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 as an Alert.

Each new wave will of hunters will do nothing until 2 cycles after arrival, after which they will fire at the Daedalus at the end of every cycle for a random amount of damage. They may also fire at patrol craft, or even at each other (after researching Meridon Scrambler), but generally target the Daedalus.

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

Fighting the Hunters
Generally you should target the Hunter you want to aim at before firing, otherwise you will always shoot at the oldest existing hunter (which can include any Transporters in the sector). Aracks are considered the most dangerous hunters and should always be destroyed first. Afterwards you will want to prioritize Infiltrators, and then Trax. When all of the mentioned enemies are destroyed, then you can focus on the generic Hunters. Asteroids and D1000's are very strong, they do not follow the Daedalus when moving, so they should be ignored unless you plan on staying in a sector for a while.

Armored Corridors, Bay Door XXL, Blaster Gun, Launch Propulsion System, Magnetic Net, Plasma Shield, Rerouted Charges, Teslatron Reservoir, Trail Minimizer, all can help with fighting hunters, directly or indirectly, ranging from being not very helpful to vital, see NERON Projects page for more information on each project.

When the turns the ship's direction, there is a small chance to "hit" a hunter and deal damage to them (along with a NERON announcement notifying of the event), the usefulness of this is as a means to fight hunters unknown and presumed to be less effective than using turrets.

Patrol Ships
Patrollers, when used with enough, are by far the most effective way to kill hunters. You will have a hard time if you have no characters with skills.

can also be upgraded to utilize Patrollers, though their utility is limited if not used correctly, and are prone to being destroyed if not done with precaution. Usually drones are only upgraded as a last resort, though sometimes they are used with extremely effective crews (such as being used with, or by letting a Pilot drone land for you after you used all of the patroller's charges.

Ship Turrets
You can enter any of the 6 turrets and fire at the hunters, but they are considerably less effective than patrol ships. It costs 1 to fire, with only 30% base accuracy to hit, and low base damage. Being a helps, but only a  can really use them to efficiently destroy hunters.

The best use of turrets is to weaken hunters to 3 or less strength (or 4 if your ship has Blaster gun OR the Day 6 rebel base, or 5 strength if your ship has BOTH of these upgrades), as this allows Patrollers to always destroy the hunter in a single shot, and thus, the ability to destroy more hunters. This can also be applied vice versa, where a Pilot in a Patroller brings a hunter down to 2 strength, and then anyone can finish the hunter off inside of a turret. Both of these methods should not be used unless your Pilots are struggling to destroy the hunters, as generally it's still more effective for a Pilot to just shoot the hunter to destruction themselves, consult with your crew before attempting to use the turrets.

Moving the Daedalus
You may move the Daedalus to try and outrun the hunters. This will delay ~50% of the standard hunters for a while (more with Trail Minimizer), escape from all asteroids, and all d1000. Only Trax cannot be shaken this way, and have to be fought when they appear (as do Aracks, so you can move in the first place).

While the Daedalus is moving, even the Hunters that follow you to the destination do not inflict damage while in motion, unless they are Trax.

This means that a ship with an active could in theory avoid damage indefinitely, as long as it has Fuel to move and is able to take care of Aracks and Trax. In practice, however, moving mostly serves to break up large hunter waves into more manageable bits, to stall time while Pilots regain, or simply delay them to be dealt with at more opportune times.

On longer voyages, shooting Aracks/Trax and then moving at least once in this way should be the #1 response to hunter/asteroid/D1000 waves, mostly to get rid of the asteroids and D1000. Keep in mind, however, that the standard hunters have to be fought eventually.