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Super-Stealth Strategies ver.1.0, by Robert Lee. WAQQ73B@prodigy.com
For Stars! v.2.5a. You may distribute this document like crazy, as long
as credit is given to the original athor and you don't change anything.
Any errors or ideas? Please E-mail.

For USENET, this document was cut into two. You must load both articles
to read the entire document.
(Article 1)
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
SS RACE DESIGN
GENERAL BROAD STRATEGIES
DEFINED STRATEGIES AND TACTICS
1. First Strike Bomber Fleets
2. Second Strike Bomber Fleets
3. Pirating
4. Spies
5. Decoy tactics
6. Starbases and Cloaks
7. Cloaker Ships
8. Covert Mine Sweepers
(Article 2)
9. Covert Mine Laying
10. Guerrilla Warfare
SOME OTHER SMALL TIPS
YOUR OPPONENTS
Hyper Expander
Super Stealth
War Monger
Claim Adjuster
Inner Strength
Space Demolition
Packet Physics
Interstellar Traveler
Jack of All Trades
BATTLING SOME OF THE LRT'S
Improved Starbases
Mineral Alchemy
No Advanced Scanners
Regenerating Shields
CONCLUSION
CLOAKING CHART
SS WISH LIST
BUG REPORT!
WHAT'S NEW?




INTRODUCTION

Reason to fear the SS: Put your scanner effectiveness % at 50%.
You'll see how far SS can sneak thorough your airspace without any effort.
For something really eye-opening, put the effectiveness at it's minimum.


I realize that very few people play SS against humans, so I am trying
to make some suggestions on some good SS tactics to promote them. I must
say that I am not a Stars! expert, but not a Stars! newbie. I am a fan
of SS. I hope this contributes to their popularity.
I found that there was very little discussion about SS in the Stars!
portion of cyberspace. Hopefully, this document will help you get some
sense of strategy that is so richly available to SS only.
I am testing many SS races in games against the AI. Unfortunately,
some SS tactics will not work on the AI. I myself am getting strapped
for time. I will try to keep document updated as I gather more
information. I am always trying to think of new strategies. If anybody
has any ideas for the SS, please write.




SS RACE DESIGN

As of now, research is being done on finding the SS optimal stats.
What I can say is, that SS is a VERY VERY resource-hungry race.
Resources are used up very quickly if you play SS. You have to keep
expanding, yet still have enough people and resources to keep research up
and to make ships, and make up for minerals. Because few players can
accomplish this with SS, they will think SS is a weak PRT. SS is not
weak. Like any other PRT, it is possible to dominate if you play them
right, just like AR.
Here is my suggestion. SS needs to be able to colonize many planets,
and quickly bring them up. Try to go for these minimums:
a. 1 in 3 planets habitable.
b. 12% or better growth rate.
c. At least 2000 resources at around 500,000-600,000 people on mature
planets. This way, when you keep expanding, you can keep a high and
stable resource count. If you can't achieve this, then your SS race may
be DOOMED.
If you can meet these goals, SS will grow to a giant resource machine.
I have not experimented with low growth rate SS that uses a mass-
colonizing strategy like HE.
Many covert ships will need to be independent for many years. It is
a good idea is to avoid No Ramscoop Engines. Your cloaked ships will
need to restock their fuel without outside help, unless it is a bomber
fleet.
It may not pay to put Eletronics research at 50% lower costs. ALL
electrical toys need research in another branch of the tech tree, usually
being Energy.
Early on in any game, you must play like SS almost any other PRT. It
is just too expensive to use SS tactics this early. You must skimp on
Electronics early on too. Once your colonies are flourishing, reinvest
in electronics. Since you already start with Elec 5, it may not take too
long to catch up. Make sure you try to surpass in electronics without
neglecting the first four research branches. Once you think you have
enough mature worlds and resources, you can start playing SS the way they
were intended too.




GENERAL STRATEGIES

1. First, in order to take advantage of SS's cloaking advantages, you
must have some ships! Without ships in the first place to use cloaking,
the SS cloaking advantage is useless!

2. The majority of your fleet does not need to be high-cloaked. You
need not put cloaks on every ship you design. Cloaking devices take up
valuable ship slots. All of your hulls get a 50% built-in cloak anyway.
Most warships should not be cloaked. The ships that should get cloaks
are first-strike fleets, pirate ships, spies, Starbases, and other
"specialized" ships.
Many players expect SS to ALWAYS be unseen. It doesn't work like
that. We only want to be hiding when we want to hiding.
If you want cloaking for your non-military ships, use the Transport
Cloak, as it is very cheap, accompanied by Shadow Shields if you want.
Remember that for SS, cargo does not reduce your cloaking abilities.
Since your non-military usually don't approch enemy air space, they will
be even harder to spot.

3. SS is a War-race. You'll get no where by just hiding your ships. If
you like peace, you should of played IS. To play SS is to play semi-WM,
with unseeable utilities.
Also remember: battles should not be a main concern until after the
first 30 years. Wars that occur early bog your chances of making
factories, so you lose resources and time in the long run.

4. SS hates mine fields! Not only do they impede your passing, buy they
seem to affect cloaking. Straight from the Stars! Help Guide: "When a
ship is in a minefield, its cloak effectiveness is always an absolute
value (90% cloak = 10% chance of detection)." What I think this means is
that is if I was 50% cloaked, and was 51% in the distance between the
center of the field and the radius, I would be spotted. Can somebody
clear this up?

5. Don't reveal the location of your home to potential enemies. If you
can't catch the crooks, but know where they live, you'll know where to
bust them.

