How to Counter Intel Gain on Own Empire by others?

[Lock&Load98]

Hey guys so was wondering if there was anything that would help stop another empire (mostly player in this context as not sure the AI really care) from gaining intel levels on me. There by exposing my fleets, unexplored systems, etc.

Is Encryption the only way? Seems really odd I can't assign a envoy(s) to a counter-intel defense role. As there is a lot less bonuses to Encryption vs Codebreaking.

And if it is, is there anyway to counter the mega sensor array that adds +40? Or at that level not much you can do.

Asking as TL:DR of it is the friends I play with normally just do us vs AI or least don't activally harm each other. Thought we might try a pvp style where it's no holds, whatever is best for your empire or if they're doing a RP fun build. So tying to maintain some stealth where I can. Never really bothered with the spy / intel system as it's kinda meh / not useful (IMO) vs AI short of tossing one spy maybe and forgetting it.

[Mennan]

Nope encryption only, you can take the Enigmatic Engineering perk to make "steal Technology" always fail though.
Usually it's easier to get encryption modifiers then codebreaking modifiers anyway though so it takes a while to actually do anything useful with spying.

For the Sentry Array, also no it adds straight to base intel there is absolutely nothing you can do to modify/counter that.
Even then why would it matter they wouldn't need intel to know where your fleets are because they can already see them.
Ai also does not bother building counters to ship builds.
If your against a human player they can just take a look at the ship appearance and take a rough stab at your technology level to guess the weapons on your ships.

[Lock&Load98]

Ah, kinda disappointing. Thanks for the reply though.

[ScreamCon]

Good encryption makes it so operations are more likely to fail.
Having lots of sprawl makes ai operation complete faster.

I highly recommend the espionage tradition line combined with enigmatic engineering ascension. If you can pick up things along the way that reduce sprawl. If you can't get the tech advantage use civics and things that increase encryption.