I have a pretty good understanding of how active sensors work. However there is one little thing that I am confused about. I am creating a small fighter detection sensor for my sensor ship with the following stats.
Active Sensor Strength: 2400 Sensitivity Modifier: 180%
Sensor Size: 50 HS Sensor HTK: 1
Resolution: 2 Maximum Range vs 100 ton object (or larger): 610,940,000 km
Range vs 1000 ton object: 61,094,000,000 km
Range vs 250 ton object: 3,818,375,000 km
The part I am confused about is the 100 ton or larger max range. Since it says max range for 100 ton or larger does this mean that the stats for the 250 and 1000 ton ranges are incorrect since they are larger than 100t, and that their max range is really 600m? Or are the stats for 250 and 1000 correct and there is something I am forgetting?
This is a bug. I logged a detailed analysis in the bugs thread a few months ago - feel free to log a "me too" though because Steve probably forgot about it. Basically, he forgot to look for the special case where the "smaller" (than resolution) sizes are actually bigger than the resolution shown. The multiplier for targets smaller than resolution is min(1, (size/res)^2) - he left out the "min" function. The top line is correct, the other lines should be the same range as the top line. The same bug shows up for resolution 1 sensors - the smaller missile sizes are generally incorrect.
One more thing: my opinion is that you should NEVER build a res-2 sensor. You only give yourself a sqrt(2)x factor in additional range, but knock your anti-missile range down by (a crippling) 4x, which means you can't use the mounting ship as an AMM escort without adding another res-1 sensor. It's cheaper (in mass) to build a single res-1 sensor that's 1.5x as big - that way you get yourself a dual-role escort.
John