So I'm again digesting the numbers on the Stealth Recon role and thought I should report my findings concerning what craft are really best for this. My findings are interesting. Let me start by reminding what the stealth recon role is all about and then explain some numbers.
The goal of all recon is to gauge an enemy's presence and strength inside a specific region. Stealth recon is to do this without detection, which would tip an aggressor's hand as to what one intends. While normal recon can keep a fleet safe, stealth recon enables a fleet to make good choices about attacking an enemy unawares. This primary role of recon includes things like spotting for other ships' long range weapons, especially including the S9 and S10 torps of the Tally, Eclipse and Polaris. Best data still says the Seeker IX and Typhoon IX of the Eclipse and Tally have almost 50 km range, and one part of recon is to spot for these long range weapons.
Secondary to this can be to remove an enemy's recon ability at the onset of a battle. Tertiary can be to act as a decoy. A good stealth recon capability not only gathers intel but denies this to the opponent, and can even be used to misdirect an opponent's assets during an engagement.
In order to evaluate what ships can and cannot perform these duties, there needs to be a baseline to compare against. In the case of fighting UEE ships, that baseline is probably the Gladius, Ghost Hornet, Arrow, or even a Buccaneer. However, against Vanduul the requirements are all higher than against these recon craft, for the Vanduul Blade is faster than all of them and can chase them down. Certainly you do not want to provide a decoy function with a ship slower than the Blade, as this would end badly. Additionally, it's also worth noting that the Blade is designed around very little shield since it has such a strong hull intended for ramming, so Blades can be flown well without their single shield enabled. Blades are also very heavily armed, and make interesting and challenging opponents in the recon game. Thus knowing nothing about what sort of opponent one might have in the future, examining how to cope with the capabilities of the Blade can be instructive.
So lets have a look. The Blade has 6,250 hull, 5,400 shield, movement of 290 and afterburn 1,240. This makes it faster than every ship thus far listed. There are however two ships that are faster than the Blade that could be pressed into Stealth Recon service: the Mustang Omega, and the Razor EX.
So this is really an apologetic where i am recommending as I have in the past about the use of the EX. Lets compare the Blade and EX in how they would operate in the recon role. Much of this also applies to the Omega, but the Omega is much larger, with much larger Radar Cross Section (RCS) and cannot fit in ships hangars in numbers the EX can.
Flying stock and with weapons and shields off, the Blade has an EM signature of 1,667. We don't know if the AI will do this, but lets plan for the worst. The EX once fully equipped for this mission has an EM signature of 300. That difference, between 300 and 1,667 is the place where the EX needs to thrive and exploit. That's where recon pilots need to be--in sight of their opponents without being in their sights. That gap--lets call it the Scan Gap--is the thing stealth recon wants to exploit in order to obtain useful intel about the battlefield, without revealing their presence. The larger this gap is, the greater recon pilots can exploit their advantage. Additionally there are the numbers for IR and for RCS, which only applies when a player or NPC does some active pinging, or performs a hard burn that will light up the skies with a brilliant IR signature. We can say little about these two but lets look at this little.
RCS is a linear function of target area. The EX has much lower RCS than the Blade. IR is a function of heat generated by the entire ship, and is most effected by using the engines. All ships carry two cooler slots for a reason. One needs to be left on to cool the ship if it is maneuvering at all. In stealth mode, the secondary cooler should be switched off until it is needed, and when switched on, trades IR for EM. Because this is so, stealth ships should in general have a small, low EM cooler as primary and a second, super high IR dump cooler as secondary. You want to be able to perform a hard burn, then dump all that heat very quickly and resume normal stealth operation. These are the stealth trades CIG has already built into the game that most players still do not appreciate nor apply.*
So what does this look like--what am I recommending? Something like this:
Razor EX with:
1) Whatever guns the pilot chooses. Until you're involved in trying to remove the enemy's recon ability, they don't matter, and when a battle commences and you try to remove their intel ability, best is each pilot has what they really want for that job. Note that this role we're here considering does not include attacking anything other than recon vessels like the Blade. Make your decisions based upon your target. Most times I would choose the Strife Mass Drivers since these will penetrate the hard Vanduul shell and do damage, and that damage does not repair when you're forced to disengage the way it does with shields. Kill the ship, not the shields.
2) Missile rack--stock. These are almost useless and really just to harass your opponent.
3) FR-66 shields, left off when not engaging. Gotta have 'em as they need to absorb the Vandull energy weapons strikes on your tiny craft.
