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Re: Scanner 2.0

#136
I was not thinking that ID's get broadcasted constantly, and everyone in the system sees you because of your active ID.

the ID is a mean of identifying ships that would otherwise be in your "ambigious" sensor range.
Not outside of your maximum range, but not so close that you could say with certainity that it is a ship.

Not a shining beacon
But a response to the radar-detection induced question of who you are.
If a ship with active ID does not get in this grey area of sensor range, it wont send anything.
If it is stealth enough it could even sit right next to you and you wont notice it.

If it gets too close you may detect it in any case.
But ID's dont make you visible all over the system.
It just removes the ambigious range.

for a ship with bigger sensor range, the detection range with ID also increases, as you get into the ambigious range sooner

"I see something, may it is a ship, lets ask"
Not "hey guys! Im over here!"
Post

Re: Scanner 2.0

#137
Talvieno wrote:All right, so. Sorry for the minor necro, but mcsven, Cornflakes and I hashed out some improved scanner ideas that would allow for some truly batman-esque gameplay, as well as an actual stealth system. This system would make excursions deep into enemy territory possible, given a lot of luck and a little know-how. Looking for a good place to pop that orphan wormhole? This is the way to go about finding it.

The basic idea is that it's possible to turn your ship's ID off, and that NPCs have Line of Sight (LOS). And what is ID?

These:
Spoiler:      SHOW
Image
are IDs. Those little circular things that look like target reticles. At the bottom left, it shows all the locations of all nearby ships. There is nowhere to hide. Anywhere. If you exist, you are seen. Stealth play is not an option in the current development version of Limit Theory, as far as I understand, unless you hide behind an asteroid or a star. To fix this, this is what we propose:

With your ID turned off, any form of radar that lists your ship out would also have your ship's ID, name, model, and all, completely removed. With your ID off, you are only visible in VFR. (For those among us who aren't aware, VFR is real-life pilot speak for "Visual Flight Rules". In real life, this is primarily used among smaller planes such as a Cessna or Mooney Bravo, helicopters, and larger planes during takeoff and landing.)

Now, you're probably wondering, "Hey, what good is turning your ID off in the first place?" Obviously, turning your ID off means other ships won't be able to identify you, and at first glance, that may not seem very convenient or helpful. If you'll humor me for a moment, I'll explain. Let's say you want to smuggle goods from point A to point B while trying to avoid detection. With the current radar system, this is absolutely impossible. It doesn't matter where you are, as long as you are within a certain very wide range, you will be detected. Let's illustrate with some poorly-drawn images, shall we?

In the below radar mockup, the NPC has all the enemy ships (red dots) in radar range. If we assume that, as in Josh's videos, radar is going to be able to scan a significant distance (all the way to the nearby star, at the very least), then all ships will be visible. We can thereby assume that, in said pic, the maximum radar range is as suggested by the blue "rim": Image As you can see, all four ships are still fully enclosed within this rim. There is absolutely no option for the enemy to sneak up on the NPC, and by extension, no way for the player to sneak up on any NPC. Turning off ID would change this. In the following picture, there is a "secondary radar rim" to display the effect that turning off the ID might have.
Image In this picture, we have a "ghost radar rim" that represents the maximum distance a ship can detect another ship that has its ID turned off. Ingame, it would be much, much closer than this, to allow ships to sneak up undetected (i.e. there would be a much closer limit to how far away you could detect an ID-less ship), but I have it drawn as it is because it makes it easier to understand.

