Hunter Bait - FastTrek Docs

Automate the Augment Exiles Grind

‘Hunter Bait is a hunter evasion mode.

When you send two ships that arrive within approximately 5-10 seconds of each other, the hunters will target the first arriving ship. Recall this ship after the hunter spawns and the hunter will actually disappear/despawn. Use the ‘Hunter Bait’ mode to configure FastTrek to use this trick to make the automated Augment Exiles grind possible.
(FYI it also works on other revenge hostiles, such as (legacy) Augment Bounty Hunters or Faction War Armies)

Major Limitations

Do not auto-grind other revenge hostiles while using this, or else your bait ship may recall at the wrong time. Similarly, you can only use one such automation at a time. (While it’s possible to set it up, I can almost guarantee unwanted results).
Basically, any attack notification will currently trigger the recall, which also includes attacks from other players.

Lastly, finding a mining node can sometimes take longer than for the bait ship to be destroyed. And mirror universe also currently interferes with this mode, because the MU mode will lock down all other interaction. In both these cases you will ‘only’ use the bait ship, so you might consider that acceptable.

Otherwise and in any case, the Picard Maneuver generally offers a more reliable and flexible alternative to this mode, as well as requiring only the main ship.

Configuring the Main combat ship

This is the ship that will do the actual grind.

1 ‘Hostile Hunt’

Configure your main ship for hostile hunt as usual. Here I’m going to Galen, recall when the ship is full, and repeat up to a total of 500 fights. The actual parameters are of course up to you.

2 No Interceptors

For the Augment Exile grind, all hunters are Interceptors. To avoid hitting frozen hunters that other players may have left, I’m disabling them in the targeting filter.

3 Start Paused

Hit “Start Paused”, then we’ll continue to configure the Hunter Bait ship.
The main ship MUST be in a paused state before starting the Bait (otherwise the bait automation will just stop immediately).

Configuring the Bait ship

This ship will be used to bait hunters and then leave. It should remain activated (on ‘standby’) for as long as your main ship is running so that it can help with repeats. The bait automation will automatically end when the main automation stops.

1 ‘Hunter Bait’

Select ‘Hunter Bait’ as the automation for your bait ship and pick your main ship as the target location. Here I’ve chosen Ship 2 to match my main ship (B).

2 Ship Send Delay

Configure the Ship Send Delay so that your ships will arrive within 5-10 seconds of each other. You may need to experiment to find the best delay depending on your ships and the target system.

0 means both ships will send around the same time with a minimal random delay (bait ship first)
1 or higher means the bait ship will be sent that many seconds before the main ship
-1 or lower means the bait ship will be sent that many seconds after the main ship

3 Start All

Use ‘Start Paused’ on the Bait ship.

Start both

Then activate both automations at the same time using ‘start/resume all’.
Lean back and relax after that hard work ;-)

Tips for finding your ship send delay

In a system that you can view (non-deep space), aim for a point somewhere along the edge from where ships will enter the system. Select different ships and compare the expected travel time.

In a deep space system you could send a ship there first to be able to see it, or use the USS Enterprise NX-01 ability to reveal it for a limited time, then use the same technique to compare expected travel times.

When FastTrek sends your ships later, the exact arrival point may vary, especially in deep space systems, so the warp timer shown on the dock may differ from the actual arrival time in the system. Please bear in mind that hunters react to the moment in time that the ship drops out of warp, not when it stops moving.

You should then monitor the situation and consider tweaking the delay ever so slightly to obtain the best result. Like most things in FastTrek it is possible to adjust the ship send delay on the fly. If you find that you’re getting inconsistent results with one number, you can edit the value and it will apply on the next repeat.

Why is the bait ship not launching?

It is crucial that you use ‘start paused’ on the main/combat ship first.
The bait ship must be put in the ‘start paused’ state second.

This is because the hunter bait mode makes a modification to the navigation sequence of the main/combat ship. It can’t do so if the automation isn’t started, and if the automation was already running, it would be too late. ‘Start paused’ is the only way to ensure that the hostile hunt is started without running, and sits at an execution point where it is still possible to make that modification.