Hiding

[ExChairman (OP)]

Is it possible to hide a unit, say fighter in an area with wrecks, power down or something?
Say a small fighter with alot of wrecks around it should be harder to find.

[AL]

As far as I know, the best you can do is set ship speed to 1 (0 doesn't work?) and turn off all active sensors and/or shields. That will give you the best chance of evading detection via passive sensors.
However, there isn't really anything you can do to avoid being detected by active sensors. Cloaking tech reduces the tonnage a ship will appear to be for the purposes of active sensor detection range, but you must have a cloaking device already installed on your ship for it to work.

[Rich.h]

As above reducing your set speed to zero (though you can actually only reduce to 1). will in turn drop your TH signature to zero also, if you have turned off all your own sensors & shields then this will mean any passive sensors will need to crash into you to pick you up.

I think cloaking though works a little differently, I was under the impression your cloaking level simply meant your opponent chances to hit you were reduced by a value of the cloak, thereby meaning they have their weapon ranges reduced. So for example you have a viable TH signature so they know you are there but due to your cloak their weapons simply can't get a lock and so they have to move closer to compensate.

[alex_brunius]

It would be a pretty cool feature though if you were able to hide any ship with tonnage smaller then a wreck from active sensors while at the wreck.

Although why should it be unique to wrecks? Planets or other system bodies would be much larger and more dense, and should also be able to hide ships or entire fleets in that case...

[MarcAFK]

Perhaps ships should be able to land on low gravity bodies to mask their hull cross section, maybe acting like high power ECM and lowering detection range.

[MarcAFK]

As long as they aren't completely hidden it's not impossible to just send a ship to scan bodies they could be hiding on. Or set up bouys, mines, scouts. Etc.

[linkxsc]

Bit about sneaking around.

Your thermal signature scales with your speed. Setting to 0 gets no thermal sig, setting to full speed is full thermal sig.

When avoiding ships, theres nothing to stop you from moving at 1/4th speed and only letting out 1/4th the signature. This is useful especially if you know how good the enemy's passives are as I've had situations before like this.

GEV out putting about, suddenly its thermals pick up some signatures coming my way probably NPR warships.
Setting throttle to 0 I saw that they were still approaching, and had turned their actives on (actually another ship picked this up, but I still saw).
So I set speed to 1/4th and started heading perpendicular to the direction they were moving. They kept right on course, and I was able to shift out of the way before they came close enough to spot me. Then they just sat there with their actives on and derped around for a little bit, but I was already quite far gone, arcing around to the jump point to retreat.

Also each level of DSTS gives them ridiculous passive sensing ability. Never seen much more than 10 of them on a planet, but you might not know what planet they're on (EM sensors help with this as they can sport the DSTS colony from a good distance away). This with some math can let you evade detection by those, as those are usually the first thing that spots you when running around at full throttle in a system.

[AL]

I think cloaking though works a little differently, I was under the impression your cloaking level simply meant your opponent chances to hit you were reduced by a value of the cloak, thereby meaning they have their weapon ranges reduced. So for example you have a viable TH signature so they know you are there but due to your cloak their weapons simply can't get a lock and so they have to move closer to compensate.

A check of the corresponding wiki page isn't particularly helpful, although it does still suggest a reduction in detection range by active sensors. An older forum thread I found has a fairly good discussion on the mechanics of cloaking and supports my claim of effective tonnage reduction for sensors. As a side effect, the same tonnage reduction will apply to missile fire controls leading to (much) reduced ranges if the sensor resolutions aren't appropriate.

[Rich.h]

Bit about sneaking around.

Your thermal signature scales with your speed. Setting to 0 gets no thermal sig, setting to full speed is full thermal sig.

When avoiding ships, theres nothing to stop you from moving at 1/4th speed and only letting out 1/4th the signature. This is useful especially if you know how good the enemy's passives are as I've had situations before like this.

GEV out putting about, suddenly its thermals pick up some signatures coming my way probably NPR warships.
Setting throttle to 0 I saw that they were still approaching, and had turned their actives on (actually another ship picked this up, but I still saw).
So I set speed to 1/4th and started heading perpendicular to the direction they were moving. They kept right on course, and I was able to shift out of the way before they came close enough to spot me. Then they just sat there with their actives on and derped around for a little bit, but I was already quite far gone, arcing around to the jump point to retreat.

Also each level of DSTS gives them ridiculous passive sensing ability. Never seen much more than 10 of them on a planet, but you might not know what planet they're on (EM sensors help with this as they can sport the DSTS colony from a good distance away). This with some math can let you evade detection by those, as those are usually the first thing that spots you when running around at full throttle in a system.

I always use a similar tactic, all my survey vessels will reduce to at least half speed when entering a new system so that they do not suddenly alert any potential npr vessels that I do not know about. In addition when my shipyards are bigger I switch to a carrier style of surveying, this way the survey craft can zip about the system at speeds far faster then the old designs, while giving off far smaller signatures. Meanwhile the carrier craf will make its way at 1/4 or less to a body such as a lone gas giant and then shut down engines until the survey craft complete their work. This way if anything does happen to go bad the large and expensive (I found jump engines to be the most expensive thing to let go boom) vessel can still make a run for safety.

[linkxsc]

I always use a similar tactic, all my survey vessels will reduce to at least half speed when entering a new system so that they do not suddenly alert any potential npr vessels that I do not know about. In addition when my shipyards are bigger I switch to a carrier style of surveying, this way the survey craft can zip about the system at speeds far faster then the old designs, while giving off far smaller signatures. Meanwhile the carrier craf will make its way at 1/4 or less to a body such as a lone gas giant and then shut down engines until the survey craft complete their work. This way if anything does happen to go bad the large and expensive (I found jump engines to be the most expensive thing to let go boom) vessel can still make a run for safety.

Yes usually once the first fleet carriers come out, my existing surveyors get overhauled and sent out to "secured" systems. The carriers head forward it some gravsurvey fighters with tiny sigs. Theres also usually some geosurvey ones too, to check gas giants in system so a few tankers can move up and get ready. Most geosurvey is still carried out by 4000t surveyors, but new systems get entered by military ships.

Also especially nice how close you can get a 120-150t fighter with a size 1 passive scanner to other ships before they notice.

[Sheb]

How close can you get? Is the artificial limitation that means that even with high cloak thech you still cannot go smaller than a size 6 missiles for sensor purpose still on?

[83athom]

How close can you get? Is the artificial limitation that means that even with high cloak tech you still cannot go smaller than a size 6 missiles for sensor purpose still on?

Really depends on who you are facing and what they have. If they have a stupidly large res 1 sensor at a high tech, you will get nowhere near them. If they have a small to moderate size high res (150+) sensor, you can get pretty close.

[Rich.h]

Remember also for ships you want to be "stealthy" or if you happen to have a glut of resources then just about any ship. There is also the tech line for reducing engine emissions, this means your TH per engine power starts to drop, get it high enough and not only can tiny fighters get close but a half power monster can drop right on somoenes backdoor too.

[Ziusudra]

I think cloaking though works a little differently, I was under the impression your cloaking level simply meant your opponent chances to hit you were reduced by a value of the cloak, thereby meaning they have their weapon ranges reduced. So for example you have a viable TH signature so they know you are there but due to your cloak their weapons simply can't get a lock and so they have to move closer to compensate.

What you describe here is what ECM does. AL is correct about what cloaking does.