Stealth

I read that cutting your power output could make your ship harder to detect, which to me means that ships wouldn't be able to detect me at long range, but it doesn't seem to work that way. How would I hide from, say, a Cruiser? I keep taking out escorts and getting some really NICE cargo drops, only to have a Cruiser jump in before I can call Jafs. I actually managed to take a Cruiser down to like 20% Hull, only to have it leave (at that point, I thought I was free to get the cargo), and then another jumped right in to take its place. Maybe I'm trying to take on too much, but it seems to me that you can't really do much with food products and the other low value stuff I get otherwise. My other idea was to try to make the cruisers lose me on their screens so that they'd just leave, is there any way to do that?

Also, is there any defense against LDSi missiles? Whenever I have to run away, the enemies ALWAYS have them and they seem to be an automatic hit, even when I'm about 10 million km away. (And after that, they always find me no matter how much I change direction while in LDS, so the cycle repeats after the LDSi field wears off...which the encyclopedia says is 40 seconds, but it seems a LOT longer than that.)

Psyborg

No, you cant really hide from a cruiser. In fact, stealth is broken. It will help you evade missiles, but it wont let you evade detection. Missions where you seem to be able to go undetected are relying on kludges, the enemy will be triggered at such&such a range and so on.

Pirating at stations is suicide, once they call for backup the backup just keeps on coming. You can sometimes call Jafs between waves, but you then have to defend him while he makes his pickup.

The thing to do is formate with an outgoing convoy, and LDSi it after a few thousand KMs. YOu'll have to take out the escorts quickly, or the convoy will get back underway, but you'll quickly learn how much of an escort you can take on with a reasonable chance of success. And you can always lob in a second LDSi missile if you need to.

Escaping from LDSi-equipped pursuit means either eliminating them, or getting far enough away from the LDSi marker that when they arrive, they have to LDS again to catch you. Jump into LDS yourself when the effect wears off, and they burn another LDSi missile to stop you. Accelerate away again, and repeat. Eventualy, they will quit. Its much faster to blow them up after you get far enough away from the station that further reinforcements wont find you, and of course, if you dont provoke the stations defence in the first place, you dont have to deal with them at all.

Well, to avoid overwhelming or jusat annoying escorts, you CAN just turn off nav assist and keep the forward thrust going until you max out speed... They will stay waaaaaaaay back behind you (occasionally LDSing up some then dropping back again). Usualy you can just LDS when you're far enough forward; just turn at, say, 90 degrees from the course you're coasting on.

Pirating at stations is suicide? Actually, only if you attack the faction that OWNS the station; if you attack unrelated ships, the station doesn't give a hoot. I find it vaguely significant that I've *never* used an LDSi missile in the game! Hrm, except I seem to remember that one of the missions required it..?