4) Snowblind primary cooler for ultra-low EM signature, and UltraFlow secondary cooler for only when you need to dump heat quickly after a hard engine burn. Switching on this second cooler boosts your IR reduction from 170,00 to 610,000 per second. If you turn it on when you fire up your engines, you should not need to leave it on more than a few sconds after you cut your engine boost, and can then resume stealth if that is your intention.
5) Whatever Q drive is appropriate for the occasion. Stock may be fine.
6) Slipstream powerplant for super stealthy operations.
Out of these, the powerplant and coolers are probably the most important components, and are really what enables the EX to obtain that useful Scan Gap, between 300-1,667. This is where almost all the tiny EX's advantage lies, and if the Blade has its shield and weapons enabled (likely with AI), that Gap grows to 300-7,779. This is the kind of Scan Gap one can exploit and obtain huge benefits.
Final thoughts on the tertiary mission--flying as DECOY. The simplest way to get attention as a decoy is light up your afterburners. If your goal is to draw assets out of a region in order to obtain another goal, say bring in your bombers; you want to be able to do three things. First, get their attention. Second, lead the opponent where you want them. Third, evade and distract. The decoy role thus places the highest demands on the recon unit for speed (especially without afterburner), and while you could perform stealth recon without superior speed, you cannot adequately decoy an opponent without superior speed.
So just sharing--these are the reasons I have recommended the EX for everyone to consider. It's an expensive ship, and it is not loaded up with lots of weapons, so some will hesitate to invest themselves in learning to fly it well. IMHO, the dash is too high, and the field of view too restricted for best combat. However, given the mission of stealth recon, I don't think there is another ship that comes close and surely none of these others are so hard to hit in combat and so easy to carry aboard other ships. I think someone showed we can put 5 EX in the Carrack--three in the hangar and two in the garage? Whatever it is, you certainly can't do that with a Mustang.
* Players often say that scan and stealth are not yet in game. This is only partially true. For now, EM and IR sensors are not swapable components, and so relate only to the size of a ship's radar array. What this means is ships' sensitivity to EM and IR vary only as much as their radar array's vary. It's worth noting here that thus far only two ships are planned to have unusual radar arrays that depart from their ship size. The Apollo has a Large array despite it will have the dimensions of a Medium ship, and the Polaris will have a Capitol array despite it will be the dimensions of a Large ship. Doesn't matter. Neither of these ships are in game yet, and by the time they are, odds are good we'll have real EM warfare with swapable component EM and IR sensors.
The goal of all recon is to gauge an enemy's presence and strength inside a specific region. Stealth recon is to do this without detection, which would tip an aggressor's hand as to what one intends. While normal recon can keep a fleet safe, stealth recon enables a fleet to make good choices about attacking an enemy unawares. This primary role of recon includes things like spotting for other ships' long range weapons, especially including the S9 and S10 torps of the Tally, Eclipse and Polaris. Best data still says the Seeker IX and Typhoon IX of the Eclipse and Tally have almost 50 km range, and one part of recon is to spot for these long range weapons.
Secondary to this can be to remove an enemy's recon ability at the onset of a battle. Tertiary can be to act as a decoy. A good stealth recon capability not only gathers intel but denies this to the opponent, and can even be used to misdirect an opponent's assets during an engagement.
In order to evaluate what ships can and cannot perform these duties, there needs to be a baseline to compare against. In the case of fighting UEE ships, that baseline is probably the Gladius, Ghost Hornet, Arrow, or even a Buccaneer. However, against Vanduul the requirements are all higher than against these recon craft, for the Vanduul Blade is faster than all of them and can chase them down. Certainly you do not want to provide a decoy function with a ship slower than the Blade, as this would end badly. Additionally, it's also worth noting that the Blade is designed around very little shield since it has such a strong hull intended for ramming, so Blades can be flown well without their single shield enabled. Blades are also very heavily armed, and make interesting and challenging opponents in the recon game. Thus knowing nothing about what sort of opponent one might have in the future, examining how to cope with the capabilities of the Blade can be instructive.
So lets have a look. The Blade has 6,250 hull, 5,400 shield, movement of 290 and afterburn 1,240. This makes it faster than every ship thus far listed. There are however two ships that are faster than the Blade that could be pressed into Stealth Recon service: the Mustang Omega, and the Razor EX.
So this is really an apologetic where i am recommending as I have in the past about the use of the EX. Lets compare the Blade and EX in how they would operate in the recon role. Much of this also applies to the Omega, but the Omega is much larger, with much larger Radar Cross Section (RCS) and cannot fit in ships hangars in numbers the EX can.
