The names of the phalanx type derive from the amount of definitive knowledge you have.

Phalanx hit: Using sensor phalanx you have the departure times and arrival times. You can easily time to hit the players fleet using the time it takes your fleet to hit the planet.

Return/Half Blind Phalanx: You have the mid-way point time. A good example of how you can get that is a friend being attacked. You have the exact time of the fleet hitting your friend (midway). You can relatively simply add the return time of the fleet to get when it will arrive back on said players planet/moon. You attack from this knowledge as you would with a lanx hit.

Blind Phalanx Hit: You have no information. You do not know the exact return time. You do not have a mid-way. You can use approximate times as well as the target's on-line times and possible FS options. NOTE: It is required that you find out the players exact fleetsave mission and location for this to work! Using the approximate times, you wait for your indicator. From there you can time the return of the fleet to within a few seconds. Another point to mention, this will require time, and checking your indicator at 10 possible time time-frames of say 5 minutes on either side every few seconds for each possible FS speed in ZE. Being honest, it becomes very unlikely to get an approximate time with having a 150 probe rule. In other words, make those probes count at the start (If someone is probing you a lot at a few locations *cough* *cough* then they may be trying to start timing one! Take the time and fleetsave in another entire galaxy.)

Hopefully this helps you Karroth.

It helped me and all them young'ns out there

Maybe some day I will spend an hour and write up a comprehensive guide to how I fleet... or maybe rather I'll do that whenever I leave lol

Another thing to add to that if you are employing the blind lanx technique against a person using the Moon to DF fleetsave method is that it can be immensely helpful to purposefully create a DF at the expected midway point (if there isn't already one there), then monitor the location at each expected interval. If the DF suddenly disappears, you can be pretty sure you're onto it.

You can also do that if you are unsure of the exact midway point but have it narrowed down to a few possibilities, creating DF's at those points and watching for the tell-tale harvest.

I must say these hunting techniques are far more spectacular than the pop 'n go method used most widely today, would be fantastic to see the more skilled fleeters trying their hand at this, and even more brilliant to see it work successfully on a hard to catch target.

The most difficult thing you can accomplish as a fleeter is probably successfully timing a blind lanx on someone doing a moon to moon fleetsave in which no resource deposit occurs at the midway point, pull that off and you are either incomprehensibly lucky, or insanely dedicated.

The DF method you described, in it, the DF is an example of the "indicator" I speak of. There can be multiple ones, that is an example, however most people are smart enough for Moon to Moon FSs here.

Just for eager to learn players reference, some of the indicators (perhaps not all) that Kick speaks of include:

• Disappearance of a Debris Field: Indicator of a Moon to DF fleetsave.
• Resources halving at expected midway planet: Indicator of a Moon to Planet attack fleetsave.
• Activity Asterisk at expected midway planet: Indicator of Moon to Planet ACS Defend fleetsave, and to a lesser extent Moon to Planet attack and transport fleetsaves. Can be unreliable if players are actively probe sweeping an area.
• Resource increase at expected midway moon: Indicator of a Moon to Moon transport fleetsave, and to a lesser extent because of the almost impossibility of detecting single unit resource increases on planets, a Moon to Planet transport fleetsave.

I think it's safe to say we have overwhelmed the OP with more information than he was bargaining for with the original question.

Well, I am sure many players other than the OP will learn things from this thread anyways, which is always a good thing