Yes yes yes, I know this has been suggested. I just used the title to draw in all the flame boats. Now read:

It would be neat if you could turn off your ship engines and core power systems, effectively taking you off the sector list.

Your name would still appear, but it wouldn't show up as targetable.

Now, there would be a small amount of time associated with restarting systems, so if you were found out, it wouldn't be as easy as just taking off.

Me too. Further, I would like to do away with the sector list for any targets outside radar range. Why should we know who's there if we can't see them on radar? I would also like to see some kind of option for extending your radar range. Would be sweeet.

Sounds good to me.

Both ideas sound good, could be used to complement each other; let's say:

Within 2000m:
- If your ship is powered up, everyone can see you, ID you, and target you.
- If your ship is powered down, you appear as a targetable neutral dot with no info.

Outside 2000m:
- If your ship is powered up, you appear as an untargetable neutral dot with no info.
- If your ship is powered down, you don't appear on the radar at all.

Applying this to all ships (NPCs and players) makes every neutral no info dot a potential threat, and allows a pirate to hide inside a convoy until he's ready to strike if he's wily enough (I know some traders just check the 'u' screen upon entering a sector and never again until entering the next sector). Furthermore, shutting down could make the Hive ignore you! (but the minute you power up...)

All ships should be able to do it (a trader could also find it useful to "go silent") but fighters and warships would be able to power back up much faster than tradeships.

For powerup time, I would imagine that a smaller ship would have less systems and also smaller systems then a larger ship. So, a light fighter would start up faster then a heavy bomber like a cent vs a prom. But, I think that all corvus specials should be able to cut that time in half since it's there profession to sit and wait and then attack.

Like both the ideas, but I think the range should still be 3000m instead of 2000m, OR, make more types of radar that are addons and then you can have short to long range radars.

I've been hoping for something like this for a long time. Specially when Luis' derelict ships start populating heavy combat zones, this would become a very cool feature. Just imagine laying silent in ambush between a couple of wrecks or in a bustes capship hull. Another step closer to the movies!

I like every single Idea I have read in thie thread so far.

gavan's "power-down" and run silent idea: [APPROVED]
tumble's "don't show up on sector list if you're out of radar range" idea; [APPROVED]
triple-J's "unknown contact" idea: [APPROVED]
McD's "varying powerup time" idea: [APPROVED]

Now if we could come up with a way to "hide" behind roids, we'd be set, and Space would become MUCH more interesting.

I'm assuming that our radar works more like a gravity-detector. It detects the presence of the gravimetric engines which produce wakes in spacetime. The instrumentation detects the bearing and relative speed of these wakes, and places dots on your "Radar". Of course it can detect non-powered objects as well that don't emit gravity wakes or energy signatures, like asteroids or "powered-down" ships, and places those dots as "neutral dots."

However, there should also be active radar, where you can announce your presence by "pinging" like in sumbarine warfare. However, you also receive return signatures on all objects in-sector. So, if you "pinged" with your active gravimetric-radar thingy device, you'd see all objects in-sector, no matter how far away they were, but you'd only see "neutral dots."

However I think this gravimetric radar that we have should be able to be fooled by having proximity to other large objects. Like that sneaky Han Solo in "The Empire Strikes Back", where he clamped the Millennium Falcon to the Star Destroyer and avoided all radar signatures. (Of course he was visible to visual inspection, which points out a SERIOUS design flaw in the Star Destroyers - no windows? Come ON..., but that's another topic). Also like resting your submarine on the ocean bottom (or near it) - you look like part of the seafloor to sonar.

So, I think there should be some fuzziness to large objects's gravimetric radar signatures, enough so that if your ship is small enough and the asteroid/station/capship is big enough, you can hide in the "fuzziness" or the "shadow" of the larger gravity well.

I think we discussed this radar stuff in far more detail somewhere else, in another thread a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.

I like the general ideas presented here (some of the exact ranges I'm unsure of, but that's a minor point in the grand scheme of things)

However, has anyone considered the possibility of having radar be based on a sensor port add-on?

