Astarogh, I like your idea but I suspect a fair number of replies you get are going to be "Being a Privateer is kind of like stealth, you can go and kill every Drengin ship in existance and no-one know it was you." Let's face it, killing/undermining enemies without being uncovered as The Killer is basically The Reason for having stealth in any game. You don't have stealth in Sims games, after all, do you?

In other words, the stealth mechanic is already there. It's just called Privateer with a skull and cross icon on your Privateer ship/ships.

Hmm interesting that the mechanic is already in the bones to a certain degree. 

While I agree with the privateer for the sneak attacks, it was mostly how to offset the massive reduction of fog of war due to culture. I actually like that I can see what is in my zone of control, makes sense to me that a giant stellar empire would have at least rudimentary knowledge of what is happening in their back yard at all times.  but was bummed that with that feature on sensors become near useless.