Change to Sensors?

[Paul M (OP)]

Admittedly I last played a long time back and my memory may be simply poor but has sensor systems undergone some sort of substantial change?

I didn't think I needed a dedicated missile sensor.  I didn't check it out specifically but assumed (always a bad thing) that the standard shipboar sensor system would work, or that the missiles would show up on thermal sensors at long enough range to engage them.

But if I understand the formula that I've seen in other posts the range has dramatically dropped.  My SSS 53-3000 has a basic range of 11.2m km and a resolution of 60.  Against a 6 missile point missile or smaller that is
11.2*(0.3/60)^2 = 280 km.  I had thought it was 11.2*(1/60)^2 = 3111 km (hmm shorter than I was expecting).  Apparently my memory and the game mechanics are dramatically out of step.  na ja...Mod 1 designs for the NC navy are coming up.

Also is passive sensor ranges linear or do they have some other dependance on signal strength?  ex.  my All Aspect IR Array (AAIRA) has a range of 15m km for signal strength 1000, does that mean that it detects signal strength 100 at 1.5m km?  Here is where I don't understand why I didn't get a passive detection of the inbound missiles since that would 15,000 km out when they would show up even assuming that they had a thermal signature as low as 1.  Unfortunately I suspect given the ships were moving up to 11,000 km/s that they crossed over the detection threshold and hit in under 5s.

On the map, red circles show up..these circles I see when I select show passive detection...what are they?  The range the ship detects something or the range the ship would be detected?  I was throughly confused about if I was detected or undetected.

Last question, is there a tool to display the range between two objects somewhere?

[HaliRyan]

Sensors have not changed (to my knowledge) for quite a long time. You will generally need a dedicated missile sensor, although if you have a large enough sensor meant to detect small objects like fighters you might be able to get away without one.

Even if the missiles showed up on your thermal sensors you won't be able to engage them, you'll just be aware that they're coming for you. The exception would be if your AMMs had onboard sensors to allow them to pick up the incoming missiles and you launched them at a waypoint... if you timed it right you might be able to kill them, but that would be extremely tricky.

I'm pretty sure passive sensor range is linear.

Yes, the missiles were almost certainly covering the entire distance of your detection range in a 5 second interval, effectively making them invisible to you. Scary!

I'm actually not sure about the red circles question, so don't quote me on this, but I think that they show how far away your craft will be detected by a passive sensor of the given strength.

To check the range between two objects you can hold shift and drag a line with your mouse from one to the other, it will tell you the range.  

[Charlie Beeler]

Paul you've got the range penalty mostly correct.  The only real  change is that minimum size is .33.  (ie the calc for missile sizes 1-6 is .33 instead of .05-.3)  This was added when the resolution 0 sensors were dropped a few years back.

Passives do depend on sensor strength but do not have a limitation on resolution like actives.  The strength calc is simply sensor size * sensor sensitivity.  Range is then calc'd as sensor strength * target signature * 1000.

The red circle is supposed to represent the range at which you would detect a passive signature based on your sensor strength and the signature you've set in the same sub-window where you activated "show passive detection".

[Paul M (OP)]

Thank you.  I suspect that it has been more than a few years since I played.  I have some very vague recollections of resolution 0 sensors...but that may be totally false.

Ok, the difference between 0.33 and 0.3 in this case isn't a significant value...338 km vrs 280 km is neither here not there.  It may help with a missile sensor though.  The trouble with small ships...finding sufficient space to pack in all this stuff.  10*1*SQRT(1)*5*10000 km = 500,000 km....but only 500,000 km * (0.33)^2 = 54.5K km against missiles.  Assuming that the missiles travel twice as fast as the ships (20K km/s) then that is also less than 5s.  Gah...looks like the only serious solution is to increase (as the NC Navy wanted to do until the priority got changed to better engines) my sensor technology.  12*1*SQRT(1)*6*10000 = 720K km/78.4K km.  Those ranges against my missiles are acceptable since at 2.5K km/s it would take them 20s to cross that distance.  Against the Wolfers...not so much use...before they return they will need a minimum of a 3 space, resolution 1 sensor on a ship I think.