Flying stock and with weapons and shields off, the Blade has an EM signature of 1,667. We don't know if the AI will do this, but lets plan for the worst. The EX once fully equipped for this mission has an EM signature of 300. That difference, between 300 and 1,667 is the place where the EX needs to thrive and exploit. That's where recon pilots need to be--in sight of their opponents without being in their sights. That gap--lets call it the Scan Gap--is the thing stealth recon wants to exploit in order to obtain useful intel about the battlefield, without revealing their presence. The larger this gap is, the greater recon pilots can exploit their advantage. Additionally there are the numbers for IR and for RCS, which only applies when a player or NPC does some active pinging, or performs a hard burn that will light up the skies with a brilliant IR signature. We can say little about these two but lets look at this little.
RCS is a linear function of target area. The EX has much lower RCS than the Blade. IR is a function of heat generated by the entire ship, and is most effected by using the engines. All ships carry two cooler slots for a reason. One needs to be left on to cool the ship if it is maneuvering at all. In stealth mode, the secondary cooler should be switched off until it is needed, and when switched on, trades IR for EM. Because this is so, stealth ships should in general have a small, low EM cooler as primary and a second, super high IR dump cooler as secondary. You want to be able to perform a hard burn, then dump all that heat very quickly and resume normal stealth operation. These are the stealth trades CIG has already built into the game that most players still do not appreciate nor apply.*
So what does this look like--what am I recommending? Something like this:
Razor EX with:
1) Whatever guns the pilot chooses. Until you're involved in trying to remove the enemy's recon ability, they don't matter, and when a battle commences and you try to remove their intel ability, best is each pilot has what they really want for that job. Note that this role we're here considering does not include attacking anything other than recon vessels like the Blade. Make your decisions based upon your target. Most times I would choose the Strife Mass Drivers since these will penetrate the hard Vanduul shell and do damage, and that damage does not repair when you're forced to disengage the way it does with shields. Kill the ship, not the shields.
2) Missile rack--stock. These are almost useless and really just to harass your opponent.
3) FR-66 shields, left off when not engaging. Gotta have 'em as they need to absorb the Vandull energy weapons strikes on your tiny craft.
4) Snowblind primary cooler for ultra-low EM signature, and UltraFlow secondary cooler for only when you need to dump heat quickly after a hard engine burn. Switching on this second cooler boosts your IR reduction from 170,00 to 610,000 per second. If you turn it on when you fire up your engines, you should not need to leave it on more than a few sconds after you cut your engine boost, and can then resume stealth if that is your intention.
5) Whatever Q drive is appropriate for the occasion. Stock may be fine.
6) Slipstream powerplant for super stealthy operations.
Out of these, the powerplant and coolers are probably the most important components, and are really what enables the EX to obtain that useful Scan Gap, between 300-1,667. This is where almost all the tiny EX's advantage lies, and if the Blade has its shield and weapons enabled (likely with AI), that Gap grows to 300-7,779. This is the kind of Scan Gap one can exploit and obtain huge benefits.
Final thoughts on the tertiary mission--flying as DECOY. The simplest way to get attention as a decoy is light up your afterburners. If your goal is to draw assets out of a region in order to obtain another goal, say bring in your bombers; you want to be able to do three things. First, get their attention. Second, lead the opponent where you want them. Third, evade and distract. The decoy role thus places the highest demands on the recon unit for speed (especially without afterburner), and while you could perform stealth recon without superior speed, you cannot adequately decoy an opponent without superior speed.
So just sharing--these are the reasons I have recommended the EX for everyone to consider. It's an expensive ship, and it is not loaded up with lots of weapons, so some will hesitate to invest themselves in learning to fly it well. IMHO, the dash is too high, and the field of view too restricted for best combat. However, given the mission of stealth recon, I don't think there is another ship that comes close and surely none of these others are so hard to hit in combat and so easy to carry aboard other ships. I think someone showed we can put 5 EX in the Carrack--three in the hangar and two in the garage? Whatever it is, you certainly can't do that with a Mustang.
* Players often say that scan and stealth are not yet in game. This is only partially true. For now, EM and IR sensors are not swapable components, and so relate only to the size of a ship's radar array. What this means is ships' sensitivity to EM and IR vary only as much as their radar array's vary. It's worth noting here that thus far only two ships are planned to have unusual radar arrays that depart from their ship size. The Apollo has a Large array despite it will have the dimensions of a Medium ship, and the Polaris will have a Capitol array despite it will be the dimensions of a Large ship. Doesn't matter. Neither of these ships are in game yet, and by the time they are, odds are good we'll have real EM warfare with swapable component EM and IR sensors.
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