6. Cloaking. You may think you know all about cloaking, but please bear
with me. Very few people use cloaking at all in games.
First off, the definition of Cloaking. From the Stars! help file: "A
cloaking device reduces the range at which your opponent's scanners can
detect your fleets." They didn't exactly tell you the definition of
cloaking itself, but good enough.
Okay. So cloaking reduces the range you can be detected in enemy
scanners. So what? The better question is, so what ADVANTAGE does it
give me? Well...
a. Unpredicatbility. They can't see your destination and speed, if they
even see you in the first place.
b. Aviodance of enemy escorts. Usually, when you see an enemy ship dead-
center in your empire, you blow it up. What you can't see, you can't
catch. What you can't catch, you can't blow up. With no escorts on your
back, you are free to do what you wish.
c. Less time for enemy to assemble escorts. No doubt, at some time you
must come out of hiding sometime for battle. By surprising your enemy,
you catch them off guard, thus they have less reaction time to assemble a
formidable force to blast ya.
You may feel a need to put cloaks on warships. Sorry, but it is
difficult to live the glory of the Klingons. The only times you should
cloak warships is when you have the Depleted Neutronium Armor or Shadow
Shields. The vast majority of cloaking devices will be used on utility
ships.




DEFINED STRATEGIES AND TACTICS
We shall now look at the strategies and tactics which make this PRT
so unique. Many of these strategies are not limited to SS. Some of
these strategies take a lot of meticulous planning. That is why they are
called strategies.

1. First-strike bombing fleets. This is where the Stealth Bomber comes
into play. These fleets compose of Starbase-destroying ships, Missile-
bombing-Stealth bombers, and some Fuel-Xports. These fleets should be
highly-cloaked. The Stealth Bomber usually provides the majority of the
fleet cloaking. You may not have to put any cloaks on the escorts in
this fleet.
These fleets also have powerful use in Guerrilla Warfare.
Their mission is to sneak in unnoticed for as long as possible to an
enemy planet, destroy the enemy Starbase, then cripple their production,
and keep it down. They must take advantage of the surprise attack. With
production disabled, the enemy planet has little chance of making a
formidable Starbase to rebuild the one you destroyed. In order to face
as few opposition as possible, surprise is a must.
Mine fields make a big problem for this fleet. The First-Strike
fleet must be fast. Any bomber design is also very susceptible to damage.
If the fleet has beam ships, your enemy will know what field is being
swept, but they will not know where you are on the field. This will
alert them, and likely make them send some ships to defend the planet.
Some solutions are:
a. Set your enemy to "friendly" in the player relations dialouge. You
will not sweep any of their mines at all, but you will not be able to
attack any of their ships. Before you engage in the battle, make sure
you set them back to enemies.
b. Compose the fleet of torpedo and missle ships, and range-zero beam
ships. These will get through the field unnoticed. You will, however,
not be able to sweep any mines fields away for your Second-Strike Fleets.

Torps are weaker than beam weapons, heavier, more expensive, slower,
but make up for all of it in range. Beam weapons are the opposite of
torps. Range zero ships tend to get badly damaged on their way to the
target, are very slow to fire, but pack a big punch.
c. Get through the mine field as fast as possible without damaging any
ships. SS can travel through mine fields safely at one warp speed above
the stated limits. I would not risk much more above that.
d. Send some mine-sweeping ships years ahead of the fleet. They should
sweep the field long before your first-strike fleet ever comes. A ship
for this operation is a Covert Mine Sweeper (more about it later).
When one sweeps those mine fields, you have just shown your presence.
You risk losing surprise attack. Your enemy may start sending ships in
for defense. If surprise is lost, you may continue the advance, or
retreat.
If your first-strike fleet accomplishes it's mission, it will pave
the way for Second-strike bombing fleets.

2. Second-strike bombing fleets. Also known as a "regular" bombing
fleet. These fleets compose of back-up war ships, and regular-bomb B-17
bombers, and of course, some Fuel-Xports. These fleets do not need to be
highly cloaked.
Their mission is to back-up the First-strike fleet with warships, and
to eradicate the enemy population. When your first fleet finishes it's
mission, your invadee will likely send reinforcements to take back their
invaded world. Since they are a "regular" bombing fleet, as opposed to a
Stealth-bomber fleet, they do not need to be cloaked. By the time your
first strike fleet reaches it's target, mine fields should be shrinking.
It is perfectly legal to join First-Strike and Second-Strike fleets,
for you SS guys with lots of mature planets. To make sure the overall
fleet cloaking is 85% and higher, put cloaks on your B-17's.
Contrary to popular belief, the majority of your bomber fleet
shouldn't be Stealth Bombers. The B-17 bomber is just a better mass
production item than the Stealth bomber. The Stealth Bomber needs almost
twice as many resources than the B-17. If one does not intend on
surprising, then use the B-17 Bomber hull.

3. Pirating. A skill unique to SS. However, stealing from your enemies
is HARD. You won't get good at it until you get the Robber-Baron Scanner,
which is far up the tech ladder. Obviously, these ships must be highly-
cloaked. DO NOT DEPEND ON STEALING AS A STEADY INCOME. It is usually
not the case in real life. Your victims may have lots of minerals, and
some may have small amounts.
Your first pirate ships will have Pick-pocket scanners on them.
Don't expect to get far with these dinosaurs, if you ever build them.
Shipping routes usually compose of a mining ship with escort orbiting
a planet, and freighters without escort to shuttle minerals. But they
are also usually deep within an enemy empire, and by then, you'll run
into mine fields. The trick is to intercept the freighter, and setting
it's waypoint to load all*. This way, your enemy can't dump the cargo
before you steal it. However, it is HARD to steal from just ships.
The Robber-Baron is the menace. You can steal from enemy planets
with it. Set some enemy colonies as waypoints and steal from them. You
will delay their maturity. Once you have this scanner, you will be very
powerful.
It is very tactful to have a ship with this scanner with a few Large
Freighters accompany your first-strike fleets. You can then drain them
of one type of mineral, which will block their production queue. These
raids are really crippling.
This is a general list of what minerals make what:
a. Ironium - Used for hard structural framework construction. (Armor,
hulls)
b. Boronium - Mainly for weapon construction. (Beams, Bombs, Torps.)
c. Geranium - Used for electrical-circuit construction. (Electrical)
All other device categories are made of the mix of the minerals.
A good mineral to raid is Boronium. Many planets use it up fast
because they build a lot of warships, so there is less to steal. All
weapons are based on Boronium, so your enemy will have some a hard time
making expensive weapons for worthy counter-attacks. This is a very
powerful tactic. This almost guarantees there will be no reincarnated
Starbase to annoy your escorts. Once one gets the Robber-Baron, pirating
should become standard strategy.
When you have stolen the goods, what do you do with it? You have a
few options:
a. Dump it in space. Cargo dumped in space is lost forever. Often, a
large mass of minerals are stolen from planets, usually beyond 2000 kt.
It sure would be a waste. It is the fastest way to unload minerals tough.

