i was just flying around asteroids when something hit me.
the bigger the object the easyier it is to target, so why don't we do this with ships?

the larger ships and speicals sent out more energy and radar thingys, so they would be way easyier to target, maybe selectable from 4000m.
this would shrik as the ship size went smaller till the bus and cent were only targetable from 750m

this would make it easy to aviod bigger ships and harder to find small ones

Hmmm... I keep meaning to start a discussion on sensors.

To my knowledge, this is a 'new idea'. I haven't thought of it before, and I'm actually going to have to think about it for a while before deciding if its a 'good thing' or 'bad thing'.

I'm pretty sure that when I think of 'large ships' and 'small ships' I'm thinking different things than you are.

This is a VERY bad thing!

think of the special ships!
valk: very small! not detected!

maud: big ship, trading, trageted by grifers fast!

prom: big ship, attack, slow, attacked fast!

it's no good! it will only give the Itani the ultimate ship!
very fast, not detectable! can you ask for a better ship?

lunitary: For these purposes, I would certainly advocate considering the Maud and the Valk to be the same size. For practical purposes, they are. Side by side, they are no more different in size than a compact car and an SUV.

No, I'm more interested in thinking about whether something like the Maud and something like the Frigate are the same size.

you could also have something to do with energy radiation - ships with big engines flying full speed would put out a larger radar signal than those with smaller engines flying slower.

you could also put out a new device that fits in a weapon port that dampens the ships radar signiture, or another that boosts the ships radar power. This would allow for a greater range of tactics between hunters and the hunted...

wolfman12: I have a detailed post regarding sensors in production at the moment. All I'll say for now is that we are basically on the same page.

if you note in my first post i made sure that speical ships and large ships are the same kind:
"the larger ships and speicals sent out more energy and radar thingys, so they would be way easyier to target"

Well, size should have very little to do with it unless the designers are careless. Why? Put a naval spy sub next to a fishing dinghy, start the engines and compare the amount of noise produced. In space there is no sound, so noise is considered to be the various types of emitted radiation.

Each ship has a purpose, and is built with that purpose in mind. For example:

The Valkyrie is built for speed. Like a racing vehicle, it doesn't matter much if it makes enough noise to wake a sleeping space cow. What's important is that it's quick.

The Prometheus is built for the role of a hoplite. This means that the designers balanced the need for armor and guns, and disregarded stealth entirely. Sneaking up on an enemy doesn't mesh with our philosophy, either.

The Maurauder seems to be built as a smuggler's vessel. Since it is produced by neutral traders for neutral traders to carry goods to other neutral traders, it benefits all that the ship be capable of avoiding tariffs and customs levied by a third party. To this end, the designers decided to forego two or three larger engines in favor of five or so smaller ones, the idea behind this being that six people whispering make less noise than two shouting.

nice idea ctishman

give the traders stealth and fair warning against valks

sooo... How about a size scale that relates to both ship size and engine output?

Ship Length: Ten Meters
Engine Output (EO): 0% (idle) Distance to Detect (DTD): 500m
EO: 10% DTD: 550m
EO: 20% DTD: 600m
EO: 30% DTD: 650m
EO: 40% DTD: 700m
EO: 50% DTD: 750m
EO: 60% DTD: 800m
EO: 70% DTD: 850m
EO: 80% DTD: 900m
EO: 90% DTD: 950m
EO: 100% (Full Engine) DTD: 1000m
EO: >100% (Boost) DTD: 1500m

Ship Length: Twelve Meters
EO: 0% DTD: 700m
EO: 10% DTD: 750m
EO: 20% DTD: 800m
EO: 30% DTD: 850m
EO: 40% DTD: 900m
EO: 50% DTD: 950m
EO: 60% DTD: 1000m
EO: 70% DTD: 1050m
EO: 80% DTD: 1100m
EO: 90% DTD: 1150m
EO: 100% DTD: 1200m
EO: >100% DTD: 1700m

Ship Length: Thirteen Meters
EO: 0% DTD: 800m
EO: 10% DTD: 850m
EO: 20% DTD: 900m
EO: 30% DTD: 950m
EO: 40% DTD: 1000m
EO: 50% DTD: 1050m
EO: 60% DTD: 1100m
EO: 70% DTD: 1150m
EO: 80% DTD: 1200m
EO: 90% DTD: 1250m
EO: 100% DTD: 1300m
EO: >100% DTD: 1800m

Ship Length: Fourteen Meters
EO: 0% DTD: 900m
EO: 10% DTD: 950m
EO: 20% DTD: 1000m
EO: 30% DTD: 1050m
EO: 40% DTD: 1100m
EO: 50% DTD: 1150m
EO: 60% DTD: 1200m
EO: 70% DTD: 1250m
EO: 80% DTD: 1300m
EO: 90% DTD: 1350m
EO: 100% DTD: 1400m
EO: >100% DTD: 1900m

