[dogscoff]

Scanners let you see things several sectors (squares) away, not systems. When an enemy ship flies past one of your scanner sats you will be able to click on it and get al the juicy details.

Cloaking is defeated with sensors. There are many different types of sensors: I think you have one on the Physics tech tree, one on psychic, one on temporal, and at least one other. Although they have different costs/ research costs etc I think they all work the same in a standard game.

You can also counter cloaking with mines or by buying data from other human players and there are probably certain intel projects which would help. Sensors are better though.

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"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"I think so Brain but, if you replace the P with an O, my name would be Oinky, wouldn't it?"