b. Dump it on an uninhabited planet. There is likely one nearby. One
can stockpile the minerals. The only way the non-SS can get the minerals
is by mining or colonizing that planet.
c. Send it to a friendly planet. You can send the pirate ship itself
back to a friendly planet, or you can shuttle it on a freighter going
back to a friendly planet. This is the longest alternative if you don't
have the freighters.
Remember, when you steal, you benefit yourself, but put your victim
at the disadvantage.
*There is a bug in 2.5 and 2.5a which doesn't allow setting the
victim's waypoint task to load all. Detailed description at end of
document.

4. Spies. Nobody can do this better than SS. A spy ship is a ship with
scanners and is high cloaked. Spies will be your many windows into the
universe. With them, you can find many threats to your empire.
Your spies should be cheap and have penetrating scanners on them.
Your spies should be self-sufficient, so they should have Ram-Scoop
engines. Once you build them, park them in your enemy's empire. When
you lose one, you shouldn't miss it.
Here is a design I use a lot: A frigate hull with a Sub-Galactic
Fuel scoop engine (or better), with 2 Shadow Shields, 3 Super-Stealth
Cloaks (or better) with 2 Dolphin Scanners (or better). This will give
you a penetrating scanner range of 118 l.y., and a cloaking of 88%. If
you use Ultra-Cloaks, cloaking should be at 97%.
Even if your enemy knows of their existence, there is very little
they can do about it. The spy should be an integral part of any SS game.


5. Decoy tactics. The purpose of a decoy is to lure most of your
opponents forces away from what their defending, so your real ships can
destroy it. There can be two kinds of decoys.
a. Empty-Hull Decoys. These are ship hulls with only engines on them.
They should be cheap to make. Once your opponent destroys these decoys,
they will know it's design specs, and you can't fool them twice with that
same ship design again. After a decoy engages in battle, the design is
no longer useful, so just erase it. If one wishes to, one could design
an entire decoy bomber fleet. This will attract lots of attention.
Beware the smart player. They may wonder why this fleet wasn't highly
cloaked.
b. "Real" Decoys. It is perfectly legal to use real escorts to lure
your enemy away. These escort designs do not have to be unknown to your
enemy.
Since WM knows all the specs about any ship it sees in it's scanners,
using empty-hull decoy tactics on them won't work. "Real" decoys may
still work.

6. Starbases and Cloaks. You should cloak all your Starbases. Do this
so your enemy won't know what to expect when they approach any planet of
yours. This is more of a defensive surprise strategy. The best way to
do this is to use Shadow Shields or Depleted Neutronium Armor. Filling
all of your Shield slots alone with Shadow Shields will make your
Starbase reach 98% cloaking.
If your opponent finds out your Starbase design, change it. If you
wish to be cheap, just copy the entire design, and put that copied design
in the production queue. You pay NOTHING for that copied design because
you did nothing to the original design (except change the name).

7. Cloaker ships. They are designed to improve overall cloaking of a
fleet. One way to make this possible is to merge with ships that have
higher cloaking than the current fleet. The best way is to design ships
that are "over cloaked". Their potential cloaking value goes beyond the
maximum of 98%. These ships can accompany low-cloaked ships to disguise
their activities, such as Battleships.
A very high tech design is a Nubian full of Ultra-Cloaks. However,
with some experimenting, if you put so many cloaking devices on a ship,
at some point the cloaking percentage will change to 0%. Whether this
was done on purpose by the Jeff? or a bug, your cloaker ship is no
longer cloaked. The only solution is to take off some cloaks until it
goes back to 98%. This won't happen until you put 10+ Ultra-Cloaks on a
hull. This design, tough high-tech, can effectively cloak a large fleet.

A more low tech design is a rouge loaded with as many cloaks as you
can give it.

8. Covert Mine Sweepers. SS HATES mine fields. I cannot emphasize that
enough. They impeded your ability to go through enemy territory freely.
These sweepers will be your means to sweep mine fields without your
opponent seeing them. They should be designed so that they are high-
cloaked, and be able to sweep as many mines as your beam weapon tech
allows.
Send them close to the center of your enemy's mine fields, but don't
sweep the entire field. You want to stay just the right distance away so
you aren't detected. With those mine fields cut short, you'll have free
passage beyond it's outer rim. Your opponent will always know what field
is being swept, but not where you are.
These ships should not be designed to be warships. They are designed
to be highly-cloaked and be able to sweep as many mines as possible.
These ships should be well ahead of first-strike fleets by at least 5
years if a mine field stands in their way.
A design I use a lot: A Cruiser with Shadow Shields, 4 Phazed
Sappers (or of better sweeping capability), and 4 Super-Cloaks (or
better). You will be 90% cloaked and be able to sweep 1312 mines. Using
4 Ultra-Cloaks, you will reach maximum cloaking. This design has given
me lots of success.




========
(Part 2)
9. Covert Mine Laying. The exact opposite of covert sweeping. Design
some mine laying ships with high cloaking. Use your spies to pick target
areas. Send them into your enemie? empire, and start laying. In a year
or two, your opponent will see the field come from nowhere. You're enemy
will likely send some beam ships to sweep the entire field. Time to
change positions and start laying mines somewhere else. Since you are
high-cloaked, you may not have to wander far to find another spot. In
fact, it will save lots of time if you just stay somewhere else IN the
field, and to start laying mines again.
Possibly the best ship hull for this tactic is the Rouge. If you
ever wondered why they put mine layer slots on those hulls, now you do.
Put mine layers in those slots, and cloak the ship as high as you wish.
It is possible for a Rouge to reach 96% cloaking by using Super-Cloaks,
with the ability to lay 200 mines a year, and have a pick-pocket scanner.
With Ultra-Cloaks, you can bump it to 98%, and lay 300 mines.
They won't be as cheap as mine-laying Frigates, but shouldn't cost as
much as a Battleship.

