Posted by: The Shadow
« on: April 09, 2010, 04:36:37 PM »Staff? Seriously? Computers, even futuristic ones, can't do this stuff?
Probably tonnage.
What information are you going to get with active sensors that passive sensors won't give you?Quote from: "AndonSage"Active vs. Passive: I'm wondering why, in the Tutorial Part 4: Basic Class Design, Steve has the user place an Active Sensor on the Gravitational and Geological Survey ships:It's just a personal preference. While I wouldn't normally operate the ship with active sensors on, they are useful to gain more information if you do run into alien ships.
Steve
Active vs. Passive: I'm wondering why, in the Tutorial Part 4: Basic Class Design, Steve has the user place an Active Sensor on the Gravitational and Geological Survey ships:It's just a personal preference. While I wouldn't normally operate the ship with active sensors on, they are useful to gain more information if you do run into alien ships.
Quote from: "The Shadow"I thought one still needed active sensors to make contact with an alien race to do diplomacy with them. When did this change?
5.0 IIRC.
John
Its another one of these "historical" things - at the time of the original tutorial, you needed Active sensors to be able to identify Alien races, and hence start contact procedures, and also Active sensors could provide other tech intelligence on detected ships - neither of these are in place now (you can ID races using passives, although you might have to be VERY close if you only have the inherent strength 1 sensors in all ships)Thanks for the info I figured there was a reason.
I thought one still needed active sensors to make contact with an alien race to do diplomacy with them. When did this change?
Quote from: "AndonSage"So assuming you aren't leaving the sensor on, because you don't want to be detected by an enemy (because your survey ship has no offensive or defensive capabilities), wouldn't it be better to use an EM and/or Thermal Sensor instead of an Active Sensor? And if I only picked one, I'd probably go with Thermal as the EM would only pick up NPR ships if they had shields or were using Active Sensors.
I realize there are probably multiple reasons for using any particular item, and I'm just trying to understand the "why" of this sensor usage. Perhaps it's due to range? Of course, sensing a planet would be much easier than sensing a ship, and wouldn't require an active ping.
You know, that's a great question -- what is the point of active sensors on an unarmed survey ship? To be able to detect threats at a farther distance to give more time to bravely run away? "Run away! Run away!"
So assuming you aren't leaving the sensor on, because you don't want to be detected by an enemy (because your survey ship has no offensive or defensive capabilities), wouldn't it be better to use an EM and/or Thermal Sensor instead of an Active Sensor? And if I only picked one, I'd probably go with Thermal as the EM would only pick up NPR ships if they had shields or were using Active Sensors.
I realize there are probably multiple reasons for using any particular item, and I'm just trying to understand the "why" of this sensor usage. Perhaps it's due to range? Of course, sensing a planet would be much easier than sensing a ship, and wouldn't require an active ping.
Thanks for the link to the missile design spreadsheet it made missile design much clearer. The only problem I have now is once a missile is designed and constructed what tech is required to design a launcher and how on earth do fire controls work.I'd like to keep this thread about the sensors, so I'm going to answer you in your thread.
In this case, we want a general search sensor so lets stick with resolution 100. If we encounter an enemy that likes to design ships of 4000 tons or 6000 tons we can modify future sensor designs to take the best advantage of an appropriate resolution (80 or 120).I haven't read anything that says a Geological or Gravitational Sensor requires an Active Sensor to work, and the statement above seems to imply the sensor is for detecting other ships, so let's assume that's what the sensor is for. However, other articles/threads indicate it's not a good idea to leave active sensors on, because you can be detected by opposing EM Sensors. So assuming you aren't leaving the sensor on, because you don't want to be detected by an enemy (because your survey ship has no offensive or defensive capabilities), wouldn't it be better to use an EM and/or Thermal Sensor instead of an Active Sensor? And if I only picked one, I'd probably go with Thermal as the EM would only pick up NPR ships if they had shields or were using Active Sensors.