Dedicated scanner ships and/or stations.

Post ideas & suggestions you have pertaining to the game here.
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The idea is these (enemy) objects have ridiculously high perception, at least 8, possibly 10, and if they detect an unusual enemy, like the playership, it alerts other allied ships and transmits the location of all targets. The scanner object, if mobile, does its best to avoid combat.

Their function is to mitigate the possible scenario of player obtaining enough advanced stealth armor or other mod armor with stealth of 8+ and become invisible to the vast majority of enemies of the whole game.
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JohnBWatson
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It's hard to say which factions that would work for, to be honest. Criminal groups like pirates wouldn't be able to afford them, and hardly ever fight stealth - fielding enemies regardless. Of the factions in vanilla that could feasibly include them, each has a ship that could logically have scanners equipped for stealth detection that is already integrated into their force mix and wouldn't require new AI code. The Urak have their Sentinel autons, which could have their detection values buffed, the Sung have their cyberdeck ships, the Dwarg have the Masters, the Ares have their capital ships(which already have very high detection) and their sentries, and the Ranx have their dreadnoughts, if they ever get buffed or returned to a location where they could threaten the player. While I like the idea of being able to/having to target a specific ship or set of ships in a group order to take full advantage of the stealth mechanic, it's hard to justify giving every hostile faction a hyperspecialized ship in order to counter a mechanic that's used by a grand total of one(expansion - based) faction.

That said, right now, the entire stealth mechanic is in need of a rework. Full advanced stealth armor makes you all but invisible to some enemies, yet some entities' whose orders are set to attack can still see you from anywhere. On top of that, there's the fact that a targeting program can lock onto and maintain locks on ships that cannot be detected, making stealth as an NPC mechanic all but useless by the time it could feasibly show up.

To solve the second problem, I'd break the targeting system's lock on any ship that manages to completely conceal itself using the nebula or stealth armor. To balance this, it should probably be made much harder to do this after being detected.
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I do not expect all or even the majority of NPC factions to feature anti-stealth. Mainly those with enough resources for a heavy military presence, namely Ares, Sung, and possibly Charon pirates closer to Charon. After all, everyone having anti-stealth is like having everyone use blast plate or level 7+ armor in Ungoverned Territories as soon as player can install a waste cannon at a BM shipyard.

It is not to counter ED, but the playership if he somehow gets enough stealth 8 armor to equip. This happens too late to matter in Eternity Port, but I would love to add stealth 8 armor (for DrakeTech and/or possible part 2 mod), but I cannot because it is too powerful. With stealth 8 armor, most ships cannot see you unless you go to them. Those with perception 6 need to be within range 25 (screen range) to see you. As long as you avoid enemies and do not take missions, you can go wherever without being noticed, pick up whatever loot you want, then sell or upgrade.

(All of these assume permadeath. Player does not need stealth to do the above with unlimited resurrection.)

EDIT: Admittedly, it is nice to have, but given the rarity of stealth armor in general, it is probably low priority for dedicated anti-stealth even for highly prosperous sovereigns like the Ares. Have no idea how prominent stealth could be in upcoming part 2.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
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