Hidden Blade Squadron – Torpcello and Friends

Role: Ambush | Difficulty: MODERATE

Hidden Blade Squadron is a high-risk high-reward assassination fleet centered around the Eat This, a torpedo Ocello command cruiser (torpcello) capable of obliterating capital ships in seconds. However, it is vulnerable if spotted before reaching torpedo range. Keep it concealed behind rocks and use your tactical awareness to maneuver from cover to cover into torpedo range, or let the enemy come to you. Face the target using the HDG command to pre-align your torpedo strike and minimize incoming damage with your armored bow. In support is a sensor tugboat for tracking overall enemy movements and arranging ambushes, as well as two rocket shuttles for screening the torpcello against flankers and capturing objectives.

This is what the starter fleet Azurite Squadron that I maintain is based on, with some optimizations for more competitive games while still being beginner friendly:

• Arming missiles on all ships: Make the game consider them as being armed, even when all of their weapons are offline. Helps with contesting points.
• Additional ‘killjoy’ decoy missiles on the torpcello. These are no-warhead missiles with Self-Screening Jammer, designed to distract ACT-based and SAH seekers, acting like a budget version of the ANS active decoy. Note that they are set to OFFENSIVE and must be manually fired toward incoming missiles.
• Removed AMMs on the EWR tug and the rocket shuttles. They are now harder to protect and require more micro, but the extra points gained can be used to improve the torpcello.
• Swapped one Pavise for a Sarissa to deal with hybrid missiles and discourage crafts.
• Detached the rocket shuttle formation to give them more flexibility.

Note: The torpcello does not have enough power to run all systems simultaneously. It is important that you manage your power consumption during combat, especially when your point-defense is activated. Set your PDTRT to DEDI on the torpcello at the start of the match to avoid having the illuminator automatically firing on PD prioritized targets and unnecessarily drawing power.

Weaknesses: Vulnerable to cruise missiles, bombers, and beams spams; in addition to just being in the open in general. Keep your position and composition well concealed for best survivability.

The included SGT-315 Letter Opener torpedo is best fired at range 3.6 – 3.8 km, to a maximum of 4.0 km. It has corkscrew terminal maneuver with 3.2G of turn rate to defeat weakened/exposed point defense. Remember to burn through and lock the contact you want to shoot to defeat jamming, as this torpedo is Command (CMD) guided.

Below is the amount of SGT-315 Letter Opener torpedoes it takes to cripple ANS hulls of each class. Please note that it might take more torpedoes to take out ships capable of bow-tanking (Vauxhall light cruisers and larger), or ships that are unusually reinforced with many components and redundancies.

When shooting a small amount of torpedoes at smaller ships (less than the salvo size of 6), care must be taken to ensure that heavy enemy point defense is not present. Otherwise, more torpedoes would be needed to get through to the target without being all shot down.

A mass torpedo attack will perform best when you can catch the enemy ship off-guard on its either sides, top, or bottom. This increases the likelihood of widespread damage to vital systems such as the drive, reactor, magazine, and CIC.

In total, you have 8 full salvos (48 torpedoes).

---

Made with the help from our community on Discord.

Good luck and have fun! Let me know in the comments if you have any suggestions.

I wrote a guide on my approach to playing this fleet:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3477772891

• Update v4.0: Tournament specifications fleet overhaul in parallel to Azurite Squadron starter fleet rework update that I am now the maintainer of.
• Update v3.1: Replaced the SGM-262 Breadstick with the updated version of SDM-230 Whirlwind as of the new balance patch 0.5.3.1:251006-0019.
• Update v3.0: Replaced SGM-115 Retort for SGM-106 Neostaff for extra points to make the torpcello internals even more tanky. Replaced FCR on the tugs and shuttle for chaffboxes.
• Update v2.3: Updated SGM-115 Retort to only target hybrid missiles and optimized the torpcello internals.
• Update v2.2: Updated the SGT-315 to have higher turn rate of 3.2G (was 3.0G), at the cost of minor reduction in range to 4.0km maximum (was 4.2km).
• Update v2.1: Optimized torpcello to have triple Sundrive-Yard-Whiplash drives setup (removed the main reactor in MOD1). Replaced the ventral Sarissa PDT with a Defender PDT and compensated the lower power output with a Plant Control Center in CMP4 (was Rapid DC Locker).
• Update v2.0: Updated escort tugs loadout for more mission flexibility.
• Update v1.5: Detached escort tugs from formation with the torpcello for more deployment flexibility.
• Update v1.4: Added dummy missile for capping and optimized gun loadout.
• Update v1.3: Replaced the ES32 ‘Scryer’ Missile ID System with Supplementary Radio Amplifiers to better counter communication jamming.
• Update v1.2: Ditched the E15 ‘Masquerade’ Deception Module for an additional RF44 Pinpoint Radar on the Torpcello. This helps breaking through jamming even more and provide redundancy for the Pinpoint Radar carried on one of the escort tug. Additionally increased the amount of chaffs, flares, and AMM missiles; switched the Small Workshop for an additional Small DC Locker for more component restores; and moved the Reinforced Magazine back toward the rear.
• Update v1.1: Switched from VLS to CLS launchers, removed Strike Planning Center in exchange for an additional Reinforced CIC and Reinforced DC Locker. Switched from EA12 to EA14 chaff and added more AMM missiles. This is to focus more on survivability and bow tanking, at the minor cost of slower torpedo programming time (back to the default of 3 seconds), which is slightly offset by the CLS launchers.
• v1.0: File uploaded.