HighFleet – How to Silently Capture any Caravan on Hard

A detailed guide on all you need to know to capture any transport without raising alarms.

The right approach, the ships and modules to use, and the speeds needed to silently hunt them all down even on hard difficulty!

Say Goodbye to Alarms

We have all experienced running into that pesky flying trucker who ruins your perfect sudden strike streak by raising the alarm;

Also, if you follow this guide to the letter then I guarantee a 98% verringern in how many times you’ll be spotted by transport ships and their big or small escorts!

*98% Guarantee not legally binding; You will still be spotted by Strike Groups and this guide holds no liability for when that inevitably happens.

Landed Transports are Easy Prey

First you should know that most of the time, approaching a caravan that is already in the air will cause an immediate silent alarm, especially when they have just taken off.

The best way to avoid alarms is to time your attack on the city so that it is after an incoming caravan has already arrived. You can figure out when that is by using information from decoded transmissions and Intel stations.

Info in transmissions is especially useful, giving you clues to their position and direction or straight up telling you the caravan’s route:

Calculate the ETA of transports and make sure that your ships arrive at least half an hour after the caravan has fully landed. This is so they don’t spot you during their approach, turn around to run away and sound the alarm as they flee.

By attacking shortly after they land you can easily capture them as you sudden strike the city and its garrison. (This won’t work if the caravan is escorted by a cruiser and your ship is visible to radar, but we’ll discuss dealing with cruisers later.)

Now let’s talk about how you can high-jack approaching transports in mid-air! :

Capture Flying Transports without Alarm

It is in fact possible to capture an approaching caravan without a single alarm.

When a trader approaches a city with no silent alarm in progress, the green sudden strike timer will appear on top of the transport market, meaning you can silently approach them:

But even then, the caravan will immediately turn and run if they spot any of your ships inside their 100km visual tracking range!

In order to hunt them down before they flee and sound the alarm, you will have to spot them using radar, then send a super-fast interceptor such as The ‚Schakal‘ or The ‚Aardwolf‘ when you see the green sudden strike bar appear to close the gap as fast as possible.

Here these Light Interceptor Corvettes can be seen silently capturing 2 caravans in mid-flight:

If you run into an incoming caravan while you’re flying towards a city, detach your interceptor and send them back to the city the caravan is heading to, and make sure to stay out of visual range with the rest of your fleet.
You can then ambush the caravan like normal as they head for their destination, just make sure you don’t forget to spring your trap before the transport reaches the city!

The key is to intercept HEAD ON, otherwise the trader squadron won’t turn around trying to avoid you and allow your interceptor to catch up. You also need to be 10,000 meters in the air before they make visual contact in order to intercept at full speed.

An ongoing silent alarm will cause all caravans to immediately spot you from mid-flight.

Speeds needed for Silent Capture

Whether or not you can hunt a flying transport before they sound the alarm depends on a few variables;

Caravan speed, Uhrzeit, radar range and your interceptor’s speed will all play a role in whether or not you can catch them in time.

Here’s my personal cheat sheet on whether an approaching caravan can be quietly high-jacked or not:

• A fast caravan going 186 at noon (high visibility) requires a 950 Geschwindigkeit (10.5 TWR) ship for silent capture.
• A fast caravan going 186 with average visibility (evening/dawn) requires a 800 Geschwindigkeit (9 TWR) ship for silent capture.
• A slow caravan at mid visibility or a fast caravan at night can be silently captured with a ship going atleast 700km/h.
• An interceptor with 1000+ Geschwindigkeit can reliably high-jack any caravan at any time of day if proceeding head-on.

If you don’t have a fast enough ship available for the transport that is approaching then do the following:

• Leave the town, stay out of visual range (100km) of the trader but keep them within radar range. After they disappear from radar and you are certain that they have finished landing, attack the town and capture your prize!

MOST IMPORTANTLY!

On hard difficulty, you will find that many caravans are escorted by either a Kormoran or Negev cruiser, these ships have 200km and 500km of radar respectively, meaning that they instantly spot any ship that is not invisible to radar.

It’s time to discuss how we can deal with these cruiser escorts without ever being spotted and sounding the alarm:

Detecting Cruiser Escorts

These Cruiser caravan guards are perhaps the most irritating enemy in all of HighFleet.
They can spot almost any ship flying nearby and proceed to report their position to the entire world. But do not fret, as I am about to tell you about the secrets for dealing with them!

First you must know all the ways of detecting a possible mercenary Cruiser:

• Trucker transmissions will always announce if they are escorted by a Cruiser, remember every mention of a Cruiser in comms and make their silent demise your only priority!
• Intel stations give you the exact speed of every convoy you identify, if the caravan is going 95km/h or less then it might be escorted by a Negev and if it is going exactly 117km/h or less then it might be escorted by a Kormoran.
  
• zuletzt, if you detect an ELINT signal while approaching a town that immediately jumps up from level 1 and goes to level 5 in a short distance, you are very likely approaching a Cruiser convoy guard and should stop advancing to avoid detection.

Now let’s move on to „taking care“ of our lovely Cruiser escorts!

Destroying Cruiser Escorts

The KH-15P Anti-Radiation Missile is a potent weapon in the Cruiser hunter’s arsenal. It will only home in on targets with a radar signature, meaning the prize ship is safe from strike while the Cruiser is repeatedly hit!

With the KH-15P you can easily destroy the Cruiser mercenary from range then capture the caravan as you normally would. Especially deadly against Negevs which use long range radar.

If glorious dogfights are more your style and you wish take down the Cruisers in combat, then meet the bane of all Cruisers from my own personal fleet:
The fearless ‚Jackal-Mk1‘ 180mm Interceptor, proud fighter of The „Corvettes of The King“

It can fly right up to any Cruiser escorted transport, destroy the guards with any ammo type you prefer (180mm Laser Guided Missiles are my personal favorite), and capture the prize ship without ever raising the alarm. All thanks to the Jackal’s tremendous speed and invisibly small radar signature.

The applications do not end there, Jedoch. Being undetectable by radar means you can fly through Strike Group radar without alarm, attack garrisons behind enemy lines, or silence tactical squadrons before engaging the enemy Strike Group!

The Best Radar to Use

The MR-12 F.C.R. is the ideal radar for early warning of any target.
It not only provides 400 km of tracking radius which fully identifies every threat in range, the MR-12 also gives AA missile guidance capability and costs practically nothing.

Seen here strapped to the bottom of an Immortal ‘Manticore-X4’ AA defence ship.

Another added bonus of the 400km radar range is that it is shorter than the radar of a Strike Group, so if no enemy ELINT signature is detected by your squadron you can safely assume that your radar sign is not picked up by any nearby SGs either.

My Custom Interceptors

With the power of the MR-12 you can have a ship such as the „Aardwolf-Mk2“, an effective AA defence ship, convoy interceptor and early warning vessel fit nicely into one package.

There is also The „Nemesis“ Modell, a light Interceptor Corvette based on the Jackal’s frame but with different flavors of auto-cannons to choose according to your preferences or situation:

Nemesis X-100 Light Interceptor Corvette

Nemesis X-57 Light Interceptor Corvette