The four red dots represent ships that have turned off their ID, while the green dot represents a ship that still has its ID turned on. As you can see, the three ships within the inner rim are still fully visible, while the ship outside that limit is "ghosted". Ingame, it would appear completely invisible to the player's radar. Turning off your ID turns off your radio, your transmissions, essentially reducing your energy output to a minimum and rendering you more difficult to pick up on a scanner. Now, of course, if we take line of sight (LOS) into account...
Image The yellow lines represent the limits of the central NPC's "line of sight". This would give NPCs "sight cones", like most traditional strategy games, instead of letting them see in all directions, all the time. It overlays very well with the ship's normal radar system - in fact, "sight cones" wouldn't necessarily need to be used in most situations. Not only that, but they would give you a significant "grace period" the farther away you were from the NPC who is watching you, making it so that just because you're in their line of sight, they don't necessarily detect you right away. However, in the above example, the NPC ship is able to detect an ID-less enemy that is outside of the ID-less sensor limit, simply because the NPC has line of sight to the target. Therefore, when the NPC has line of sight to the target, it doesn't matter if the enemy has their ID turned off or not, the NPC can see them.
Image Finishing up with this trend of images, we now have one of Josh's large dust clouds obscuring a large portion of the map. As you can see, it interferes with the NPC's radar systems, but not their LOS. The ID-less ships to the left of the NPC are "ghosted", and therefore invisible. The green ship with its ID turned on is still on the NPC's radar, because the ship ID basically sends out radio pings to help other ships find it with. The red ship in front and to the left is still visible because it is within the central ship's LOS. Clouds of dust make little difference in either case. HOWEVER, as Josh has already said in a previous update, asteroid fields do make a difference, because a ship can disguise its signature simply by hiding behind an ore-rich asteroid, making itself effectively invisible to the ship's radar. Turning off your ship's ID effectively halves the signature of the ship, while hiding behind an ore-rich asteroid, planet, or star nullifies it.


Now I'm going to leave off this picture-y stuff and continue discussing/explaining the idea of IDs you can turn off.


The ID is not only a ship's signature, but also its identifying code, meaning it is actually illegal to turn it off in the first place - it's the equivalent of driving without a license. Whereas you can tell the name and make of an NPC's ship if their ID is turned on (or NPCs with your own), with it off, they can't tell anything about you, and you would appear simply as an *unknown* were they close enough to pick you up. You would still appear on their radar, but they wouldn't immediately know your identity. They might send out some signals:

"Unknown ship, please identify yourself."
"...Unknown ship, please respond."
"... Unknown ship, if you do not return hails we will open fire."

And then they'd attack you. With your ID turned off, even if they can see you, they can't tell who you are, just the same way that you can't tell who they are. They might attack you even if you were friendly with their faction, and unless they'd seen you turn your ID off and knew who you were, it would be very likely and sensible to assume that if you were sneaking around, you shouldn't be there in the first place. They would assume you were a hostile. After giving you a chance to turn your ID on (in case you turned it off at some point and forgot to switch it back on), they would open fire.

If a ship sees you at all with your ID on, then they remember your ID for a set time period, and can "recognize" your ship. If you get close enough for them to see you, your cover is broken entirely and they know you're there whether you have your ID on or not. In addition, with this system, it should be entirely possible to sneak up behind an NPC player in a dust field with your ID turned off, and hardly be noticed until you're right on top of them, thus making what is effectively a stealth kill because they don't have time to reroute power to their shields. Dust clouds would become dangerous, and in fact almost scary, in a sense, as you'd want to be watching your back (or at the very least, keeping a careful eye on your scanner).

One extra thing to mention is that the size of your ship affects the size of your scanner. A battleship's signature would be massive, and much easier to detect even if it decided to turn its ID off for some reason. Even if it didn't, LOS would permit it to be spotted almost instantly. Sneaking around in a battleship wouldn't be an option. These game mechanics are mostly already in place.

The simplicity and elegance of this system makes it so you could be Batman if you wanted, swooping in on unsuspecting pirates in dust fields and bludgeoning them with your swift JusticeCannons before disappearing into the mist. You could assassinate a rival if you're careful and lucky, or travel deep into enemy territory to open up a portal for your allies to pour through. Maybe you would like to mine valuable minerals from asteroids in a restricted area. You could smuggle goods past checkpoints if you were careful, and the only thing that could get you caught is if they happened to turn in your direction for a bit, or get curious about that dim radar blip on their scope. Turning off your ID wouldn't eliminate your radar signature completely - it would dim it. This is why radar would only "work" within a certain range. Beyond that range, your ship's signature would get lost among the random noise you were picking up. With your ID off, you are essentially running silent.

As if all that wasn't enough, this also implies that radar-based automated turrets would have inherent difficulty targeting ships in asteroid fields and dust clouds, particularly at longer ranges. All of this could make flying into a dust cloud to lose someone a viable strategy.