Thanks for clarifying it is linear, that helps a lot.  Also for clarifying the red circles...but wow...did those ships have huge passive arrays...one of them could detect signature 76 at a massive distance.

And thanks for the tip on distances, that will help a lot. 

[Bgreman]

The red circle is supposed to represent the range at which you would detect a passive signature based on your sensor strength and the signature you've set in the same sub-window where you activated "show passive detection".

This isn't quite accurate.  On the "Sensors" tab, there are three checkboxes.

 "Show Active Sensor Range" shows the range of YOUR sensors in light blue. 

"Passive Sensor Ranges", when ticked, shows the range at which YOUR passives (either ship-based or deep space tracking stations) will detect the indicated signature.  This range will be in dark blue.  On a side note, I really wish there was more granularity in the signature control slider.

"Signature Detection Range" shows the range at which YOUR ships would be detected by a hypothetical foreign passive sensor of the given sensor strength. This range circle is red. One thing I'm not sure about is if this is always the thermal signature of your ship (which I believe it is), or whether it takes into account your EM emissions when running shields or active sensors.

Finally, on the "Contacts" tab, you can enable the display of hostile active sensor ranges with the "Hostile SR" checkbox.  These ranges are displayed in red as well.

[madpraxis]

Or...you could stop trying to detect missiles with a high resolution sensor and save yourself a lot of space...
Wrong computer so I can't check my just started conventional start game where I have just suceeded in researching the first level of active and em sensor tech, but off the top of my head a single hull space resolution 1 sensor would get you a...you know what, I'm running upstairs to check this out on the computer I wasn't turning on today <.<
Hrm, yes, I forgot how crappy starting tech was But even with active grav strength 10 and em sensitivity 6, a 250 ton sensor gets you over 300k km...So, working on the theory that your smallest command ship size is one that's capable of jumping it and it's squadron, that would be what, in the 5000-6000 ton range? So your missile intercept ship (because it would be just wacky to try and put all your active sensors for all kinds of use on one ship....right...?) with no need for a jump drive and at the lowest tech would be sacrificing 1/6th of it's hull space for a measly 1.3 MILLION kilometers of size 6 and smaller missile size (sensor size ...tack on a 250 ton fire control with 980 thousand kilometers range and working with 6000 ton ship you end up with only 4750 tons for engines, launchers, and magazines with a few layers of armour thrown on it just in case. Which can be a good dozen launchers and still be able to keep a good turn of speed. Actually, making the active and fire control match ranges exactly grabs you another 250 tons, which is another 5 magazines which is what, another 80 size 1 intercept missiles
Though, if you go smaller in ship size you kind of start running into problems. I did at one time run a 6k ton command ship with jump engines that had a brood of 3k ton ships. Just meant that instead of a dedicated anti-missile ship I ended up with a dedicated anti-missile sensor ship and a couple of dedicated launch platforms to keep my speed up.

[Paul M (OP)]

Madpraxis...

Feel free to look in the AAR for the ship designs.  The maximum military hull size of the NC Navy is 3000 tons.  It is fixed at that for the forseeable future.  They will be doing a modernization run "soon" ...say in 9 months or so that will add new (but as yet not researched) low signature, higher efficiency engines, and missile sensors, probably with an upgrade to the London's powerplant (since it should be possible to reduce its size with better reactor technology).  The forts get a high resolution sensor as well...1000 RPs for that hurts.  After that...comes better engines and more efficient jump drive.  Then technology research switches to sensors, then defences and then weapons.  So probably 5 years from now the NC Navy will have larger ships since during that time a new military yard is planned.  Their small ships will either end up 4000, with the next yard designed to produce 8000 ton ships and the last yard at 12000 tons.

