What is the radar? It is for the pilot to be able to see what is around him in the universe as he flies his dainty little ship through a hostile environment. It's function is to inform him of impending doom, or incoming bogies.

What are the most important pieces of information about blips on the radar?

Direction of object is the first most important thing. This is very well captured in the front-rear readout system. However, the other data this radar view affords is next-to-useless compared to what it lacks.

I'm talking about the distance to the blip. Currently, it changes brightness. Not very precise at all. We, the pilots, require some system of showing at-a-glance, the distance to various targets and blips on the radar.

Secondary to these two pieces of information (direction, distance), comes things like IFF, ship-size, nation, and ship type.

These secondary items of information should probably be available to pilots as add-ons to their sensor system.

This is supposed to be a suggestion, however, I'm rather unsure as to how the current radar system can be augmented or modified to include both direction as well as distance. For that answer, I leave it open to the other players to make suggestions following this post.