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After seeing some vets complain about scouts not looking ahead for probes in the last couple of days, I realised I don't really know what the best way to hunt for probes is.

Are there any good strategies for finding a probe you know is eyeing you but you can't see? Obviously you can fiddle your sig by mounting/unmounting stuff to give you some idea how far you are and do a bit of triangulation but this is a bit tricky to do quickly or well. Obviously you have the best scan range straight ahead so I guess you need to make sure you try facing in different directions to spot it. Or maybe people just fly around in circles and hope /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

Anyway, any useful hints appreciated.

Use pulse probes.

Fly ahead of bomber and try to get eyed while firing gat.

Check near rocks and behind alephs where most people probe.

Also, if you fly along and suddenly you get eye and have a suspicion that it's a probe, pointing your ship in any direction and sometimes the probe will pop up. Just flick the ship back and forth.

2nd thing is take cadet... they cover these kind of topics in depth.

fly around in circles and hope

I always look behind the alephs first, because thats where ppl normally put them

giga lxy scout

best way is to know where most ppl will put probes. typical bad probers place probes directly between alephs or only slightly off the main path. better probers go off the grid (either up or down, though i like down myself, less ppl check there) AND off the path slightly. behind alephs (and above or below) is also a good place to check. think like the prober. you want your probe to see but not be seen. know that if you are eyed, the probe can't be too far if you have a low sig so a bit of fiddling with your sig (dropping missles or shields to see how quickly you loose eye) makes is MUCH faster to find the probe. the lower your sig, the closer you have to be. get eye, drop missles. still have eye? drop shields (unless about to need them). still have eye? that probe is close if you are a scout. fly around a bit. you loose eye? turn around. find the middle, then up and down. doesn't take long at all once you do it a few times.

It's covered VERY in depth in Cadet - Go take it.

It's really helpful

If you are prepping for a bomb run a good idea is to know what the signature of the bomber is. Then fix your loadout to try to replicate that signature and fly in the path the bomber is likely to take. You will usually have to fire your gun to raise your signature enough in a scout to get your sig higher than the bomber's sig. If you get an eye while flying in that path stop and fly a circle in that area. Usually about a 1000m radius around that spot you'll be able to find the probe. The average prober won't probe off plane so you'll likely just run into it. Its not always a good idea to kill every probe you see. If the bomber can adjust course to avoid the scan range of the probe its more effective since the enemy will have a false sense of security. If the probe is in a location that can't be avoided by the bomber such as an aleph let the bomber close some of the distance and kill the probe. If you kill it too early it might tip off the enemy that something is going on.

mcwarren4 wrote:QUOTE (mcwarren4 @ Oct 2 2007, 11:34 PM) If you kill it too early it might tip off the enemy that something is going on.

Should be deprobing all the time, IMHO. That being said, I've seen a few bomb runs get spotted by a scout who entered the sector to reprobe. Conversely, if you notice someone deprobing, load up on probes and go stealth probing in places where they likely to see but not be seen. EDIT: Also, I've also seen bomb runs come from unexplored sectors, or enemy bases be in unexplored sectors next to home. Bad probing means no info means lose game. /EDIT

Listen to everything SaiSoma said. Use Pulse Probes if you have them, and always when scouting for probes use a scout and bring a nanite and mines in cargo.