Convoys

**Convoys** are special AI fleets composed of a "Prize Ship"(lightly armed tanker-type frigate/cruiser) usually with an escort of few smaller ships, although rarely they can also have a Cruiser(Kormoran or Negev) escort in which case they will announce it on the radio or no escort at all. Destroying the escorts will end the fight capturing the Prize Ship and adding it to your fleet with Morale of 0. Reaching any City with the Prize Ship will immeditately sell it for 5-20,000 gold even if the city is currently inaccessible because of a Crash Site. Every campaign has 30 Convoys and they do not respawn.

Convoys constantly travel between the cities of Gerat unless an Alarm is active in which case they will stay put, although they will often still announce their route as if they were leaving(bug) They can be located in a variety of ways:

* Intercept radio messages: Convoys publicly announce their trade route.
* Intel cities: you can locate a Convoy at the cost of one Intel point.
* Radar/IRST: Normally only Convoys and Strike Groups travel between cities and all Strike Groups also run a 500/700km radar which means they will readily show up on your ELINT. Convoys can be escorted by cruisers which also use radars but this is rare. Note that there are two kinds of Prize Ships - Pegasus and Odissey - which have such a small infrared signature that you will not detect them with your IRST before you enter their visual detection radius. These ships seem to always spawn without escorts.
* Aircraft: just fly them along roads. Note that convoys can travel along the road but not ON the road so you usually need to cover both sides of the road to find them.

Convoys can be much more dangerous than they seem. While their escorts usually can't stand up to a decent combat ship when on the road they have incredibly short Alert timer - even a stock Lightning (700km/h+) won't be able to intercept all Convoy types before the Alarm is raised(you can increase your chances by manually ordering the Lightning towards the convoy instead of simply right-clicking on it which will set it on a longer intercept course; also by attacking at night when the visual detection radius is down to 75km) Combined with their ability to appear seemingly out of nowhere they can quickly ruin your strategic plans.

Once an Alarm is raised and your position reported you can expect the usual trouble: cruise missiles, aircraft and garrisons/missile tactical groups moving in to intercept. If you fought and captured the Prize Ship then you won't even have enough time to loot the Crash Site before trouble arrives. But even if you do skip the Crash Site minigame then you may still not be able to escape in time because Prize Ships are usually incredibly slow. Leaving another ship(i.e. the tanker) to loot while you move your combat ship slightly in the direction you expect attacks to come from is one way to deal with the trouble, assuming you have the proximity fuse to deal with incoming missiles/planes.

Of course if there are no garrisons/Strike/Tactical Groups in range then you can simply eat the Alarm. Another possible way to capture Convoys is to wait until they land in a city - when landed their Alert timer is significantly longer and you'll be able to Sudden Strike them at the usual 300km/h minimum. The two problems with this tactic is that you will have to fight the garrison in addition to the Prize Ship escort and you lose out on a Crash Site from fighting them separately. If you fight a Convoy in a city you already captured beforehand, beware of the Shipworks loot bug(see below)

If you are in a city or otherwise stationary and a Convoy approaches your position they will turn around and fly the other way. In most cases they will not have enough time to report your location when they do this.

Since Prize Ships have Morale of 0 if you are attacked while escorting one they will join combat at the side of the enemy. In this case you only have to destroy all enemy combat ships again to regain ownership of them. This doesn't work if you're being attacked by enemy missiles or planes - they will happily blow up the Prize Ship. If you try to send a Prize Ship away from your fleet alone it will immediately start combat(since it's hostile and right next to your ships) then surrender(since it has no escort) You will still lose Morale for entering combat though!

If you gain Fleet Morale as a result of Events and increase the Morale of a Prize Ship above 0 you will be able to control it normally and fly it around on its own without it becoming hostile. It will still be sold instantly when you reach any city.

Sometimes Prize Ships don't surrender. In that case your only option is to destroy them.

### Bugs

There are two bugs related to convoys: Prize ship combat lock and Shipworks store dropping as loot if you win a fight over a conquered city. See bugs for details.