Cadet PRS Economy Killing

Destroying the enemy's economy

The stealth fighter is designed to kill utility craft - miners and constructors. It is not designed for fighting enemy pilots, defending bases, or escorting friendly miners and cons.

If your team has gone tac, the enemy team should have zero miners. Or they should be committing 50% (or more) of their team to defending their sole surviving miner. Any other result and you are failing as an sf pilot.

Finding a miner

1. Check the minimap for an enemy miner icon. If you find one, proceed to 4.
2. Bring up F6 and check where the enemy miners were last spotted. Check that sector - is there still helium left? If so they may still be there. If not, then where would have they moved to next?
3. Check sectors until you find one which has been recently drained of He3 - for instance, one He3 asteroid has a lot less helium left than the other ones, or any rocks have precisely zero helium left. This is a clear indication of enemy miners at work. This is referred to by veterans as "He drop".

Tip: If you expand the minimap by pressing the arrow, then it will display the total He in the sector. By changing between sectors the number will refresh and you can easily spot any drops

Note The He3 bar displayed in command view is likely to change in future releases of Allegiance to more accurately portray Fog Of War

4. Now that you know where the enemy miner is, examine the sector in F3.

• Is it likely to stay there while you fly to it?
• Where will it move to next?
• Are the enemy defending an aleph?
• What aleph will you need to enter through to avoid defence?

Entering the sector

If you followed the cloaking tips above chances are you entered the sector cloaked and with missiles unmounted to minimise your signature. But what if the enemy miner is very close to where you entered? Should you attack it immediately or wait? That depends:

• Is the miner undefended?
• Do you have enough energy left to kill it easily?
• Are there any enemy bases nearby where reinforcements will launch?
• Is the miner about to finish and leave the rock?

If for any reason you don't feel comfortable attacking then ignore the miner long enough for you to get ready. Otherwise load missiles and get ready.

Utility cannons are awesome against miner and constructor hull, but suck against shield. For this reason you should use hunters to take down their shields. Therefore you should avoid being eyed until you have loaded your missiles and gotten a good lock. Use your backthrust key to slow down and hang around 1800m from the miner until your missiles are ready, then begin closing in.

Once your hunters have taken down the shields below 10% uncloak and open fire to finish the miner off.

Tip: Shields do not protect any ship if they are below 10%.

Spiking the miner

Example of a missile hitting a (stationary) target, even though it was fired while the ship was still out of range

This is the normal way to kill a miner. If it is defended you can collaborate with other sf pilots to spike it together, overwhelming the defence.

1. Set-up about 3.5k from the rock that the miner will mine next and uncloak to recharge energy. You won't have time to set up on the rock the miner is currently at.
   • Make sure the rock isn't between you and where the miner will stop.
2. Once the miner reaches the rock engage full thrust and cloak.
3. Once you are fully cloaked mount missiles.
4. Once you are about 2.5k out, fire the missile.
   • Your missiles gain your ship's momentum, meaning they can have "extra range" if you fire them when moving quickly.
   • The lifespan of a hunter is 7s, so it's "extra range" is 7 times your current speed.
   • If you're moving 100mps, this is an extra 700m. Hunter2 has a range of about 1800m, so your "maximum range" is now 2500m.
   • If you're moving 150mps, this is an extra 1050m, giving a "maximum range" of 2850m with hunter2.

Note This only works effectively against stationary targets, because even a small dodge will throw off a fast-moving missile that has been launched with no lock.

5. The miner will start moving once it gets damaged. This means your third and fourth missiles may need a bit of lock - not much, as the miner will still be slow and even a little lock will let the missile hit it.
6. Once you're eyed uncloak and use your util cannons to finish it off.

Tip: You may want to use backthrust at the same time you decloak, so you can slow down and don't shoot past the miner.

Taking down the defence

Ideally you want to work with teammates, ignore the defence, and spike the miner together to overwhelm the defence; however sometimes that just isn't an option.

Attacking a miner with d is always difficult. You will be eyed as soon as you make a move on the miner, and podded soon after. If you attack the miner, the defence will pod you. If you attack the defence, they will retreat the miner and more reinforcements will arrive before you can kill it. Here are some tips:

• Work with your teammates, decide who will attack the miner and who the defence.
• Wait until the miner is a long way from a base before attacking.
• Attack together.
• Stay out of sight and attack nans until all the nans are dead.
• If an int/fig comes after you, unload missiles and dodge him. Hopefully this will give your teammates more time to attack.
• Hit any nan that is dumb enough to stay still.
• If your team has ints/figs then get them to rush the miner, kill the nans, take the miner's shields down, then boost away and draw any defending ints/figs after them. Then swoop in and finish off the nan-less shield-less miner with your utility cannons.

Attacking constructors

Constructors are a difficult nut to crack because you have constantly have that clock above your head, counting down until it reaches a rock and builds. Often you don't know what rock it is heading to, and once it reaches the rock there is very little you can do to stop it building.