10. Guerrilla Warfare. The only real purpose of this strategy is to
harass your opponent. Real guerrillas hit an under-guarded important
place here and there, that, when you look at the whole picture, is
menacing. However, if this tactic is used with a main First-Strike fleet,
it can be very frustrating to your enemy to handle all those ships.
A lot of thinking and planning will be required. Use your spies to
get information before hand. The strategy of Guerrilla Warfare can be
made up of the following tactics:
a. Use a small First-strike fleet (with or without escorts), and just
bomb Starbase-less colonies. This will severely slow down their
production-resource growth.
b. Use cloaked warships, and destroy enemy shipping routes.
c. You get in, do the dirty work, then get out. Always change your
positions. You can hang around an area for a while as long as you keep
changing your positions. You don't need to destroy all targets, just
severely damage them. Remember, you also need a sense of
unpredictability. If they expect you to be at a certain target, then you
are doing it wrong. However, you should be able to spot them, before
they spot you.
Mine fields pose a grave problem for this tactic. Use Cloaked
Sweepers to cut them down to size.
In order to effectively use Guerrilla Warfare, you must get more
pluses than minuses. So don't send your two 80% cloaked Colloidal Phazer
Cruisers against a Large Freighter escorted by two Cruisers with the same
cabability. The key is to "bully" your opponent's weaklings. If the
situation looks too costly, avoid it.
Guerrilla Warfare will surely frustrate your opponents. It may come
to a point to where they MUST build an escort for every non-military ship
and planet they have. If your enemy has 20 or less planets, it can be
relatively easy for them to cover all that space. However, if they have
more than 20, it may become a problem for them.
Remember, Guerrilla Warfare is more of a harassment tactic than a
real war.
Guerrilla Warfare can turn into terrorism if you attach a list of
demands to it. Just make sure you don't ask for too much, because you
want the demands to sound cheaper than continued Guerrilla Warfare. Your
opponent will likely have a grudge on you if they must yield.




SOME OTHER TIPS.

1. Use the SS cloaking advantage as an ADVANTAGE.
2. Cloaking alone does not win games. Resources and friends are to name
a few.
3. Predictability is bad for SS. Even if you leave an information gap
in their scanner. That cannot make up for your actions.
4. Do not shun the Rouge as THE multi-function freighter. It is in many
ways better than the Galleon. Let's look at the reasons.
Why the choose the Rouge?
a. Minerals cost about the same, BUT resources to build are near half
that of the Galleon.
b. Rouge has nearly the same fuel capacity of the Galleon, yet, it's
cargo hold is half that of the Galleon, giving you more fuel per KT of
cargo.
c. Smaller mass than the Galleon. Proper designs can fit through your
stargates.
d. More slot types to put stuff than the Galleon, but in less numbers.
e. Available at construction tech 8, as opposed to the Galleon at tech
11.
f. Needs only 2 engines, opposed to the Galleon's 4 engines.
Why the choose the Galleon?
a. Has a 1000 kt cargo, as opposed to the Rouge's 500 kt cargo hold.
However, you will get less fuel per KT of cargo than the Rouge.
b. Can stuff more devices on than the Rouge, but less slot types.
c. Twice as much armor than the Rouge.
That's about it. All the advantages give the Rouge hull a longer
useful life that other hulls. It is wise to use it even after you have
gotten the Galleon. It is almost correct to say that two Rouges equal
one Galleon.




YOUR OPPONENTS.
This section is on how to counter other PRT'S using SS specifically. I
will try to make it short, and to the point. Remember, offense is to
take advantage of your opponents weakness, and defense is to know your
own weaknesses.

Hyper Expander
Their numbers give anybody a bad day, as well as their Metamorphs.
It is easy to find another ally to help eliminate them. Your best bet is
to hit them early, before they grow big. They don't have as many people
per planet as the other PRT's, so it will take less years to bomb them
out. Their Starbases can be just as deadly as other PRT's. Fortunately,
a small part of their vast empire may have ship-building capacity. It is
a vast empire tough. Expect them to have 20+ planets in most games.
This may pose a problem for them in a Guerrilla Warfare scenario. Public
Player Scores help aginst them.

Super Stealth
What can I say? You're fighting yourself. There is little you can
do about their cloaked ships in deep space. Use mine fields to slow them
down. SS hates mine fields. You'll have a hard time finding their ships,
but they will also have a hard time finding yours. The main boiling pot
of SS ships will be at their planets. Go to those planets and eliminate
them.
I know people don't like non-penetrating scanners, but this is where
they are useful: for finding the Super-Stealth in deep space. Normal
Scanners have longer range than penetrating. Build masses of cheap
scouts with those scanners, and heavily litter them about your empire.
This will take a lot of time and resources, but ends justify the means.
Keep very close watch at border zones.
These guys are also the best back-stabbers in Stars!. (Hope I didn't
get you worried about your SS allies in current games.)
Tough I hate to say it, Public Player Scores are helpful against
these guys. Your opponents might also be reading this guide.

War Monger
A powerful race. They will use a very aggressive strategy. They
often start the wars first. If you play an offensive strategy against
them, you will likely get pounded. You must play a offensive-defensive
strategy against these guys. The usefulness of the beam deflector and
jammer can now be seen. The mine field is important defense.
You cannot always overpower WM, so you should overwhelm them. Use
lots of lesser ships instead of single, powerful ships. The horde
strategy must be played out very carefully. Bring mine fields to where
battles are taking place. You will likely be facing Battle Cruisers in
about 30 years, and Dreadnoughts in 70 years. Both are equally scary.
If you want people to stop shooting at you, then get the guns away
from them. Taking Boronium from this race is ever crippling. Don't give
their mining routes a chance. Their line of life is this mineral.
Team up with them, then you two will be a worthy alliance. SS will
spot them and hit them first, then WM will hit them even harder second.

