
If you have to face the wall every time you encounter a guard, or "close your eyes", and suddenly you lose a degree of control and are forced to rely primarily on your hearing (try to picture that in your head), THAT's a nice catch.
You know you're invisible, but also that it's not 100% guaranteed and you have to deal with all that tension. It relies less on your opponent's ability to deliver counters, something that is out of your control, and more on your mistakes, on human error. Hence the additional tension. Of course, that's just how I'd do it :)

If you are talking about enemies having invisibility, i personally dont find a lot of enjoyment in suddenly dying, and seeing that there was an invisible enemy there the whole time. Rather, the better alternative IMO would be a sort of electronic camoflauge device that imitated the enviroment around it. That way, you might be able to catch incoming invisible enemies if you are alert. This could also mean that better devices would be harder to see.

When I thought of the holographic "invisibility shield" I figured it would basically work by having cameras on the back (sort of lining the rim) take a 3-D anoramic picture of the area behind the user.

Then the shield processes the info to create a holographic projection of the background and simply edits out the user and any footprints or whatnot from the image.

so it basically consists of

1. cameras or sensors
2. processors to deal with the image
3. an array of projectors to make the holographic cover

However, if these are "Star wars" holograms (where you just have a little projector that beams a seemingly solid image into thin air) then the user would also be hampered by the projection because he would be seeing the area behind him projected in front of him. Data from the standard processor could be used along with glasses or something so that the user can see through the projection.



I suppose a 360- degree invisibility device using this technology would consist of a ring of sensors and projectors (possibly stationed on hat-like array) and then it would need additional processors to cancel out the holograms interfering with the sensors. These would have to be exponentially more powerful than those used with the shield because while the Shield just needs to allow the user to see through it, the Hat has to incorporate that into its own processes.

Basically, the "Invisibility Shield" could be a reliable and relativly inexpensive cloaking system that provides up to 180-degrees of invisibility (because that's the maximum you can have without hologram-sensor overlap).

The "Invisibility Hat" would be more expensive because it requires costly image processing to cancel out the overlaping sensor images and holograms. It provides up to 360-degrees of invisibility.

However- with 360 invisibility fields being so expensive due to the processing needs, some budget models have been made.

1. The StillLife- Allows total invisibility while the user stands stationary, they can look around and fire weapons but when they walk or run the time-lag of their field looks like a big moving transperant bubble (its great as long as nobody is facing you while you move).

2. The MoonWalker- Makes you totally invisible even at great speed. However, the user can't see out of the field in the normal manner. Ouside of a certain radius, what they see infront of them is actually what is behind them (its similar to being a vampire with mirrors placed over your glasses). As a result, when you try walking forward you see the area behind you moving away. So, people using this often walk around backwards, staring at the sky to look down at their feet.

Studies have shown that people who use the MoonWalker either die from useing it, die from getting used to walking like that and then walking into traffic, or are drug addicts who think the effect is "groovey".

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On another note, how about having a device that makes the user inaudible instead of invisible. So instead of having an army of tanks, infantry and aircrafts driving through town while invisible and making noise like no tomorrow, how about having them just become ultra-silent.

Characters with "silencers" would have devices that cancel out sounds that happen near them, so they can march through a hallway and attack people witout making sound (some Silencers might even cancel out the screams of their victims , gunshots, or breaking glass).

It could also have a pretty eerie effect for the player to run into a character whos presence cancels out the sounds of gunfire and explosions (even the game music) that they have gotten used to. Especially if they are used to the sound of footsteps or hovering noises and suddenly those sounds go away.

Which I suppose could work, some bad guys would have Silencers to hide their presence while they sneak, and naturally if your footsteps suddenly stop making noise you'll have to wonder is a Silencer is nearbye.

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Though... what if there are invisibility fields that make total invisibility and the only way for the user to see the outside world is through a sonar device. They become invisible but all the in-game texture is removed so they could see objects but wouldn't be able to tell Red characters from Blue characters and wouldn't be able to read written words on a screen or paper.

Then, it would be very difficult for someone to combine Invisibility with Silence. They would either have to toggle or go around blind if they had both.