Sensors, what each does?

[Mor (OP)]

Here is what  I gathered:
*EM Sensors: Detect shields, and active sensors from other ships.
*Thermal Sensors: Detect Thermal signatures from Colonies and ships engines.
*Active Sensors: Detect targets at longer ranges and are needed for target acquisition. Provide tactical intelligence.(not sure about strategic)

1. Am I missing anything?
2. Is there a difference between how Sensors employed on ships and missiles?
3. Is there any "rule of thumb" you have when designing those components?

[Bryan Swartz]

Colonies also have an EM signature and can be detected by those sensors.  The larger/more developed a colony is, the higher the EM signature will be relative to the thermal one.  Standard Earth TN starts have a nearly 3:1 larger EM signature. 

[83athom]

EM sensors; Correct, they are for detecting both shields and active sensors. The stronger the signature, the farther you can see it. Colonies also have an EM signature, but is generally smaller than the Thermal.
Thermal; Correct, they detect emissions from colonies and engines. The stronger the signature, the farther it can be detected.
Actives; Sort of. They do generally detect ships and ground forces from a longer range then passives, but an oversized passive sensor may detect a signature from farther range. You do need an active contact for targeting. And it shows you the tonnage of enemy ships in range.

1; Essentially passive sensors are 'limitless' in range, depending on the signature of the enemy.
2; Sensors on ships are for seeing the enemy. Sensors on missiles are for retargeting if the ship it is aiming for happens to die in a nuclear storm.
3; Passives; Bigger is better, but it uses valuable space. Give warships a size 1-2 HS of each passive and a dedicated sensor ship with much bigger ones (size 10+) (or a sensor warship with 5-10). Actives; Have multiple sizes of multiple resolutions. A smaller size ship gets detected exponentially closer in from a sensor with a larger res (than the ship) than it would be for a smaller res. But a smaller res sensor has a smaller detection range.

[Mor (OP)]

Thanks for the help guys, I actually had a couple of questions on both but apparently I closed that tab by mistake. Anyway for now, this what we have:

Sensors
* Active_Sensors/Fire_Control
* Active_Sensor_Design

Edit:
aww remembered one. Any idea on how the colony EM\theramal signature work? Any chance one indicates population size, and the other industry size?

Anyway that is it for me for the day.

[Erik L]

Thanks for the help guys, I actually had a couple of questions on both but apparently I closed that tab by mistake. Anyway for now, this what we have:

Sensors
* Active_Sensors/Fire_Control
* Active_Sensor_Design

Edit:
aww remembered one. Any idea on how the colony EM\theramal signature work? Any chance one indicates population size, and the other industry size?

Anyway that is it for me for the day.

I believe Thermal is pop size and EM is industrial.

[Mor (OP)]

Its time for science! Any chance someone has a game he can test that theory on and add some values for reference?  (My test game is puking errors at me and I am waiting for 7.2 to start another serious play through)

[MarcAFK]

I can do it it in a few hours, but it's likely steve has posted the exact formula in mechanics somewhere, I'll have a look there too.

[Bryan Swartz]

Really easy thing to science on actually.  Err, !!SCIENCE!! -- apologizes to DF. 

So, standard 7.1 Earth start.  500m pop, 420 factories, and so on.  12K+ Thermal, 35k+ EM signature. 

If we quadruple the pop to 2 billion, leave everything else alone(SM is your friend) -- 19k thermal, 110k EM.  So population affects both.

Back to 500m pop, and we'll nuke all the construction factories and mines.  8k thermal, 31k EM

One could go further in this regard, but it's safe to say both industrial development and population affect both thermal and EM signature.  It also seems that EM comes mostly from population.  And so on ...

[Mor (OP)]

Not enough chance for catastrophic failure for !!SCIENCE!! me think

But I got the same results. Couldn't add civilian mining complex and didn't test it with a ruin, but overall it seem that most basic outpost\base facilities has same thermal\EM ratio, and that high EM ratio is indicative of population (1:10 ratio per mil) and the presence of the more "advanced" facilities like research lab.