Class Specific Scanners

[Hidamari]

Heres a post from 2010 I made on scanners, since scanners are getting more intricate in their implementation id like to put forward my idea again with a few changes, which had good karma back then too.


The idea was to have an theoretical valley, which balanced ships scanner potential based on their ingame purpose and size.



Larger warships have more powerful scanners as they are more often than not the center of a fleet formation and have to be able to see whats going on.
The smaller the warship the more dependent it is on external information gathering methods.

My thinking with the transports is that the smaller transports (which in many cases do not have a chance to survive any encounter with any hostile ship type), should get a better distance scan range as they sacrifice cargo space for it.
the larger the transport becomes the more it is simply a cargo hold with an engine attached to it (shetland), and would badly need escorting from any other available source. (encouraging bringing escorts!)

As for fighters

Light fighters sacrifice firepower (lol) for the ability to get into an area and gather as much information as possible from as wide an area as possible in the shortest time possible. perfect as convoy scouts or Fleet scouts,

heavy fighters, sacrifcing a little scanner potential for more weapons power, still pretty high scanner range though.

VHF, the bread and butter of sirius, regular 14K maximum range same old thing, can do a bit of everything but not as well as ships either side of it.

SHF and bombers are big ships, wich are designed to put out absolute maximum hurt on enemies, sacrificing everything for superior weapons output.


Thoughts?

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[Omi]

I like the idea of light fighters being useful in a scouting role - including something like an extended scanner range for them - but I'm not sure about the rest. I don't see, though, how the rest falls into line - the curve as a whole doesn't make sense to me.

I don't get why - logically - a bomber would have a smaller sensor range compared to a VHF or HF, or why adding extra room onto a transport would make its scanner less powerful.

tl;dr: I like the idea of scout fighters a lot - it was one of the first things I thought of when the scanner changes were announced - but the rest seems a bit sketchy.

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[Hidamari]

I like the idea of light fighters being useful in a scouting role - including something like an extended scanner range for them - but I'm not sure about the rest. I don't see, though, how the rest falls into line - the curve as a whole doesn't make sense to me.

I don't get why - logically - a bomber would have a smaller sensor range compared to a VHF or HF, or why adding extra room onto a transport would make its scanner less powerful.

tl;dr: I like the idea of scout fighters a lot - it was one of the first things I thought of when the scanner changes were announced - but the rest seems a bit sketchy.

Well i was trying to compensate for a lot of factors, balance, RP and general ship use. (which is a combination of the two)

larger transports are designed to make maximum profit, by sacrificing everything else, its not that their scanner would be any less powerful but that their need for escort is so great that spending extra money on a very expensive scanner when you can hire a guy to do it for a very tiny fraction of the cost is better for RP perspectives and balance ones, flying around with infinate range scanners and dodging all the pirates still making max profits, there should be big risks to big traders. and smaller risks to smaller ones.

as for bombers, they kill absolutely everything more or less 99% of the time, so the same thinking goes really, having mobile kill-all cannons flying around intercepting everything with thier infinate range scanners isnt really good for balance or RP, the proposal doesnt make them less dangerous in a fight, but more dependent on other ships to help them get into one. I think thats fair imo.

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[Omi]

All right. I won't comment on balance, since I don't feel I'm qualified to suggest whether or not these scanner range changes would mess things up. If it could help switch bombers towards more of a pure anti-cap role rather than anti-cap-with-a-side-helping-of-snub-instas, though, that would be a plus in my book. Just pointing out that I don't see where it exactly fits into lore/canon/roleplay/whatever you want to call it.

Although, if the changes were thought good for PvP as a whole, then lore/canon/whatever should be shoved aside in favour of a better gameplay environment, IMO.

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[Hidamari]

All right. I won't comment on balance, since I don't feel I'm qualified to suggest whether or not these scanner range changes would mess things up. If it could help switch bombers towards more of a pure anti-cap role rather than anti-cap-with-a-side-helping-of-snub-instas, though, that would be a plus in my book. Just pointing out that I don't see where it exactly fits into lore/canon/roleplay/whatever you want to call it.

Although, if the changes were thought good for PvP as a whole, then lore/canon/whatever should be shoved aside in favour of a better gameplay environment, IMO.

my thoughts are most bombers would simply be a big powercore, some armour around it, and then a doomsday snac on the front, everything else that isnt weapon based would be meager at best. they sacrifice a lot to be able to put out that mega hurt on the enemy. they are lumbering at best, big scanners wouldnt help their survivability where they need it, in a combat situation, they need armour and a powercore to fire uberbulletts. they should be more dependent getting to a fight but NOT inside the combat space.

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[Thexare]

SHF *snip* are big ships, wich are designed to put out absolute maximum hurt on enemies, sacrificing everything for superior weapons output.

Except for the Arrastra and Spatial that are scout ships first, combat ships a distant fifth. Also true of some freighters (X-Shuttle especially, but Anki and CivFreighter mention extensive electronics and such)

Outside of that little detail, though, I like the general idea. Not sure I'd balance it exactly as you have, but that can be worked out.

[Highland Laddie]

I think you should swap the carrier and battleship. Tactically speaking, as the weaker vessel more dependent on catching enemies.far away.and launching support snubs, you'd think they'd have.more resources devoted to radar than armor or guns, unlike a battleship.

I would swap freighters and VHFs, too.

[Challenger]

Consider also the possibility of scanners with better scan range, but which come with a powercore nerf. You could use it as a passive balancing influence: A LF pilot would happily sacrifice 25% powercore to increase scan range by 50%, whereas a battleship commander would never even consider it.

If nothing else, it provides an alternative implementation vector.

[aerelm]

The idea itself aside, how do you suggest we actually implement this?

Unlike equipments such as guns, shields and whatnot, we can't define actual classes for scanners, which means we can't restrict or allow the use of a specific type of scanner on a specific ship class. In other words, this idea can't be implemented the way you're suggesting it, so if have any functional alternative to that in mind, you're more than welcome to share and we'll give it a look.

[Thexare]

Can scanner stats be attached to engines? That would at least cover the snub section...