Claim Adjuster
A somewhat unpopular race. Haven't encountered a human playing them
yet. With their terriforming advantages, they will colonize many planets.
You may face the dilemma you had with HE. Unlike HE, their planet's
max pop. is not cut in half, so these many worlds are going to have high
production. Use general SS strategies when dealing with them.

Inner Strength
Your most powerful adversaries later on. Their tachyon detector will
cut down on your cloaking abilities. You will lose what makes your PRT
so special. Fortunately, they won't get the detector until electrical 14,
and energy 8. However, IS is also one of the fast growing races. The
SS cloaking tactics will work until they get the detector. If you use SS
tactics well against them, it will just encourage them to get the
Detector earlier. It would be best to eliminate your IS opponent before
they even get near the detector. If you are unable, you will lose some
overall cloaking, and your range to explore unnoticed will go down. It
may not be a sharp drop in overall cloaking, but you may have to switch
to a more aggressive approach.

Space Demolition
Did I mention SS hates minefields? Unless these guys are your
friends, you'll really hate em! When you approach mature SD planets, you
will likely face all three of their mine types. Those fields will be
thicker than Ma's soup. Design and make several cloaked mine sweepers to
cut down on their size. DO NOT approach any SD planets with standard
mine fields until you're mine sweepers sweep most of the mines. One SD
strategy is to evacuate all their ships via Stargate, and then detonate
the standard field.
If they see you in their field, they will add escort force to add to
your misery. Space Demolition guys can make bad enemies, but they also
make good friends.

Packet Physics
Their mineral packets are some of their threats. They will likely
find your homeworld early on, due to those built in scanners in their
packets. You will probably also pinpoint where their homeworld is early
on too. Be on the look out for incoming packets. Use freighters to
intercept them and to unload them. Throw any excess in deep space.
Expect these guys to be loaded with minerals that power their mass
drivers. Steal em so they can't use it against you. They may also have
rich mining routes set up.

Interstellar Traveler
Unfortunately, they can know all planet stats if you have a Stargate
within IT's Stargate range. You will not be able to hide your planets
once they get in range. You can still hide your ships though. However,
with IT's fleet deployment abilities, you may have a hard time invading
their planets if you didn't surprise them. Expect them to have many
Starbases to hold their Stargates.

Alternate Reality
These guys might as well be target practice. Their weakness is the
SS. A good AR player will try to upgrade any of their Starbases to it's
most defendable design as fast as they can. Expect those Starbases to
change many times. They will then have escorts to accompany the bases.
You do not need to devote resources to make bombers. Just blow up
their Starbase, then they're all gone. AR really stinks early on, but
can become formidable adversaries if they get bigger. Don't let them get
big. AR is an energy being and is shield dependent. They will have the
better shields before anybody else.
AR also has the possibility to populate many planets. You may run
into another dilemma you had with HE. Luckily, you don't have to waste
time bombing them out. Just eliminate their Starbase. Expect LOTS of
problems if you run into Death Stars.

Jack of All Trades
The resource kings. One of the tougher PRT's to abolish. They have
lots of people on their planets. No real weaknesses anywhere. They can
counter anybody and play any kind of game. You gotta cut their
population down before they can rebuild. Another fast growing PRT. I
also think they are the most boring to play.




BATTLING SOME OF THE LRT'S

Improved Starbases
I say almost everybody takes this. The Ultra Station is a tough
opponent to destroy, and that is after you get past the escort force.
I'd use all the beam weapon categories. Those are regular beam weapons,
shield bursters, and range zero weapons. Luckily, starbases can not be
outfitted with beam deflectors. If you win the melee, it will usually be
a costly one.

Mineral Alchemy
When used effectively, this race has little need for abundant
minerals. These races tend to have very high resources. They can build
ships with only using resources (25 resources turned into 1K of each
mineral). The pirating tactics may not work against them as well. You
must cut down their population as fast as possible so they won't have the
resources to do alchemy.

No Advanced Scanners
Not a real favorite. Races with this LRT won't get penetrating
scanners from the normal scanner liabary. The range for their scanners
are also doubled. Bad for SS. Your cloaked range will be cut in half.
However, you can still hide on planets. Planet hopping is a great way to
sneak around. Still, few people take this.

Regenerating Shields
Not a real favorite either. Seems like people can't take advantage
of it's use. Races using this LRT should be a shield dependent for
defense on their ships. When all of those ships are stacked, it makes a
lot of shielding. The counter is shield bursters, and torps. AR might
be likely to take this option.




CONCLUSION
Your ships are your many hands to manipulate the universe, yet they
cannot be seen so easily.
If you want to get better, face the most fearsome opponents in the
galaxy: other people. If you get pounded, look back and see what you did
wrong and when. Ask why certain people did what they did. If you have
some success, look back at what made you successful. Look at why your
opponent crumbled. Whether we win or lose, we learn from our experiences.


-Robert Lee
The Shadows
WAQQ73B@prodigy.com



CLOAKING CHART
This chart is compiled so one may judge on how undetectable their
cloaked fleet is. The scanning range that you will be detected is shown
in the corresponding cloaking percentage and Scanner Range. The Ranges I
look at are under 320. It corresponds to the Snooper 320X planetary
scanner. By the time battles are raging, many people will have it. This
chart is only for you to judge. The numbers are correct tough.

| 220 280 320 400 500 620 <--Enemy Scanner
Range Radius
-----|------------------------------------------------------ --------------
-------------
50% | 110 140 160 200 250 310 <--Likely to be
seen. <:-o
60% | 88 112 128 160 200 248 <--Not much
better than 50%.
70% | 66 84 96 120 150 186 <--Will be seen
if close.
80% | 44 56 64 80 100 124 <--Likely seen if
approaching.
90% | 22 28 32 40 50 62 <--Seen if very
close.
95% | 11 14 16 20 25 31 <--Considered
invisible. >:-)
/^\ \ /
| \__Enemy Scanner Effectiveness Radius___/
|___________Your Cloaking Percentage
Anything 95% or higher is considered invisible. At 70%-80%, you will
likely be seen if you are approaching their planets. Anything below that,
then I can almost guarantee you will be seen. Note that at 95% cloaking,
you are still VERY hard to see even with the Snooper 620X.