That way the nature of your radar would be determined by what sort of sensor you had equipped. Some examples of possible sensor suits include:

GNAR (Gravity Navigation And Ranging) - All objects read as asteroids but a great deal of resolution is given regarding how large/far away objects are. Ships with powered-up engines read differently from all other objects (i.e. their engines give off a noticeable signature). This secore suit also gives accurate reading regarding the mass and range of any targeted object.

LYDAR (Laser Detection And Ranging) - This suit displays all objects as asteroids but grants displays of both the range and velocity of any targeted object. The maximum range of this suit is also 500m longer than normal.

FEMS (Full Electro Magnetic Spectrum) - This suit displays asteroids, ships, and cargo boxes as distinct objects, but displays only the range of targeted objects, and is easily fooled by decoys (i.e. cargo boxes that look like ships, ships that look like asteroids, etc.)

Additionally, advanced versions of the previous 3 suits would be available (at higher license levels and / or cost) with IFF capabilitys allowing them to display the model of a targeted ship and it's faction affiliation.

This would obviously take a bit of work to implement and balance, and may not add much to the game, but could help add further dimension to stealth in general.

GNAR is kinda problematic because asteroids as massive as the ones in VO would not have gravity worth even trying to measure (it's like trying to measure the gravitational pull of your house). I suspect that the "gravitational emissions" from spacecraft would overpower (blow out) sensors tuned to register the gravity of VO's asteroids.

Technically speaking, it should be "LIDAR" for LIght Detection and Ranging. Of course, they use lasers in lidar, and not just beams of radio energy in RADAR or waves of sound in SONAR.

I really don't understand what you mean by FEMS, or how such a sensor would work...

Here's what I'd envision Vendetta's sensors to be:

RADAR which is a general all-around sensor. It can show the player the general shapes of asteroids in its view, as well as target locations. Its accuracy declines when targets are in the shadow of other objects (so a ship sitting behind an asteroid would appear as a fuzzy blob). It has no target recognition capabilities except for IFF (so you know who a target is, but not what the target is flying). Stealthy ships show up as if they were farther away than they really are (ie. darker). Radars can be purchased with a variety of ranges, the longest being 4500m, and the shortest being 1500m. At 4500m, the radar suffers the least amount of accuracy degredation through objects, but it takes .25 seconds for target locations to be updated. At 1500m, accuracy through objects is low (very fuzzy blobs), but target locations are updated every .05 seconds, giving excellent target positioning.

LIDAR, which works similarly to RADAR except with reflected light waves, and can only scan distances of 3000m. It can accurately show a player the shape of asteroids as well as identify object types (ships, widgets, etc) within its line of sight. It cannot penetrate solid objects, nor does it have IFF abilities.

Passive emissions sensors have long range (about 6000m) can easily identify radar types at twice the radar's active range (so given such-and-such frequency at such-and-such strength, the radar emitter is a certain distance away), but also identify ship types at about 6000m. However, it does not give as accurate ranges or locations as radar or lidar, and can be fooled by powering down your ship.

Gravitic sensors have the longest range of all sensors and show the relative strengths of strong gravitational sources within about 10000m. It has no ranging, target identification, or IFF function, so a centurion at 400m could look the same as a HAC at 3000m or something. It also can be spoofed if you power down your ship.

These sensor systems would have different models built by different manufacturers, each with different capabilities, so some radars could be focused at high scan rates and closer ranges, and others could have longer ranges with higher scan rates (than the baseline), but would suffer in accuracy, etc. In terms of sensor weights, radar and lidar would generally be heavier than emissions sensors because they have more moving parts and are generally all-around systems, and gravatic sensors would be the heaviest because of their complexity.

Also, most of these systems could be used in conjunction with systems of different types, but you cannot mount two systems of the same type, so you can mount a RADAR and a LIDAR, but not two RADARs, etc. Some manufacturers could be competitors and would not make their systems compatible with the systems made by their competitors (so maybe an Orion RADAR wouldn't work with a Valent LIDAR or something).

But in terms of sensor types complementing each other, if you mixed an emissions sensor with a gravatic sensor, you'd have a sensor with long range and target recognition, but wouldn't be able to give exact ranges to objects, nor be able to IFF targets. Maybe there'd be a very short range IFF to be able to at least tell who's ally or enemy, but not be able to identify pilot. A radar/lidar combination would be fairly heavy, but with target recognition and IFF, although those abilities would degrade through solid objects.

