People seem to dislike my sensor compliment. What do you all typically use for sensors in your fleets? I usually deploy a network of sensor buoys before any significant battle which tends to reduce the sensor requirements for my battle fleets. Hence the the abundance of short range res 1 sensors on my ships.
The res 500 sensor on my carrier is outdated but the res 500 on my scout fighter is relatively up to date. This sensor configuration has been adequate thus far at detecting the relatively large hostile ships I have been encountering from outside of hostile missile range.
The carrier is fairly fast and is capable of running away from anything it can't fight straight up... at least from what I have come across so far. I am hoping to get the next design iteration above 10k km/s max speed as speed is definitely useful for the tactics I tend to use with this carrier design.
I tend to only use low resolution sensors on my carrier and even most escorts such as destroyers. I rely on buoys and sensor scouts for locating enemies.
One interesting design is a 3-500t primary EM scout... I then add some box launchers of size 1 stuffed with different active or passive sensors... it really don't take much space. These ships usually have a deployment of around 1-3 months and a pretty decent range.
I also find that 125-175t with high resolution active sensors is very effective as they can have a decently large range and sensors tend to never be below res 5 and res 1 to detect them need to be VERY big and with even a small sensor tech advantage it can be impossible to find them with res 1 sensors.
This is why all my capital ships have some hangar space to hold scouts and different utility crafts for different mission types.
I only add a small high resolution sensor to any ship with offensive missiles but rarely that which cover the whole range for the longest range missiles they carry. One of the problem of the game is detection range of high resolution active sensors as you can't activate sensors individually. A patrol ship might want to activate their res 1 and 5 to try and find some small crafts in the vicinity without necessarily reveal themselves to some enemy capital ship far away which you most often can using res 5 or below.
In my opinion if I can gather all the Intel on the enemy before engaging I hold all the cards of when and how that will occur. I will not want to reveal my ships until the last moment or if possible not at all.
Here are some rules I live by for EM versus Active, given all have the same tech level...
A ship need an EM of about 50t to detect a resolution 100 sensor at the same distance from which the sensor will see you if you are 5000t or bigger.
A ship need an EM of about 100t to detect a resolution 20 sensor at the same distance it will see you if you are 1000t or bigger.
A ship need an EM of about 150t to detect a resolution 5 sensor at the same distance it will see you if you are 250t or bigger.
A ship need an EM of about 250t to detect a resolution 1 sensor at the same distance it will see you if you are 50t or bigger.
So... for example as resolution 5 is pretty normal as a small craft sensor a small EM scout will need about 150t to know if it has been spotted by active sensor... a 375t EM scout can usually have at least 150t EM sensor on it.
The important thing is to spot the sensor before any ship see you with their active sensor so you can evade... that is also why reduced thermal is key on all scout vessels... use it always!!
Buoys are also good but they can't really move and a permanently used up so still have a limited use... having a stealthy ship that can shadow an enemy for a long time can gather some Intel on them about their sensors if active.
Well.. long winded reply that perhaps make some sense...