Ship Length: Fifteen Meters
EO: 0% DTD: 1000m
EO: 10% DTD: 1050m
EO: 20% DTD: 1100m
EO: 30% DTD: 1150m
EO: 40% DTD: 1200m
EO: 50% DTD: 1250m
EO: 60% DTD: 1300m
EO: 70% DTD: 1350m
EO: 80% DTD: 1400m
EO: 90% DTD: 1450m
EO: 100% DTD: 1500m
EO: >100% DTD: 2000m

Ship Length: Seventeen Meters
EO: 0% DTD: 1200m
EO: 10% DTD: 1250m
EO: 20% DTD: 1300m
EO: 30% DTD: 1350m
EO: 40% DTD: 1400m
EO: 50% DTD: 1450m
EO: 60% DTD: 1500m
EO: 70% DTD: 1550m
EO: 80% DTD: 1600m
EO: 90% DTD: 1650m
EO: 100% DTD: 1700m
EO: >100% DTD: 2200m

Ship Length: Eighteen Meters
EO: 0% DTD: 1300m
EO: 10% DTD: 1350m
EO: 20% DTD: 1400m
EO: 30% DTD: 1450m
EO: 40% DTD: 1500m
EO: 50% DTD: 1550m
EO: 60% DTD: 1600m
EO: 70% DTD: 1650m
EO: 80% DTD: 1700m
EO: 90% DTD: 1750m
EO: 100% DTD: 1800m
EO: >100% DTD: 2300m

Ship Length: Nineteen Meters
EO: 0% DTD: 1400m
EO: 10% DTD: 1450m
EO: 20% DTD: 1500m
EO: 30% DTD: 1550m
EO: 40% DTD: 1600m
EO: 50% DTD: 1650m
EO: 60% DTD: 1700m
EO: 70% DTD: 1750m
EO: 80% DTD: 1800m
EO: 90% DTD: 1850m
EO: 100% DTD: 1900m
EO: >100% DTD: 2400m

Ship Length: Twenty-One Meters
EO: 0% DTD: 1600m
EO: 10% DTD: 1650m
EO: 20% DTD: 1700m
EO: 30% DTD: 1750m
EO: 40% DTD: 1800m
EO: 50% DTD: 1850m
EO: 60% DTD: 1900m
EO: 70% DTD: 1950m
EO: 80% DTD: 2000m
EO: 90% DTD: 2050m
EO: 100% DTD: 2100m
EO: >100% DTD: 2600m

And the Frigate? Well my algorithm won't work, you'd be able to detect the thing from over 20 km away. But I think a method *like* this would work. Sure, you could up the base...

the algorithm, for those that haven't figured it out by this point, is 500m DTD plus 100m for every meter above 10m Ship Length. For every ten percent engine output, add 50m DTD. when over 100% EO, add 500m DTD.

Just thinking about this today, but you could also have the other side of the coin - where the faster someone is moving the less effective their radar. This would make people do sprints and stops to check their radars - like cold war sub play - it would be great.

Also, you should be able to see friendlies from farther away - team comunication or what not. And radars should be linked so you can see what your team mate sees - this would promote team play as people spread out in a sector to make a search net. Also would be benificial to trading convoys as they would have greater radar strength than the waiting pirates. Would prove that a team has more benifits than solo play so even the good players would enlist others to help whatever they're doing...

Kinda hope some of the things in this string are implimented sooner rather than later because they would greatly improve play i think.

I like wolfman's idea, now only expand it with ¨awacs¨ that have very good radar and you'll get some very interesting warfare...

With tweaks to the radar happening (somewhat) lately, and the ion storms and what not, I thought this thread resurrection might be interesting.

Although this is quite old, I think you made a good call on reviving this one, especially considering the current development climate.

The previously-mentioned scaling system seems applicable, but I think that an independent, intrinsic value, instead of size, should govern the scale. The value could be set, initially, to correlate with ship size at first, for testing, then tweaked for the purposes of balance.

This discussion could be very relevant if detection range is based on the new power grid usage and battery consumption.

Want to fly quite, don't power up weapons or use turbo.

This would of course require either not equipping the weapons at all, or a method for turning off power to ports in flight, with a power up delay for restarting them (1 second /grid point??).

It could also open up power configurations for the basic engines by altering the amount of grid to put into them, up to the max, and subsequently altering the amount N force the engine could put out proportionately.

this would be usefull if there was a cloaking device implimented...

IE: having cloaking your ship you become invisible to sensors but when you exert power you become noticable again. to an extent

Wolfman's idea of a "Radar Net" deserves some special attention. It would be a great addition to the Group feature to get a shared radar, although I imagine this would be tough to implement?

Or if the Superlight is any indication, mebbeh weight should be the deciding factor in stealthiness. Since everything here seems to be gravity driven, what with the gravitic pulse engines, it might even be possible to throw together a relatively convincing "U.S.S. Make Shit Up". Let's see... Since all the ships use gravitic pulse engines, the most accurate way to track stuff is to bounce a graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish. Therefor, the heavier a ship, the more reactive its gravity based engines need to be, and the farther away it can be tracked.