Hunters

Hunters are attack ships sent by the (infected) Federation to destroy the Daedalus. They will come at you relentlessly. Be prepared.

They will be announced when they appear, and their numbers (but not their types) will be shown on the Alert bar.
Each new wave will take 1 cycle to adjust, after which they will fire at the Daedalus at the end of each cycle for a random amount of damage (~2 on average, including hit chances). They may also fire at partol craft, or even at each other (with the Meridon Scrambler research), but mostly target the Deadalus.

To get rid of them, you either have to kill them, or move the Daedalus to outrun them.

Note: Old Hunters catching up to the Deadalus after movement will be announced again, but they will resume firing at the end of that cycle. Watch their numbers to decide whether new ones have appeared along with them, because those will wait.

Fighting the hunters

Patrol Ships

Patrollers, when used with enough , are by far the most effective way to fight hunters. You will have a hard time if you have no characters with Pilot skills. See Piloting for details.

Ship Turrets

You can enter these turrets and fire at the hunters, but they are ineffective. It costs 1 to fire, with only 30% base accuracy to hit, and low base damage. TODO: Minimum 2. Maximum 4?

Their efficiency can be improved with an Invertebrate Shell for double damage, and accuracy boosts like the Targeting Assist project, but mostly they should only be used to finish off already wounded hunters, or numbers too small to warrant taking off for (1-2).

Ship turrets have 4 shots each before they have to recharge, which is done automatically between cycles.

There are six turrets located on the Daedalus: Two in the front, next to the bridge, two in the middle, connected to the front ship bays, and two in the rear, connected to the engine room. Arranged visually from top to bottom in a column: Rear Bravo, Center Bravo, Front Bravo, Rear Alpha, Center Alpha, Front Alpha.

Moving the Daedalus

You may simply move the Daedalus to outrun the hunters. Some hunters and asteroids will not follow, some will.

While the Deadalus is moving, Hunters cannot fire at it unless they are Trax. (The others are left behind, and may only reappear afterwards.) This means a ship with an active Commander could theoretically avoid damage for as long as it has fuel, and is able to take care of Aracks and Trax.

On longer voyages, moving at least once in this way should be the #1 method of dealing with larger hunter/asteroid/cube waves, as shooting them all down will become increasingly taxing and ineffective compared with the ability to halve their numbers.

Note: The distance or direction of movement does not affect the result.

List of Hunters

"Follow" means the percentage of the number of hunters which will follow the Daedalus after moving. For those which not followed or got overrun, you have got rid of them and essentially clear the threat. Hunters can also miss instead of doing damage at all! It is entirely possible for a group of 7 hunters to do 0 damage, for example.

Day			Enemy	Strength	Damage	Details
1+			Hunter	6	1-3	Standard Hunter. 50% of standard hunters will follow when you run. This is reduced by 25% with Trail Minimizer, but it's unclear whether it reduces it to 25% of the original count, or by a relative 25% (to 37.5%).
5+			Trax	10	1-3	Cannot be outrun. Trax will always follow the Daedalus, and even fire while it moves. Not affected by Trail Minimizer.
5+			Arack	6	?	Prevents the Daedalus from moving. (Does not apply to PILGRED Reactor - you can still jump to Sol or Eden.)
5+			Asteroid	20	≤20	Will collide with Daedalus 6 cycles after it initially appears (5 cycles if they appear after the Daedalus moves) and will cause as much damage as strength that it has left. Asteroids will ignore the plasma shield. Does not follow the Daedalus. You should simply move away from them.
10+			d1000	30	1-? x3	Attacks the Daedalus 3 times per cycle. Does not follow the Daedalus. You should simply move away from them.