1. I find PCs, NPCs and bots showing up on the In-Sector list regardless of their actual distance is unrealistic and detracts from the game. There should be a max distance that 'radar' and 'transponder' data are available.

2. PCs, NPCs and bots that perform actions such as turboing, chatting, firing energy weapons, mining, etc should become visible over a greater range.

In response to 1: it's quite simple, really... there are two types of sensors on our ships: 1 "active" radar which gives precise information of a target's location up to a range of 3k, and one "passive" sensor which can detect the presence of another ship in the same sector and ID it, but not give exact information about its location:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/3273#40582

I suggest it before Roguelazer can:
You should be able to "hide" in sectors if passive sensors can't detect your ship. Like hiding behind an asteroid or a station, or another BIGGER ship.

I think that would be neato. AND more realistic. However, Since it's been asked for for like 2 years it seems, I'll bet it is a non-trivial task to actually code and implement.

it's not unreasonable to assume that transponder signals could travel through an entire sector. simple radio signals can be used for real time communication at distances well over 1,000km.

the real issue is at what range radar should work a,d wehter or not it should be affected by line of sight (allowing ships to hide behind asteroids or larger ships)

Phaser: that may be the justification for how it is now. The logic behind it, however, (imo) doesn't work. If the passive systems can pick me up and ID me well enough to put me on the in-sector list at 50-100Km out, I think it should be able to give a rough idea where I am, as well. It detected me, didn't it?

Likewise, if it's a transponder that's giving me away, I should be able to just flip a switch and kill it.

I just think that a military or paramilitary ship in deep space should be able to 'run silent'. The minute I kick on turbo, fire a nuet or chat with Leber, it should make me "more visible-er".

[edit] the above examples do not promote or condone anyone chatting with Leber.

Will,
Take a moment (or half hour) to read the thread Phaserlight linked. It heavily discusses this subject. The ideas in it may or may not ever get implemented, but we can generate new ideas instead of reinventing the wheel.

Hah! Eld beat me to it. Yeah that thread is awesome.

Elrad, I did read the post, in fact, there are several posts on similar subjects or that wander into in, then leave again.

Dig deep enough into the old post and you'll find the entire works of Shakespeare.

Will, actually, passive radar systems can detect active radars at (more or less) twice the distance that active radars can detect. Why? Simple. Active radars send out radar pulses and wait for the radar to return to be able to detect a target. Obviously, this means that the pulse has to travel twice the distance to the target. If the target is too far away, or is too small, there won't be enough signal for the receiver to register the return, so this establishes a "maximum" radar detection range.

However, passive radar (essentially just a receiver) works by detecting active radar pulses from other sources, such as enemy radars. So being as radar is only traveling one way in a passive radar (meaning, towards the radar), it can detect active radar sources at twice the distance that the active radar could detect the returns from the platform using the passive radar.

CP, then you'd agree (without getting into an open discussion of klystrons, cryo-parametric amps and the like) that at some point 'x' the signal should disappear into the background noise?

dude, they use passive radar to look at other star systems.

maximum passive radar range is way longer than one sector. so being as the sector list only works for one sector...

anyway you're right that there should be betetr optopns for stealth and the devs have implied they are going to implement something along the lines of cloaking devices etc.

don't confuse telescopes and radars, Q. Different animals.

Perhaps Sonar would be a better metaphor. (Almost the same)

Any ship would give off gravimetric "vibrations" or something due to its gravitic engine. Almost like a submarine giving off reactor noise or transients. Even when sitting still, these emissions could be detected.

When the submarine moves, it (usually) cavitates (creates eddies/wakes/bubbles in the water it displaces as it moves, the water gets caught on the protrusions of the sub as it moves thru the liquid)

We could assume that any ship using a gravitic drive would cavitate as well, but in the medium of "spacetime". These signals would be detectable by sensors on board another ship, but that ship would only bet a bearing reading, not a distance. That ship would know, for example, that there was something making noise at bearing 95° mark 30° (up and to your right).