(Self censored due to the post's anti-creative nature)

the idea for the FEMS was a sensor that passivgely listened for emmissions over the enterire electromagnetic spectrum (radio, infra red, visual, gamma, etc.) to be honest i didn't put much thought into it, but i remember hearing a similar description on Star Trek once. basically i wanted a general perpus sencore, that could identify different types of objects. and picked a name at random.

now, with regards to the GNAR i basicly wanted something that couldn't distinguish between any sort of objects with the exception of powered up ship. i justified the overloading issue, by assuming that the mechanics of the sencore itself prevented that problem (perhaps some sort of "logerithmic filter"). also i don't see any reason to assume that the gravidic drive would generate a stronger gravity signature (juat a clearly artaficial one).

however i like the mechaniks you described for RADAR and LIDAR. but i think IFF capability (identifying the model, and affiliation of a target ship) should be available for all sensors, but at a higher cost/lisence level.

Paging FM, Paging FM... Can I get a Spell-Checker in the Cloaking Thread? Bring a red pen!

Q, it's a "s e n s o r" not a "s e n c o r e". "purpose" not "perpus" "basically" not "basicly"... gah.
You have great ideas, but I end up chuckling at your spelling all the time and forget what I was reading about.

We've been through this crap before RE Ma't's posts. Now, either fix it for him and repost corrected version, Lever, or STFU, STFD and get on with the thread =P

Hey! Stick to the topic people!

And keep it simple guys! I like your suggestions, they are very neat. But I think they belong in a thread titled: "Overly Complicated and Unrealistic Concerning Implementation Radar Ideas"!

The basic premise of this suggestion was that it would be fairly easy to implement (at least to my coding-ignorant mentality).

OK i tried to fix all the instances of the words LeberMac pointed out but i probably missed a some.

I shouldn't give Q such a hard time...

Anyway, Gavan, you're right. Walk before you run. Start with the simple "run silent" feature, and if it works out and adds more "fun per man-hour" to the game, then expand on it.

Lord Q,
The idea for FEMS is a sensor that passively listens for emissions broadcasted over the entire electromagnetic spectrum.
Ex: Radio, Infrared, UV, Gamma, etc.
To be honest, I did not put much thought into it. I remember hearing similar descriptions of this type of radar on Star Trek once. I wanted this to be a general purpose sensor that could identify different types of objects and pick a name at random.

With regards to GNAR, I wanted something that couldn't distinguish between any sort of object with the exception of a powered ship. I justify the overloading issue by assuming that the mechanics of the sensor itself prevent this, perhaps because of a "logarithmic filter". Also I don't see any viable reason for assuming that the gravitic drive would generate a strong gravity signature. Especially since it is merely an artificial one.

However, I do like the mechanics you described for RADAR and LIDAR. I think the IFF capability, identifying the model/affiliation of target, should be available for all sensors at a higher cost or license level.

BoxCarRacer,
Editing the world one post at a time.

how about something as simple as this-

the faster you're going, the more work your engines are doing, and the further away you can be seen on radar. minimum of 1000m if you're not moving. at full turbo, 3000-5000m, at cruise speed, 2000-3000m.

when you're not moving, you can power down, and register as a neutral object, like a roid, within 1000m.

I like this idea also, but one change if your mining your not completely powered down. SO if your mining your engines could be powered down the mining beams will show up .... say if your with in 300-500 k away you might see them if your on the same side of the Roid as the miner. if your on the opposite side the roid shields the miner from you and the only way to see them is if you target the roid, and observe the temperature changing on the Roid, then you have to move slowly around the roid to look, the miner could have a body guard also powered down waiting for and intruder to pop up (read as WWII "Q"-ships) of course said body guard and miner can see you coming in on radar. so theres a two edged sword of staying and standing ground or cutting your losses and running for cover

Woodstock {EnB} Commander of the UIT Vessel YellowBird
Master prospector, Mining Master, Ebil Trader and All around Nice Guy (A little humor there).