SS WISH LIST
Here are a few modest things I ask to improve the SS. I am not
trying to make them a super-race. These are well thought of wishes.
1. Another cloaking device after the Ultra-Cloak. It takes 4 Ultra-
Cloaks to make a ship reach 98% cloaking. Cloaking devices take up
valuable slots on hulls. To encourage use of cloaking on warships, maybe
there should be a very-high end cloaking device that can cloak a ship up
to 98% with just one or two of those devices. It should be beyond at
least elec tech 18. A good name for it? The Mega-Cloak.
2. Countering IT's Stargate scanning ability. IT will know all of your
planet stats if you build a stargate within their stargate's safe range.
Maybe the Starbase's cloak should work as a absolute value against this
ability.
3. Allow stealing fuel again? In 2.0b, you could steal fuel and
colonists from ships and planets. The colonists were killed instantly as
you kidnapped them. If you managed to steal all their fuel, you slowed
them to a crawl. The Jeffs must of felt both was too powerful. I would
at least like to have the fuel stealing ability back. >:-)
4. Ability to "jam" scanners. In 2.0b, I believe it was only SS who
could hide population and defense stats if a Starbase was in orbit and
cloaked. Jeff did say this was too powerful. SS's planets can't run
when they're in trouble. How about a planetary based device to hide
planet stats from those penetrating scanners? It would be expensive,
discouraging building of it early.
5. Cloaking somehow helps you in battle. Maybe of SS only, cloaking
gives you a direct advantage in battle. Maybe they should be harder to
attack with torpedoes, ie, built-in jammers?
6. The ability to control mine sweeping in the Battle Dialouge. I don't
like it when my First-Strike fleets have to do some work around to aviod
sweeping mines.
This is what I hear IS coming. (Also known as gossip and rumors.)
1. SS will have better ability to gain tech from salvage than other
PRT's.
2. SS will have some way to hinder enemy research.
3. Cloaked mineral packets. Jeff said packets would have 50% cloaking
at non-deterioating speeds, but will be 50% less powerful as weapons at
those speeds. However, if you speed them up so that they do deterioate,
they are normal weapons agian.




Bug Report!
There is a bug in Stars 2.5a that affects us SS players only! When
you attempt to steal using the waypoint task orders set to "Load All",
you can't steal the minerals when you reach the destination! It will say
something like: "Your fleet tried to load minerals from a fleet they
didn't control at x,y. Their orders have been canceled." You must take
minerals manually by using the transport dialogue, when you are AT the
location of the victim! This was not in 2.0b! In 2.0b, you could just
set the destination to "Load All", and you would take all the minerals
you could. This bug was also in 2.5. I reported it on the WWW Stars!
site comment form thingy, but no luck.
There is yet another bug in 2.5a that affects SS only. When you view
enemy designs in the Scanner plane, it will always say they are at least
50% cloaked, even tough they have no cloaks! If you look at that same
design in the Ship Design Dialouge, it will now say it is 0% cloaked.




WHAT? NEW?

Super Stealth Strategies v.1.0
The merger of the three articles, lots of additions and minuses,
shortened some paragraphs so they what they were stating was not lost in
the words, but document go bigger anyway. Moved stuff around, filled in
places where there were gaps. Too much change to think about. Expect
things to change when 2.6 comes out.
Lots of SS Tactics, part 3
Descriptions on how to handle other PRT's.
Lots of SS Tactics, part 2
A few more tactics not in Article 1.
Lots of SS Tactics, (revised) part 1
Some spelling corrections, and a few things added here and there.
Lots of SS Tactics
First edition.

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Some comments as follows:

Quote:

High-Cloaking Potential. All your ships get a 50% inherit cloak. That means you get 50% cloaking for free.

Should read 75%. Perhaps it was 50% cloaking at some stage??? but it's been 75% for a long time.

Quote:

Don't plan to be very popular along the course of the game.

Lol, that's about right. As SS you're very often the first target, especially in more advanced games.

Quote:

Try to keep a high habitability value with 1 in 3, a growth rate above 12%, and at around 2000 resources when you have 500,000 people on a planet when it is at max. factories. These are only my opinions. However, I think that if you can't meet these minimums, the Silent will be doomed. I have not experimented with low growth rate SS with lots of habitability.

Hmmm ... A couple of problems there. 1 in 3 planets will most likely mean some decent planets, but also a high number of small greens and large yellows. Lots of planets is good, but they have to be terraformed and it costs you in the race wizard.

A growth rate well above 12% will be required to survive. 17% or better is the target IMO.

Quote:

Since many covert ships will be away for a long time, you should not pick "No Ramscoop Engines" for this PRT. Additional ships (like Fuel-Xports) to a covert fleet will lower their overall cloaking. "Improved Fuel Efficency" will save fuel and help you escape faster. However, it seems like a real small advantage to me.

Absolutely have to disagree there. There are those that will argue otherwise but IMHO IFE is essential for SS and the reasons are as follows: IFE would give you the FM. Being that SS starts with no Prop tech at all you get the "wonderful and fabulous" QJ5 as your default engine
Even if you research to Prop3 (or get it from others researching it) you're still stuck with a hopeless engine.
DDL7 (prop5) is the first acceptable (non-IFE) engine and it's more expensive than the FM. Furthermore if you choose IFE you get one starting l

[Updated on: Thu, 02 September 2004 12:45]

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Steve1 wrote on Thu, 02 September 2004 09:54

Absolutely have to disagree there. There are those that will argue otherwise but IMHO IFE is essential for SS and the reasons are as follows: IFE would give you the FM. Being that SS starts with no Prop tech at all you get the "wonderful and fabulous" QJ5 as your default engine

For short hops, and scouting, it is fine. You can use frigates with the QJ5 and fuel tanks as boosters and scouts. It is bearable with many races, and can actually tilt the game in your favor later on from the RP points you gain.

