Wrecks

[ExChairman (OP)]

Why do I find a wreck outside my sensor range??
Shouldn't it not be hidden until I got near it?
I have found a wreck of 6800 tons at a range of 2500M km.....

[Havear]

It depends on how sophisticated you want the answer. The simplest explanation is that the wreckage is fitted with a recovery beacon. The most complicated explanation involves the interaction of pure TN elements in space that are no longer hid by a drive field or other technobabble.

[sloanjh]

Then there's the "'cuz that's the way Steve coded it up" answer

IIRC, for a while they were hidden when not on sensors, but there were a lot of problems with re-finding wrecks of ships you'd destroyed - you had to remember to place a waypoint, otherwise it was needle-in-haystack time.  I think Steve didn't want to take the time to put a flag in for each race to distinguish located wrecks from non-located wrecks (and code up all the stuff to check sensors), so he just left them all visible.

John

[Marthnn]

How would you detect them anyway? No thermal signature to speak of, no electromagnetic emissions since everything is powered down... That leaves active sensors. I wouldn't want to scan a whole system for wrecks under 1000 tons, that's unreasonable. I find Havear's explanations satisfying.

[Panopticon]

Damaged or destroyed power plants and engines spewing radiation into space?

[xeryon]

To me the simple reason: If they were concealed the wrecks mechanic of the game would be worthless.  In a solar system the size of your sensors is but a pitiful fraction of the area the system covers.  You would have a huge amount of tedium canvasing a system to look for wrecks that may or may not be there.  It might be realistic but realism doesn't always make for a fun game.

The explanation of a wreck beacon identifying the location suffices for a realistic explanation of the mechanic for me.

[Steve Walmsley]

Then there's the "'cuz that's the way Steve coded it up" answer

IIRC, for a while they were hidden when not on sensors, but there were a lot of problems with re-finding wrecks of ships you'd destroyed - you had to remember to place a waypoint, otherwise it was needle-in-haystack time.  I think Steve didn't want to take the time to put a flag in for each race to distinguish located wrecks from non-located wrecks (and code up all the stuff to check sensors), so he just left them all visible.

John

You used to have to detect them. I changed it for fun vs realism reasons and also for performance reasons. In terms of realism, you would have to detect them using active sensors and that is pretty hard, especially for the smaller wrecks. It would be tedious to try scanning every system for wrecks. In performance terms, the game only checks sensors in systems where there is something to detect. If wrecks need to be detected, that adds a a sensor check for every sub-pulse in every system where there is a wreck but nothing else to detect. Also, as John mentioned, I have to track all the wreck contacts as well. So I decided that every race would leave wreck beacons, both to find the wreckage of their own ships and to warn of a navigational hazard.

Steve

[Havear]

Oh, so it isn't the more complicated answer of the wreck's unshielded TN elements playing games with our local space-time, causing ripples visible with ansible sensors in hyperspace. Yay!

[madpraxis]

hehe.
'Also, as John mentioned, I have to track all the wreck contacts as well.' Simplest answer possible...because Steve of Borg says 'This will BE'.