"Active" sensors send out pings and use "echolocation" to get a fix on the position of the other ship. (Like dolphins or like active sonar in submarines.) You immediately know where any other ship in your range is, but every other ship in the sector also knows where YOU are.

I can see this being an excellent RP device, hiding behind 'roids and other ships, stations, etc. Having varying quality levels of active and passive sensors would make things like smuggling and/or pirating very very fun.

I can also see this being very very hard to code. Lines of sight would need to be drawn constantly from every ship (and rocket/missile/mine/cargo) in the sector to every other ship in the sector, and radar would need to be updated frequently, hiding and showing objects as they passed behind objects. Sounds like a lot of processor work for a medium-level of fun.

Will: As an astrophysicist, telescopes and radar are very similar, there's a gradient between the 2. Ever heard of a radio telescope?
They don't always look the same, but they accomplish much the same thing.

Leber: Raytracing?! AAAHHHHHHHHH!

Ha! That would be fun.

Shapenaji: The difference being in the wavelength captured?

LeberMac: Sound... in space? (Because the 'vibration' you mention is nothing less than sound: and oscillating pulse, advancing through a medium.)

I like the idea you propose, very much so. It's just the explanation that doesn't suit me. And the fact that it's only implementable through 'magic' in the world of Vendetta, I think.

Gravity vibrations. Since we supposedly have these engines that are manipulating gravity to make us move, one can infer that we can also detect those manipulations.

toshiro - spacetime itself is the "medium", since you are using gravitic drives. Does that suit you?

I'll use the common "ball on a rubber sheet" analogy for how gravity affects spacetime. For example, the sun is a large heavy ball that warps the "rubber sheet" of spacetime around it, and that's why planets orbit the sun, they're inside the "depression" on the rubber sheet.

The gravitic drives would affect the "rubber sheet" by creating pulses that move our ships forward. These pulses would be detectable by anyone with sensitive enough sensors...

a quick word of caution about stelth:

any truly stelth enabled system will cause an uproar from the "space-quake" croud, because it will encourage a more intlegent cat and mouce game that they will see as dishonorable ganking. watch any submarien movie and you will see what i mean. true stelth will allow good players to sneek up on their oponent and destroy them without ever appearing on radar. admitedly the defending player has a series of tactics at their disposal (crazy ivans, using active sencores etc.) to avoid this but it will tick people off.

that said i agree stelth would be cool and the gravametric seccores seem like a ligicle explenation, but i would sugest this change:

because we are using gravity sencores, ships should appear as 'roids on radar when they are just drifting. then when they use their engins or active sencores they would appear as ships.

this way flying throug a roid field could be dangerous, as there could be any number of ships lying in wate but you would still need a better stealth solution to actualy sneek up on somone (unless they didn't notice that roid that was drifting towards them from outside radar range).

also line of sight wouldn't be needed with gravity sencores because line of sight wouldn't affect graity (the sun's gravity still effects the moon even if Earth is blocking it's line of sight).

Having worked on both radar and lidar, I may have been hung-up more on the 'radar' term rather than intent. Regardless of how it works, as Toshiro points out, this is VO physics. That pretty much subjugates any arguments based on real world technology, including mine. Given that, LeberMacs post is as good an explanation as any. And as Q put it, 'gravimetrics' might throw the whole LOS issue out the window.

Stealth systems, hiding behind other objects and add-ons (as pointed out above) probably would require a lot of work and coding. For ideas on that, Celebrim's post is an excellent sources of ideas (thanks for the link, Phaserlight).
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/3273#40582

I don't think, however, it would be nearly as hard to make these changes. They'd only need a distance-based, radar nerf rather than 'stealth'. The game already has to calculate the linear distance between your ship and everything else in the sector to determine, among other things, what shows on the scope. Tweaking these values and limiting what shows up on the radar/sector list would, I would think, be fairly easy.

But would it be more funner?