Quote:

Now IFE is expensive, there's no doubt, so to offset most of the costs choose NRSE as well - problem solved

No, you are just shifting the "cost" to something else. I'm not saying that IFE and the FM is bad...You just need to look at the tradeoffs involved. Stating that this is the solution, period, doesn't fit all the games you may enter, or ships you may build. Sometimes this is the right solution, somtimes it isn't. All you are doing is closing your mind to a potentially better way of doing things, in some universes/designs.

Most people pick ramscoops with a SS, for simple fuel reasons. Another example is I always use scoops with a HE, until the TS-10 (no gates). Or, I hardly ever take scoops with a IT, but with a -f IT I feel it is a must.

Breaking this down even further, I will always put scoops on Missile boats, if I have scoops. However, I put the TS-10 (if I have it) on Beamers and my Torp boats...

-Matt

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Further comments:

Quote:

Because few players can accomplish this with SS, they will think SS is a weak PRT. SS is not weak. Like any other PRT, it is possible to dominate if you play them right, just like AR.

SS and AR "can be" formidible PRT's to go up against if they're in the right hands, but they're still comparitively weak compared to most other PRT's.
SS has too many points disadvantages to begin with. Some of the toys are fabulous and it's a good fun race to play, but I would ask you this: How many players do you know that have actually won with SS (or AR)?
Off topic - IMHO, the biggest bummer with AR is having a maxed out world attacked by a high initiative suicide fleet and losing 3 million colonists.

Quote:

I have not experimented with low growth rate SS that uses a mass-colonizing strategy like HE.

Quote:

Try to keep a high habitability value with 1 in 3, a growth rate above 12%

I think I see where your idea comes from to have 12% (minimum)growth rate and high availability of green worlds. The thing is a 6% HE (therefore doubled to 12%) tri-immune race would have every planet available as 100% green and therefore no terraforming costs. If you do some testbeds with this 1 in 3 SS race you'll find that the cost is too high for the purported benefits.

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Quote:

No, you are just shifting the "cost" to something else. I'm not saying that IFE and the FM is bad...You just need to look at the tradeoffs involved. Stating that this is the solution, period, doesn't fit all the games you may enter, or ships you may build. Sometimes this is the right solution, somtimes it isn't. All you are doing is closing your mind to a potentially better way of doing things, in some universes/designs. Most people pick ramscoops with a SS, for simple fuel reasons. Another example is I always use scoops with a HE, until the TS-10 (no gates). Or, I hardly ever take scoops with a IT, but with a -f IT I feel it is a must. Breaking this down even further, I will always put scoops on Missile boats, if I have scoops. However, I put the TS-10 (if I have it) on Beamers and my Torp boats... -Matt

Hmmm .....
I can see where you were coming from when you suggested trying non-IFE with an IT race and in truth I might be inclined to test it out in a packed universe, but SS well I don't know about that.

If you take the SS race and select IFE, NRSE and Prop +75% you end up with -3 points.
You then get the very cool FM by researching only one Prop level and receive 15% fuel savings. It easily travels at warp9 unassisted for quite some distance (depending on weight, fuel availability and no. of engines). As already mentioned you also get the IS-10 engine at Prop11 and if you decide to choose Grav immune, you need to research no higher than Prop12 for a long, long, time.

If instead you don't select either IFE or NRSE and you then choose Prop -50% you end up with -72 points.
I'll assume that Prop should be at -50% since you really do need to urgently research Prop to at least level 8 or 9 in the early stages.

So whilst I'm researching Weap or Cons and getting good speed out of my cheap FM engines, your race is needing to focus on prop and furthermore you start with a significant point disadvantage in the race wizard.

I do hear what you're saying when you mention abo

[Updated on: Thu, 02 September 2004 15:31]

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Steve1 wrote on Thu, 02 September 2004 14:19

I'll assume that Prop should be at -50% since you really do need to urgently research Prop to at least level 8 or 9 in the early stages.

I've actually been able to swing it with prop expensive. Yea, it was ugly...but i did it. For the most part, you are correct assuming you need at least Prop normal. The first OK scoop is at Prop 7, IIRC, and it is about on par with the FM. That's doable relatively cheaply.

Quote:

So whilst I'm researching Weap or Cons and getting good speed out of my cheap FM engines, your race is needing to focus on prop and furthermore you start with a significant point disadvantage in the race wizard.

Can't argue, but it hasn't ever hurt me. Remember, the IS-10 is a good engine, but it is expensive in minerals, resources and weight. Plus, you still need to get to Prop 12 to get the OT. That means you've had to research 46k to get Prop 12, starting from prop 1 and at +75%. It will take me 54K to get to Prop 16, if I have it set to -50%.

That's not a huge difference, I'd say. Now, how about that weight, mineral and resource difference? Are the cost in RP points starting to make more sense? How about the 500K difference to get the TS-10?

I was a firm advocate of the approach you are speaking of, up to a few years ago. Funny to say that I had this same argument with more experienced players too. As you can see, I have changed my perspective a bit.

Quote:

I would find it extraordinarily difficult to not choose IFE after selecting SS as my PRT.

Playing SS, I once used a couple fleets to terrorize several races. I think I was able to destroy around 16000 factories, and a sizeable number of colonists. The factories were the main target, tho. Not only was I successful at taking out industry, but in doing so I also made them divert valuable resources and minerals elsewhere. Building and rebuilding factories, defenses, minelayers, scouts etc. cost them *way* more than my 2 fleets cost me (they obviously didn't know what to do,

[Updated on: Thu, 02 September 2004 17:12]

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Quote:

Expensive? in what way?

Expensive as compared to the FM.

I could rehash the what was already said about the whole early germ requirement issue but we've already been down that path.

Quote:

The first OK scoop is at Prop 7, IIRC, and it is about on par with the FM.

