As we know, radar obviously has a delay to see objects further, so why not restrict radar to 10,000m. In this way, after the first say 1500m, there is a 1 second delay in HUD positioning.

So every 1500m, there is a 1 second delay HUD sight. (Where it will show where an object's exact position was 1 second ago)

It works like a sphere of radar that travels 1500m/s in all possible directions. And returns the result to you by reflecting off the object and back to you at the same velocity.

EDIT:
I would also like to add that there should be bursts of radar waves, possibly once every 2-5 seconds? 5 would be preferable to avoid confusion between 7500m and 3000m due to radar bounceback speed.

why do people wanna change the radar? I like the radar the way it is. though, this suggestion would give it a more realistic feel...

I'm not sure about possible speeds of detection, I am just having a wild stab in the dark.

Willis: I'm trying to give it that type of feel, perhaps even a feeling of suspense for traders and pirates?

Radar is already restricted to about 5k and thats plenty....

I think this is a neat idea.

However, this may make the radar hard to read. Putting a tag on dots would not work, either. But some sort of update indicator would be necessary, I think.

5km isn't very far, given the infinite stretches of space. We are speaking of the speed of radio waves.. I know everything isn't a reality that we implement, but I'm trying to be as realistic as possible.

Perhaps further extension of range should be an addon? Any ideas on this?

So every 1500m, there is a 1 second delay HUD sight.

Wait, are you suggesting that the speed of light is 3km/s? Or are you saying that one VO meter is ten thousand real world meters? What?

once again we're getting hung up on the realism of radio waves... in 2010 this might be true... 2000 years in the future... well umm....no? Im highly doubting radar is still radio wave dependant... itd be like saying in the year 1 we could only communicate as far and fast as a train of runners could run. Or a heliograph tower could be seen.

So you are saying in two thousand years technology will advance to the point where radar* will work with something other than radiowaves; in a vaccume; and slower than it would today?

Or are you saying that a time delay in radar detection is not needed because technology could advance past such a time delay?

If it's the latter, then you can rest easy; at the scales the VO radar works, a modern day radar would suffer a delay that is an order of magnitude smaller than your screen's refresh rate.

Now, if we're talking sonar**, then maybe things like a blip and pretty slow bounce-back speeds start to make sense. But then, you're looking at the speed of sound in a vaccume, and the conversation gets a lot more fun for me.

*(RAdio Detection And Ranging)
**(SOund Navigation And Ranging)

to clarify im saying we wouldnt be using Radar at all. and you are correct that the time delay in VO scales (should it actually still be radar) would be virtually non existent.. so its not really an issue at all either way My argument that it was silly to want to put restrictions of time delay's, occlusion, on the basis of sensors being restricted to todays radar. I was using radar colloquially to describe the sensor readout on the VO HUD

I'm saying that this whole game and its distance scale is unrealistic in that 2000 years in the future (that is in the 4000), a 225ms-1 is not a realistic ship travel velocity. Due to an objects mass, it will limit the percentile of speed of light that it may travel.

Think about it, modern day aeroplanes travel at over 170ms-1 and we in the vacuum of space, with future engines at a fraction of the mass, we are not able to exceed 225ms-1. We'd have to change the units of measurement to make it more realistic.

In VO, we have space kilometres. They are much longer than earth kilometres, for photons. Radio waves take one look at them and go "Oh no, I'm not gonna trudge all that way uphill. I could throw my spin or lose an order of magnitude in my frequency!"

And that is why we have such weird units.

"speed of sound in a vaccume"

lol genka