But all that is pure speculation.  There is some discussion about adding in a class that carries pinnances with anti-missile sensors.

And yes I'm wacky in that my ships carry all types of sensors.  Little point in not doing it since being blind is to be worthless in combat.

[madpraxis]

Ah, one of THOSE games
It all makes more sense now!...hehe.
Ignore my comments
Though, I guess if it fit in with your game you could do a collier/awac type ship that would run herd over a small group that only had fire controls and launchers...the woes of fiction, eh?

[Paul M (OP)]

There is a new Fairmile design for a pinnance with the shipborne CM sensor that fits nicely into a 250 ton bay and there is considerable noise in the naval cafeterias about making a "carrier" with 2 of them and seeing if they can keep a counter missile battery on it.  It would be a sensible addition to the fleet, improved when the new tiny fuel tanks and small engineering space comes on line.  The problem for the Fairmile Pn at the moment is that its top speed is 1200 km/s and the naval standard velocity is 1250 km/s.  Still the idea is gaining traction as replacing a few Fairmile's won't cost anything signficant.

Otherwise, the refits just started...and nothing wrong with your comments, they just are kinda well ...pie in the sky is even not good enough...its like double chocolate layer cake, with eierlikor frosting and sugar decorative figures near the orbit of jupiter.

[Paul M (OP)]

I've been looking in detail at the range circles the "sensors tab shows" and 2 of them are clear.  The active sensor display is the max range of the sensor.  The "blue circle" is the range at which the user selected signal strength would be detected by the ship in question.  My usual setting is 120 (corresponds to my ships running their shields) and the range seems to make sense.

What isn't clear at all is the "red circle" this seems to be related to signature radius.  I have it set currently for 63 and I see red circles around various objects.  The largest circles are around the civillian haulers that are huge ships.  Given they have no electronics at all this can't be a range they detect things.  Further my picket formation has a very small red circle and they have not bad thermal sensors.  This seems to be a indication of at what range they will be detected.  As I recall from the fight with the wolvers the red circles for the Wolver ships were massive.  This leads me to a degree of confusion.  Does anyone definitively know what the red circle is?  Is this the detection range of the ships engines thermal emission?  Or does it have something to do with at what range the ships SR will be detected by a grav pulse of the magnitude you set in the box?  Or is it something new and completely different?

[Nathan_]

I believe that red is EM. In general though EM signatures tend to be gigantic, so if you have a halfway decent sensor anywhere the entire system is covered against long range scans or shielded craft.

[Paul M (OP)]

The red circle shows up on enemy ships, but what is it telling me?  It also shows up around my civillian designs that have absolutely no electronics on them, and is larger than around my military ships that carry passive EM sensors.  I'm as certain as I can be the red circle has to do with your emmissions while the blue circle has to do with your detection system as the size of the blue circle is set by the value you set in the box that is what you want to detect. 

When it showed up on the Wolver ships there was a range and a resolution (RS76).  It was immense to be frank, but is it my ships detecting them...and if so what is the RS76?  I do know that my naval ships that are shields down picketing a Waypoint near the jump point to wolf 359 have a virtually non-existant red circle.

I also know Steve would not have it there if it wasn't useful for battle management but be damned if I can sort out what it is trying to tell me.

[Conscript Gary]

Red is used both for detected active sensors and... whatever exactly the show signature detection range shows.
In your case, with the detected hostile active pings, the RS76 refers to the resolution of the sensor, 76HS in that case.

[vonduus]

But how come the civilian ships have this big detection range? How can they have better ranges than me? I just checked, one of my civ freighters has a larger red circle than my recon ships (that have fairly big thermal sensors, hullsize 5).

[sloanjh]

But how come the civilian ships have this big detection range? How can they have better ranges than me? I just checked, one of my civ freighters has a larger red circle than my recon ships (that have fairly big thermal sensors, hullsize 5).

My recollection is that it's your thermal signature.  Civies have big pocking ships with big pocking engines that give off big pocking thermal signatures

John