Nitpick - actually that's the sub-galactic fuel scoop which, according to my manual, is Prop8.
You'd be better off with the Prop9 scoop IMO.
Either way both of those scoops need Energy2/3 whereas the FM doesn't.

Keep in mind that even though the yellow engine is heavier and more expensive than the Prop9 scoop, it's still more fuel efficient at higher speeds.
I usually find that I can easily trade for Prop11/12, so having it at +75% is not significant. Let's face it, who wouldn't give you Prop12 in exchange Weap12 or Cons12

Getting Prop23 is usually a little trickier, but you can certainly make do with the green engine. Travelling at warp10 before all the ram-scoop races is very cool.
I'm also of the opinion that the EP benefits NRSE races more so than ramscoop races and that only requires Prop13 - one more level than I normally need (until the endgame).

Anyhow, the main points that I'm trying to make is with the SS / IFE (FM) combination I "initially" get the following benefits:

- Cheaper engines
- Faster engines
- More functional engines
- I only need to research one Prop level
- No Energy research requirement
- I get more initial points available in the race wizard than you (by choosing IFE/NRSE/Prop+75% - and that also applies if you choose prop normal).
- They consume no germ to manufacture (more available for building factories)
- I get to focus on the war tech's like Cons and Weap instead of wasting time needlessly researching Prop to level 9 (that can come later).
- Less requirement for fuel boosters / fuel exports (therefore more resources and minerals to devote to other important areas)

I'm of the opinion that with all these benefits, my race gets off to a better start (assuming all things

[Updated on: Thu, 02 September 2004 18:15]

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Steve1 wrote on Fri, 03 September 2004 00:03

Let's face it, who wouldn't give you Prop12 in exchange Weap12 or Cons12

Who ... who. All these NRSE IFE, weap and con cheap rest expensive guys. They dont have it. Its possible to sell prop 9 to them for weapons 12. Similarily electronics 19 one can anytime sell it for weapons or construction 26 and usually for both with different partners.

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Quote:

Its possible to sell prop 9 to them for weapons 12. Similarily electronics 19 one can anytime sell it for weapons or construction 26 and usually for both with different partners.

If someone tried to offer Prop9 for my Weap12 I'd tell them to get lost. Same with Elec19 for Weap or Cons26.
You must be a damn good negotiator if you can actually achieve this.

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Heh? I am far from expert negotiator but such deals are often offered by the other side.

You got jihads, then you go research construction 13. Or you cntinue with weapons because you know where to buy construction for it.

Meanwhile you poke around where the hell you get these 3 levels of prop for 300/500 gate and i am probably the only one with prop 10 that i took for terra, but thats impossible to trade i can build only prop 9 scrappers. You offer weaps 9? I have weapons 10 probably so i disagree. You say me to research 2 levels more prop? What good negotiator you are to make me research 2 levels of tech i dont need right now?

I got my prop 9 scoop and terra. So you offer weapons 12 for populsion 9 or just shut up. No need to tell me to get lost cause im offering nothing i am simply listening and ready to trade. You can go and put 9k into prop yourself and i can put 9k into weapons myself or we can trade.

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Hi!

Steve1 wrote on Fri, 03 September 2004 05:12

If someone tried to offer Prop9 for my Weap12 I'd tell them to get lost. Same with Elec19 for Weap or Cons26.

Going from elec-16 to 19 it has lowered the germ price of my late game Nub by 12%. Being a weap-cheap-rest-expensive HP at that time, with germ the scarcest mineral, that offered me for FREE 12% more Nubs (or about 150!). I'd call that a good deal. Actually, it was. I've been selling weapons only, and DIDN'T BOUGHT a single level in energy and con above 6-7 and elec from 4 to 16. And I didn't SELL weap-26, I've GIVEN it. Was so big at that time I could afford that.
Eh, nice memories, pitty I couldn't finish that game.
BR, Iztok

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Quote:

I'm also of the opinion that the EP benefits NRSE races more so than ramscoop races and that only requires Prop13 - one more level than I normally need (until the endgame).

One clarification I'd like to make is that the above statement would have been based on also selecting Grav immune. Upon reflection I choose that in quite a few less than half the games I play, so I can't quote it as an absolute.

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Quote:

Heh? I am far from expert negotiator but such deals are often offered by the other side. You got jihads, then you go research construction 13. Or you continue with weapons because you know where to buy construction for it. Meanwhile you poke around where the hell you get these 3 levels of prop for 300/500 gate and i am probably the only one with prop 10 that i took for terra, but that's impossible to trade i can build only prop 9 scrappers. You offer weaps 9? I have weapons 10 probably so i disagree. You say me to research 2 levels more prop? What good negotiator you are to make me research 2 levels of tech i dont need right now? I got my prop 9 scoop and terra. So you offer weapons 12 for propulsion 9 or just shut up. No need to tell me to get lost cause im offering nothing i am simply listening and ready to trade. You can go and put 9k into prop yourself and i can put 9k into weapons myself or we can trade.

Quote:

Going from elec-16 to 19 it has lowered the germ price of my late game Nub by 12%. Being a weap-cheap-rest-expensive HP at that time, with germ the scarcest mineral, that offered me for FREE 12% more Nubs (or about 150!). I'd call that a good deal. Actually, it was. I've been selling weapons only, and DIDN'T BOUGHT a single level in energy and con above 6-7 and elec from 4 to 16. And I didn't SELL weap-26, I've GIVEN it. Was so big at that time I could afford that.

Now see the trouble with me is that I have these fixed ideas in my head of what things are worth, but in truth I should know better. Every situation is different and I thank you guys for reminding me of that!

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Quote:

I am testing many SS races in games against the AI. Unfortunately, some SS tactics will not work on the AI.

Um why are you wasting points using SS against the AI?
The AI is so dumb that even if your weaker (other PRT selected - non-cloaked) fleets are targetted, you can easily evade and/or hide behind planets.
The AI can see your colonies just as easily as any other race. It's only your starbases and ships that are cloaked.
SS is a good and fun race, but against the AI a total waste IMO.
On the other hand, an SS race can truly devastate a human opponent.

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