Stealth aircraft employ a variety of measures to reduce their signature including radar absorbing materials, redirection of engine heat, and design features that cause active radar signals to naturally be scattered. You see all this employed in the F-117.
At more advanced tech levels the experiments you see being done now with cloaking devices would be employed. These would culminate in the black globe device and later the white globe device. The idea with cloaking is not to simply be a dead spot on a passive or active sensor, but to emit just enough energy so that you would appear match the background energy levels from the perspective of the enemy. Of course such cloaking couldn't be all aspect (though at the upper reaches of Ancients level tech perhaps it could be...), so a certain amount tactical skill would be required in employing it.
That perhaps is the best way to introduce a RCES black trading fleet into the mix. Certain elements within the RC aren't happy with the pace of technological advancement, and feel the Hivers are holding the RC back on purpose. They would employ a few vessels, tenders or carriers most likely that act as a mobile base, that have salvaged Imperial black globe generators to carry trading vessels to places where the RC doesn't routinely go and deal with people/AI that the RC don't do business with in order to obtain high tech salvage items. The player characters could encounter these elements a number of ways, either because they accidentally stumble across a ship, follow it for some reason, and witness as a massive battletender suddenly appears and then disappears, along with the ship. Perhaps they cold even be recruited by the operators of the black fleet to be part of the their trade/salvage teams. The motivations of those that control the black fleet could vary from genuinely sincere "super patriots" operating outside the RC's control to a "Section 31" type organization that only a few in the RC government even know about, to arch villains who want to create a high tech empire that includes the RC and puts the Hivers "in their place".
The main thing is to have fun with it and try not to do too much violence to the established storyline--that way the cloak and dagger aspects of what's going on can be maintained.
"I know things, Duval, and if I told you what I knew, I'd have to kill you."
"Yeah, right, whatever..." said Duval, rolling his eyes.
Kilburn frowned. "No, Duval, I am being totally serious. If you think the Hivers are puppet masters, you haven't seen anything yet."
At more advanced tech levels the experiments you see being done now with cloaking devices would be employed. These would culminate in the black globe device and later the white globe device. The idea with cloaking is not to simply be a dead spot on a passive or active sensor, but to emit just enough energy so that you would appear match the background energy levels from the perspective of the enemy. Of course such cloaking couldn't be all aspect (though at the upper reaches of Ancients level tech perhaps it could be...), so a certain amount tactical skill would be required in employing it.
That perhaps is the best way to introduce a RCES black trading fleet into the mix. Certain elements within the RC aren't happy with the pace of technological advancement, and feel the Hivers are holding the RC back on purpose. They would employ a few vessels, tenders or carriers most likely that act as a mobile base, that have salvaged Imperial black globe generators to carry trading vessels to places where the RC doesn't routinely go and deal with people/AI that the RC don't do business with in order to obtain high tech salvage items. The player characters could encounter these elements a number of ways, either because they accidentally stumble across a ship, follow it for some reason, and witness as a massive battletender suddenly appears and then disappears, along with the ship. Perhaps they cold even be recruited by the operators of the black fleet to be part of the their trade/salvage teams. The motivations of those that control the black fleet could vary from genuinely sincere "super patriots" operating outside the RC's control to a "Section 31" type organization that only a few in the RC government even know about, to arch villains who want to create a high tech empire that includes the RC and puts the Hivers "in their place".
The main thing is to have fun with it and try not to do too much violence to the established storyline--that way the cloak and dagger aspects of what's going on can be maintained.
"I know things, Duval, and if I told you what I knew, I'd have to kill you."
"Yeah, right, whatever..." said Duval, rolling his eyes.
Kilburn frowned. "No, Duval, I am being totally serious. If you think the Hivers are puppet masters, you haven't seen anything yet."