Cloak & Dagger, Stealth Concepts for Raiding and Boarding quik n' dirty

[Paul M]

I wrote 80 for the detection value above but the calculation was done with 48 so that works.  A current NCN warship would detect the full speed thermal emission of the raider at 1.5m km.

My problem is I see no point to the stealth raider except against an undefended target, and only so they don't spook on approach.  Against a disabled ship I can't see why you need to sneak up on it.   One of my auxiliary carriers could carry three of the pods and so the two of them in the squadron could launch 6 at the ship from close enough range there is no chance most of them won't make it.

I'm just not seeing why BuEng in any navy would fight for this project as a package.  The boarding pod...yes clearly if you want to board there you go.   But the raider ship...that I just can't see being justifiable.   I would see a marine assault ship getting through a review long before I can imagine the raider.

[iceball3]

Actually, this all suddenly makes me wonder.
How long is the delay for the boarding action when breaking through a jump point?
I know fire control, active sensors, and the like are jammed, as well as a slight orders delay, but if it's much shorter than using weapons you could probably do some spicy jump assaults that heavily rely on boarding hostile vessels in range of the jump point.
Not pertinent to stealth ships though, obviously, except for the fact that it'd be sneaky in of itself.

[Paul M]

It pays to consider that the defenders are even better suited to launching boarding ships then the attackers...the attackers will not be able to see them coming and won't be able to engage them.

One thing with the stealth raider where I think you could use it...   If you are playing like the ISW3 Rigillians and are keen to interrogate prisoners for info then in conjunction with stealth armed raiders you could pick off a civilian ship and capture the crew.  A civilian ship would see the raider on its 1 thermal at 48k km so basically never as you could close to 100k and launch the boarding pod.   I don't see this as "roleplaying" but I can't really see this as a standard sort of activity but for races with contact with an unsuspecting vic-I mean neighbor it might be worth the investment.

[Michael Sandy]

The biggest problem for a stealthed boarding craft is always going to be that you need a 10x speed edge in your boarding craft to have a successful boarding, and you are better off with a greater speed edge to avoid massive casualties in your boarders.

And while you might be able to get that speed edge vs slow commercial ship, normally you have to cripple an enemy in order to board.  Which means you need some fleet component designed to disable the enemy prior to boarding, or approaching with your boarders.

It is why my design philosophy for fast beam capital ships includes a cryo boarding module.  I don't need to worry about them being destroyed on approach, because they have already approached.