After looking and designing ships I figured I would ask more experienced players on the forums. I want a ship that can jump through points and identify enemy forces without being seen. I have no luck in this and always get caught and intercepted. What sensors should I use to spot and not be spotted in return? Is this possible and if so, could someone share their design so I may better understand?
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This ship is massively overengineered. Jump drive, efficient and low thermal engines, cloaking device, light armaments, massive passives, and ELINT if you can get close to colonies. In reality massive passives and low thermal engines (defensive tech) is all you need to get started.
I just read somewhere that stacking ELINT makes it better so I will probably make that adjustment.
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Don’t use active sensors for this.
EM sensors will tend to see major warships from further away than thermals, as those warships turn their active sensors on and off.
TH sensors will see big commercial ships from a long way off, and will see big warships reasonably far off. Not as far as EM will see them, but once you see a ship on thermals it tends to stay seen (until it is out of range again).
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An active sensor with a GPS of 76800 is not something you should put on a ship that wants to avoid being detected.
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Very good point on the active sensor being huge, just to make sure I’m not nuts - this only makes the ship visible when it’s turned on, correct? I use it as a spy-craft, buoy deployer, and AWACS.
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Yeah, actives and shields only emit their EM radiation when they’re active. It just means that if you try to spy with your active, you’ll light up like a Christmas tree on EM passives.
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Better to use squads of specialized light vessels instead of 1 larger ship. Spread your signature to be more stealthy (works in real combat too).
Do not bring armour, weapons and combat EW - your scout is almost 100% dead if it’s detected, so no point in worsening it’s main characteristics to make it capable of taking a useless last fight. (You may try to run away, yet it needs very good engine techs comparing to the opponent.)
Do not set deployment time more then necessary, it costs you additional crew and maintenance quarters, making a ship bigger (so less stealthy) and slower. Try short recce runs, like several months, and then use the intel to plan the JP assault, bring your combatants and unblock the path back for the scouts.
Or just roleplay new Dark Ages and build some grotesque thoughtless monstership, it’s a different kind of fun. 
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Thanks for the information, I was getting curbstomped and becoming frustrated. I will try the the smaller ship alternative and see how close I can get.
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I think stealth ship is not so common in early game. I still haven’t used one, and I’m playing the game like from 2016 But for sure you can play with small and fast scout ships, to detect enemy and scout enemy systems
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I believe in recon in force. But yeah, small ship, passive sensors. Make them cheap and don’t be bothered if you lose some. You can also do sensor buoys.
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The main difficulty for Stealth is JPs and distance.
If you have not guessed the detection distance, and the enemy is already close to you, you are dead.
You can enter the system unnoticed through a secured JP, but it will be very difficult to exit through it.
If you just need to fly through the system and detect warships in it, theoretically, one ship with high-RES Active sensor and large EM sensor will be enough for you. But it’s not exactly stealth.
A fairly simple way to do this is to fly somewhere in the center of the system (away from the planets) and turn on the sensor. Upon detecting you, your enemies will turn on their sensors, so that you will be aware of the enemy’s presence. All that remains is to turn off the sensors and fly away somewhere. Just remember that the enemy will fly to where he noticed you, and a little further in a straight line. The further away your opponent is from you, the greater your speed difference may be in order to escape alive.
By the same principle, you can check the enemy’s presence in planet’s orbit or take away JP guards to leave the system (use a fast 50t probe for this).
It is relatively easy to move stealthily inside the system. Just install large passive sensors, research some thermal reduction (optional) and don’t get too close to planets. Even navy can do this, it’s just a matter of speed and distance.
Also, the minimum TH signature of a ship will be at least 1/1000 of its size (tons), so it makes no sense to put a 2 TH engine on a 5kt ship, so you can use a more powerful engine in this case.
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Have you considered using active sensor probes as a means of scouting. I like sneaking in my small stealth passive sensory recon craft and then I jump in a missile platform.
This will fire missiles with active sensors at all the planets and anywhere else of interest. Whatever in system tends to react and you are then able to get an idea of where you recon craft should go and what’s worth tracking.
You also tend to get some basic weapon info when they shoot down your drones.
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