Best case scenario is you detect the constructor several sectors away from where it will be going and your team can rush sf to that sector to ambush it. Worst case scenario you're flying towards an aleph with missiles unmounted and low on energy when a con pops through with an escort.

Your approach should be to fly beside the con using hunters to kill all the nans. Once they're down move away to recharge, wait for the con to slow down to build, then rush in to kill it the same way you would spike a miner. Move in too early and you will just end trailing behind the con, easily spotted and podded.

Tip: In fact, most of the time you don't need to carry a shield at all because by the time it is mounted and even 10% charged, you will probably want to take it off to hide again.

What a sf is good at, is decimating the enemy's economy. They can sneak behind enemy lines, wait until the enemy is distracted, and then kill their miners. They are good because their main weapon is the Utility Cannon does a whopping 200% damage to ships with Utility-class armour, which happens to be all cons, miners, carriers, and drones.

Allegiance is an economy game - miners bring in the money, money buys the tech, team uses bought tech to win the game (most of the time at least). When your commander buys a Tac he wants you to kill enemy miners as quickly as possible to cripple the enemy team. Then your focus is killing any new miners/cons before they have a chance to earn their money back, while at the same time making sure your own miners don't die and your bases don't get bombed.

Note If you successfully kill all the enemy miners, then keeping your own stuff alive can become problematic as the enemy now have 0% of their pilots needed on defence.

Flying a stealth fighter

Ship load out

Utility cannons devastate utility hull (not shields though, use your missiles to take down shields) and suck vs everything else. Sniper cannons are average vs anything except utility hull. Recall that all constructors, miners, tower drones, carriers - basically everything AI - has utility class hull.

As mentioned earlier, the small shield isn't generally worth taking. Leave your missile rack and shield slot empty, fill up your cargo with Hunters, and you're good to go. This will allow you to launch with the lowest possible sig**. This is NOT the best loadout for EVERY situation, but it's the most ubiquitous.

Tip: **If you have a cloak activated when you dock, it will still be activate when you next launch.

If the enemy don't have any miners or cons then you'll probably want to take snipers. If they have cap ships you'll probably want to take Killers (which function a lot like dumbfires). If you're trying to kill a miner which is defended you'll have to work with other teammates. Either take snipers and concentrate on taking out the escort, or utils and wait until the escort is dead/distracted before attacking.

Cloaking tips

Unless you're fully teched out, managing your energy reserves is important if you want to hide when you need to, and attack when you want to.

• If you want to remain unseen as you fly around the map, you should cloak whenever you enter an aleph or fly within 2k of an enemy base.
• Your stealth fighter has a sig of about 50% when it's uncloaked and missiles unmounted. You can get fairly close to the enemy, especially if you're in their rear arc.
  • Minor bases and techbases have a scan range of 2400m (you can get to almost 1200m).
  • Adv techbases have a scan range of 3600m (you can get to 1800m).
  • Garrison/Starbase has a scan range of 3600m/4000m respectively (1800/2000).
  • Scouts and miners have a scan range of 2400m (1200).
• You should always cloak before loading missiles. Preferably you wait until the cloak is fully engaged before loading the missiles, because they cause a sudden spike in your sig.
• If you are eyed and are unlikely to lose eye, then uncloak and save your energy for your weapons.
• When you are camping on defense, you should remain uncloaked until just before the enemy enter the sector (i.e. cloak at the same time someone yells "Drop!").
• If you're attacking, then uncloak before firing your main weapons because they will drain your energy quickly.
• If an enemy is flying straight at you then unmount missiles, cloak, and dodge to avoid getting podded.

Tip: Rebind "Swap missiles" to a more convenient key so that you can do this quickly.

Combat tips

The stealth fighter is a long range combatant. This is reinforced by its terrible torque and turn rates which make it hard for a sf pilot to keep a nearby ship in its sights. If you try to fly it like an int (like so many voobs do) you will be in a pod before you know it.

You want to lob a few missiles at your opponent to soften them up. Then, while they're blundering around trying to figure out where you are, attack them from the side or rear. Do not head directly at them while you're softening them up; use your side thrusters to move around them. Remember that if you spend a long time cloaked trying to soften them up, then you won't have enough energy to finish them off with your guns.

Example of a ship outrunning a missile, even though it was fired when it was in range

Ints and figs can and will use their boosters to outrun your missiles. Just because you have 100% lock and the int is in range, doesn't mean the missile is going to hit! Keep a close eye on the distance between you, your speed, and their speed (for example if they're already 1500m away, doing 100mps more than you, and accelerating away, then chances are your missile won't have enough oomph to catch up).

Don't be afraid to abort your attack and try again. It is better to unmount missiles and hide than try to get one more missile off at the same time as they pod you. After all, the sf is not designed for taking down enemy ships but for destroying the enemy's miners.

Note Do not expect to get to the top of the kill board when flying a stealth fighter.

Remember, the stealth fighters are designed to kill miners and constructors. Usually the only pilots you should attack are ones defending miners/cons.