Gray Cloaking Device (Basic)

Some believe the expensive and rare cloaking technology available from certain manufacturers in the wider galaxy was developed by scientists in possession of captured gray starships, but these secrets are closely guarded. Gray cloaking devices are more efficient and more powerful than these other devices, enabling their starships to move around while avoiding detection. Activating a gray cloaking device takes one action by an engineer while the starship is neither in motion nor engaged in combat. The ship vanishes from view, and based on the cloaking device’s level, another ship must have sensors of a minimum level to detect it.

Like standard cloaking technology, gray cloaking devices are named for the maximum quality of sensors that can’t detect the cloaked ship. Cut-rate cloaking technology fools only cut-rate sensors; budget cloaking technology fools only cut-rate and budget sensors, and so on. Sensors capable of detecting a cloaked starship can do so only when the cloaked starship has entered the sensor’s first range increment. Engaging a Drift engine or firing a starship weapon immediately negates the cloaking ability, whereupon the ship reappears and can be detected normally. However, a starship hidden with a gray cloaking device can move, though at a maximum speed of 10 hexes for Tiny and Small starships, 8 hexes for Medium and Large starships, and 6 hexes for Huge and larger starships.