fallsfromtrees wrote:This is making the very large assumption that your opponents will never be able to detect your spider drive ships moving into place - not an assumption I would want to make - it leaves the very real possibility that your forts could get destroyed before your mobile forces enter the system, and SURPRISE, don't have to worry about someone shooting them from the back when they come out after you, just as you planned.
No, it is simply recognizing that spider drive ships aren't vulnerable to sensors and weapons that look for a wedge. No amount of technical wizardry can make spider drives show up on gravitic sensors looking for a wedge, it doesn't have a wedge for the to track or lock onto.
Lenny Dets lose the advantage of stealth if they deploy and fire pods because they're currently armed with Cataphract-C pods -- the first salvo will appear out of nowhere, but localizing the source of the missiles should be fairly easy. Locking onto a target with see-through stealth is going to be difficult with current sensors, but not necessarily impossible.
I suspect that the GA will be able to adapt FTL-comm tech to track and lock targeting systems onto a spider drive in the future, but until they do, reliance on stealth is a viable tactic.
.
.
.
Answers! I got lots of answers!
(Now if I could just find the right questions.)