Ghosts: Stealth, Ambush, and Minefields

Cyinni

Vice Admiral
Jan 20, 2014
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Cyinni
Now, we know that stealth is more a matter of good materials, passive sensors, and a nice, low heat profile in Star Citizen, which means that ambush and the like is going to be a different affair from other games we might know and love/hate. However we've got a sense of what stealth does look like, thanks to the Hornet Ghost.

So the name of the game for stealth is patience, according to those specs. Patience and surprise. As in EVE, bait and scout ships will be the natural complements to any ambush group, but unlike EVE stealth ships, Ghosts aren't invisible and won't have any sort of natural advantage in combat over the ships they're surprising. In fact, with a loadout of low-draw weapons and presumed tradeoffs in armor quality, they're probably going to be frailer and more expensive than their prey.

Taken together, do you know what this reminds me of? Submarines. Specifically, WWII-era sub-hunts. Allied forces deployed merchant marines that looked like transports, submarines played cat-and-mouse with their prey and their destroyer escorts, and so on and so forth. Without a parallel stealth corvette (I mean, we can hope, but let's leave masturbatory fantasies for our bunks for now) we're looking at small squadrons of Ghosts with perhaps one or two powered-down lootmachines and a scout/baitbus as our primary means of pulling fast ones over passing traffic. (OK, masturbatory fantasy: a team of two Idrises could support a little squadron of Ghosts, provide the loothauling duties, and act as OhShit insurance if they're kept just off the field of engagement - or, if they can fake damage, as superb bait for the trap. Plus, with jumpdrives, they could do so behind enemy lines.) Once we figure out how the hell big a torpedo actually is, we can figure out just how big a Ghost's prey can be - because nothing says "this is, in fact, a trap" like a squadron of missile locks from ships your scanner insists isn't actually there. Once, twice, turn tail and run before your heat and lidar signatures get too high, and come back in a coup de grace once the poor target is limping along without life support or engines.

While this may seem like a tactic primarily for the pirates, it's also a very mature home-defense strategy if we can get asses in seats at the right times. After all, the point of a Ghost is to sit there and be almost-invisible as other ships drift by, right? That same-size squadron of Ghosts could sit quietly, let an attacking force blast by them, then power up and fire missiles up their tailpipes before either joining the fray or turning tail to let other defense elements mop up the mess.

Obviously these strategies will have to be tested more thoroughly once we get closer to the PU, but I can't help but think that stealth and information warfare will remain a tacitly powerful element of SC strategy - especially for us drunk malingerers, since the only difference between patience and a drunken stupor is the likelihood of accidentally shooting your teammates because it's funny!
 

Madfish

Captain
Aug 10, 2014
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dottedfish
I'm holding back on anything stealth as space can be very big and also the instancing system is supposedly trying to match " groups against groups". So if you want to end up in an instance as a squadron of ships you'll most likely end up facing another squadron of ships. It'll be hard to balance the ambush attempt against e.g. a full fighter squad running into free space to win the fight.
But it'll be very interesting to see the uses they have in mind for stealth. I'd probably volunteer to scan for and mark targets though.
 
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Kunitoki

Ensign
Oct 13, 2014
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Kunitoki
It is within the wisps of a ghost that I came into being. It shall be within those wisps that I shall pass or build a really fucking big assed fortune and buy every other ship possible!

Er what? Drunken rambling!
 
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Kaijou

Lieutenant
Oct 11, 2014
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Kaijou
Uh oh... Ghost is pissed...

Back to the topics... I see asteroid fields full of the wonderful Hornet Ghost and stealth ships.. Oh my..
 
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Shadow Reaper

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Jun 3, 2016
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I'd love to see this topic revived now that there is more detail emerging about stealth, EM warfare, etc. IMHO it does not appear one needs to have a stealth ship to attack from stealth. Any time you power down most of your ship your signature will be small and the only thing to be concerned with is the radar cross section. This means that target spotters should be small and seek to angle their ships so they have the smallest cross section facing their prey. Certainly Void Armor helps, but laying silent in wait with great patience should help more. And of course any sort of ship can hide in an asteroid field, so long as they're not EM hot.

If you have a very small ship with a smallish reactor, shields and weapons powered down, and perhaps Void Armor, and something with two seats to manage the waiting, and that is large enough for an EMP generator and some enhanced passive scanning gear, you have a good spotter. The Reliant could be the ideal spotter. Get as close as possible to your target, pop the EMP and call your friendly Redeemer to jump in. It appears to me the ability to jump to a very specific spot and arrive moments after the EMP is the big retrieval skill here. The rest is kill things and take their treasure.
 
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Blind Owl

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I'd love to see this topic revived now that there is more detail emerging about stealth, EM warfare, etc. IMHO it does not appear one needs to have a stealth ship to attack from stealth. Any time you power down most of your ship your signature will be small and the only thing to be concerned with is the radar cross section. This means that target spotters should be small and seek to angle their ships so they have the smallest cross section facing their prey. Certainly Void Armor helps, but laying silent in wait with great patience should help more. And of course any sort of ship can hide in an asteroid field, so long as they're not EM hot.

If you have a very small ship with a smallish reactor, shields and weapons powered down, and perhaps Void Armor, and something with two seats to manage the waiting, and that is large enough for an EMP generator and some enhanced passive scanning gear, you have a good spotter. The Reliant could be the ideal spotter. Get as close as possible to your target, pop the EMP and call your friendly Redeemer to jump in. It appears to me the ability to jump to a very specific spot and arrive moments after the EMP is the big retrieval skill here. The rest is kill things and take their treasure.
I'm glad you revived this. I'm also glad I was perusing and found it, add I was about to start a Stealth thread.

Basically, I want to discuss stealth. Which ships you think would be best suited to different tasks. IE the Sabre vs the Ghost: which would you use for what? Sabre for zoom and boom, Ghost for infiltration?
Or do they have the same purpose, thus one making the other redundant?
 

Blind Owl

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And what other ships, in your mind, would be considered stealth? Or could be purposed toward stealth?
 

Capt_Baldi

Grand Admiral
May 13, 2015
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I think in general the Ghost has lower EM temperature?

I think every "small" ship (I don't think you'll be hidden for long in a Starfarer) has the potential of being a stealth ship, as long as you plan your approach and turn off your engines and even shields to lower your temperature to a bare minimum.

But the advantage the Ghost has above other ships in the same class, is that it is able to keep the engines running and maneuver with it's thrusters etc, while still keeping the temperature low enough to be undetected by most scanners.

That's what I think at least. :D

Edit: I tried going stealth against AI the other day in a F7C.
I boosted with cruise speed towards a comm station and immediately turned off shields and engine.
When I was very close to the comm station I turned engines back on and stopped right next to the entrance.
I don't know if the AI has been implemented to react to EM temperature or not, but the AI quickly noticed me and returned me safely the Port Olisar, where I woke up in bed yet again... xD
 
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FluffyVonRage

Space Marshal
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Jan 1, 2015
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I suppose another important factor in Stealth ambush would be interdiction of enemy reinforcements - would be a shame to pick a fight with a known quantity of enemy, only to suddenly have bitten off more than we could chew. Of course it depends on which system we pick - nothing wrong with having a couple of ghosts on jump points keeping tabs on who's flying through system and who's hanging about. (Damn you lack of Local Chat)
 
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