by Priton-CE

What is a Snare or Snaring?

The Snare is a mode your QED (Quantum Enforcement Device) can operate in. The only ship that has a QED capable of Snaring right now is the RSI Mantis (I will be refering to the Mantis from now on). It takes 30 seconds to charge the snare and 2 minutes to cool the QED down again. During that cooldown you can’t charge again or use the dampener. (Once you activate the Snare there will be a 3 seconds delay (according to erkul) after which the snare will become active.)

If you want to interdict a ship it has to pass close enough to you. In the case of the mantis this will be 20km. If the ship gets into range your QED will pull out the ship automatically. You will interdict everything passing through your snare (if the ship is travelling in the Quantum Tunnel, more on that later) even teammates.

The key now is waiting at the right position so that the ships actually pass through your Snare.

Finding the right position

This involves a bit of math. I have created a map to make this math easier and we will be using it from now on. In this example we want to pull out a ship coming from Crusader which is flying to CRU-L1. We do not know from which planet or station the ship started.

Now, on the map we want to draw a triangle between the destination (CRU-L1) and the furthest points of the planetary system (in this case Yela and Cellin).

Every ship coming from Crusader, no matter where it started, will fly inside our triangle. Now we create a circle with a 20km diameter and place it so that the sides of the triangle pass through it (leave a bit of space just to make sure, since the map is not 100% accurate and Yela also has an asteroid belt where ships might come from). I created a line (called Segment in Geogebra) between Stanton II (Crusader) and CRU-L1 to help us place the Snare. You can also draw this line between Daymar and CRU-L1 if you are starting from there for example.

With the help of the “Distance or Length” tool we can determine the distance to CRU-L1.

That’s all we need to do. We now know that we will need to sit roughly 420km away from CRU-L1 to interdict the ship coming from Crusader.

Things to consider

• This is nothing related to the Snare but to the map: It is not created using the gamefiles. I flew around the system for hours and measured myself (You can find my measurements together with the ggb file in the link below). It is not 100% accurate so always keep a bit of room when using the map.
• I mentioned before that we will pull out ships traveling in the Quantum Tunnel. I have no idea if this is a bug or a feature but i was only able to pull out ships that were traveling in this “Quantum Tunnel” (I have no idea how to call it). This tunnel opens at around 3km and we usually sit at less than 1km so we will only catch inbound traffic. At Lagrange points like CRU-L1 this will not be a problem since everyone is starting from the station there and will not pass the Snare anyway but keep that in mind when snaring somewhere else.
• Some servers don’t work reliable with the Snare. So it is a good idea to have a buddy around to test if he gets pulled out.
• The Mantis is a weak ship. If you pull something out with more guns than you, you will need to run.
• Don’t turn off the Snare if you pulled a ship out. It cannot jump away since the Snare is also blocking it. Just stay in the 20km range.
• You have a high IR and EM signature when snaring and you are a big red glowing starlike Ship. Ships will see you as soon as you pull them out.
• If you pulled out a ship your Snare will continue to pull out ships. Watch your back.
• Your pray is legally allowed to kill you, even in range of a comm array. You will also appear red on radar to your targets and especially inexperienced players will be scared by you. (Experience has shown that the Mantis is usually the first ship to get attacked.)
• Interdicting ships is illegal and you will get a 7500aUEC fine. You can stay outside of the range of a comm array to combat this issue.
• Bring food and water. You will be waiting long.
• the Snare can not be used in the greenzone of a station. These will reach 30km out from any station. (Same applies for the Dampener with 4km.)
• Nothing is static. Moons in SC orbit and if you are on the same Physics grid you will orbit with them. So if you Snare inside a planetary system keep in mind that the planet potentially moves out of the interdiction corridor (our triangle). To combat this you can reset your position after a while and maybe even have a friend testing your snare from time to time if it still works.
• Places like Everus Harbor orbit a planet and are constantly moving. Catching inbound and outbound traffic there is almost impossible. Always consider these places to be at every point of their orbit at the same time.
• An EMP and distortion damage in general will turn off your Snare once your ship turns off.
• Sometimes your Snare-Event-Markers (they mark the exact location of your target at the time of interdiction) don’t appear. (This might happen on a laggy server.) To combat this you can have a friend sitting roughly 15-20km in front of you, in case you pull something out with a low radar signature.
• Snare-Event-Markers will be shown to all your party members. This makes it easy to engage a target fast.