Improved Intel on Ships

[Whitecold (OP)]

Right now seeing a ship of another race you learn very little about it besides size, thermal and EM signature from your sensors, even if that ship is right in orbit of your planet.
I'd like some more things that can be learned about a ship short of getting the detailed blueprint, that can be learned from visual inspection of the hull.
Things that come to my mind that could be detected:
-Orbital Habitat Modules
-Miners, Fuel Harvesters, Maintenance Modules, Terraformers, etc.
-Cargo Holds, Troop Transports, Cryos
-Number of weapons
-Number of Turrets
-Number of Launchers
-Hangars

Detection could be handled by getting close to an active sensor, for example if a x HS target could be resolved, some of the ship features can be recognized.

[Beersatron]

Getting the details from an active sensor is how it used to work, but then Steve changed it so that you have to either:

1. Board the ship
2. Destroy it and then salvage, which only gave you a small chance of finding a couple of components
3. Steal the blueprint using espionage
4. Capture enough POWs that you manage to interrogate the plans out of them

I think he wanted to make it a bit harder to get intel.

[Whitecold (OP)]

Getting the details from an active sensor is how it used to work, but then Steve changed it so that you have to either:

1. Board the ship
2. Destroy it and then salvage, which only gave you a small chance of finding a couple of components
3. Steal the blueprint using espionage
4. Capture enough POWs that you manage to interrogate the plans out of them

I think he wanted to make it a bit harder to get intel.

I'd like something in between, a stage short of knowing the exact blueprint, and the simple numbers given from the sensor.

[alex_brunius]

I'd like something in between, a stage short of knowing the exact blueprint, and the simple numbers given from the sensor.

I agree.

For example if a ship fires up the engines while in orbit and visual range I would assume you can spot the amount of engines too.

Or that it's possible to see on the design if it's a civilian or military ship.

[Whitecold (OP)]

I'd prefer to handle Civilian/Military distinction by detecting cargo holds / work platforms. A geo and a gravsurvey ship might look very similar, but a freighter and a battleship don't. Also a freighter and a maintenace base don't look the same.

[alex_brunius]

I'd prefer to handle Civilian/Military distinction by detecting cargo holds / work platforms. A geo and a gravsurvey ship might look very similar, but a freighter and a battleship don't. Also a freighter and a maintenace base don't look the same.

That might be a good idea yeah. My thought was it might be possible to tell by observing engiens if they are military or civilian.

But I agree that you can probably guess/analyze the main mission role of a ship visually ( which has most tonnage ), for example:

• Sensor/Survey ( could be similar looking despite slightly different missions )
• Military - Missile
• Military - Beam
• Cargo or TroopTransport ( could be similar looking despite slightly different missions )
• Tanker
• ...

[SteelChicken]

Stop band-aiding with work-around that cause new issues and re-write.    Plenty of competent coders who are players who would be glad to help.

[chrislocke2000]

I like the idea of improved intel. Maybe you could tie it to active sensor resolution v size of component so that as you got closer you could pick out more detail. I hate to think what that would do for processing overhead though.

[iceball3]

I like the idea of improved intel. Maybe you could tie it to active sensor resolution v size of component so that as you got closer you could pick out more detail. I hate to think what that would do for processing overhead though.

It should do very little against processing overhead, i'd think. Just make a few Intelligence checks when range is closed and then ignore it unless there is more information to check.

[swarm_sadist]

It would probably be easier to make a scanning device be it's own special sensor, like a datascanner from Nexus:The Jupiter Incident. Perhaps nations on the same planet should tell each other what they designate their ships as? As in "Don't worry about those 3 50,000 tonne ships heading towards your Mars colony, they are terraformer ships.".