Now that I've explained all that, here's the chat log, in case I didn't quite explain it well enough:
Spoiler:      SHOW
[16:01] <+mcsven> similarly, the concept I was working with was that you can turn off your ID
[16:01] <+ThymineC> Ships should have logs, if memory/storage capacity allows.
[16:01] <+mcsven> so that you would simply appear as *unknown* to anyone that detects you
[16:01] <+ThymineC> You recover them like a flight computer of a crashed plane
[16:02] <+ThymineC> Like in that film
[16:02] <+ThymineC> Oblivion
[16:02] <+Cornflakes> i was more thinking about our real life storage
[16:02] <+mcsven> well that would probably mean you'd need to destroy the ship
[16:02] <+ThymineC> Me too
[16:02] <+ThymineC> Yeah that's one way
[16:02] <+ThymineC> That's how you recover logs from wrecks
[16:02] <+mcsven> if you want to appear as *unknown* how many IDs do you have to turn off?
[16:02] <+ThymineC> To see how Long John Silver passed away
[16:02] <+mcsven> Personal, Ship, Faction?
[16:02] <+ThymineC> Otherwise you could hack into vessels
[16:02] <+ThymineC> Or asl the NPC
[16:02] <+ThymineC> ask, even
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[16:03] <+Talvieno> mcsven - Are you saying that you could turn your ID off so that you would only be visible in VFR?
[16:03] <+mcsven> would anyone ever turn off personal but not factional?
[16:03] <+mcsven> yes, that was the concept, Talvieno
[16:03] <+Talvieno> Sweet. I like it.
[16:03] <+mcsven> here: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2645&start=30#p42018
[16:03] <+Talvieno> You could conceivably sneak into an enemy base that way, if nobody was looking and/or paying attention.
[16:03] <+mcsven> that's what I want to try and enable
[16:04] <+mcsven> Basically I see it as some form of "later" game activity
[16:04] <+mcsven> you may get tired of trading or whatever because you've got lots of cash
[16:04] <+mcsven> so you decide to play Batman
[16:04] <+Talvieno> Do we have a suggestion thread for it yet?
[16:04] <+mcsven> or Robin Hood...
[16:04] <+mcsven> deffo
[16:04] <+mcsven> viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2783
[16:04] <+mcsven> Flatfingers fleshed out the idea
[16:04] <+Talvieno> I see it as a good thing for smugglers.
[16:05] <+mcsven> and I posted a bunch of stuff... but in the end I reckon it's DOA
[16:05] <+Talvieno> If you weren't showing your ID, people would automatically assume you were the enemy, friend and foe alike... but it would make you harder to detect.
[16:05] <+mcsven> too many unanswered questions
[16:05] <+mcsven> harder to detect - no, harder to identify - yes
[16:07] <+Talvieno> Harder to detect, yes.
[16:07] <+Talvieno> Currently ships have a little node on top of them during gameplay.
[16:07] <+Talvieno> Turning your ID off ought to turn this off for your ship.
[16:07] <+mcsven> ok, you're right, it depends on your assumptions around how LT is operating when it comes to the UI
[16:07] <+Talvieno> This would also remove you from whatever "radar" lists or whatever the enemy might have.
[16:07] <+mcsven> I'm assuming it's something like radar
[16:08] <+mcsven> with the UI being augmented realityt
[16:08] <+mcsven> if there's something else going on, then I agree
[16:08] <+Talvieno> Therefore, they would have to actually "see" you (i.e., have their ship pointed in your direction for X seconds, in gameplay terms) in order to detect you.
[16:08] <+Cornflakes> why
[16:08] <+Cornflakes> you already can detect enmy ships in scanner range
[16:08] <+Talvieno> At that point it's "oh shit, there's a ship trying to sneak past us!" at which point I assume they'd open fire until you turned your ID on (and even after if they're enemies).
[16:08] <+Cornflakes> why should they ever activate those senders if they can become invisible this way
[16:09] <+Cornflakes> turning of your ID should require the others to find you using the already established scanner mechanics
[16:09] <+mcsven> right, that's when it starts breaking down
[16:09] <+Cornflakes> with automation
[16:09] <+Talvieno> Cornflakes - I doubt ships will have their scanners on 24/7... well, I hope they won't. :\ that'd be kind of boring, in my opinion.
[16:09] <+Cornflakes> lol
[16:09] <+Cornflakes> its a permanentely running device
[16:09] <+mcsven> well it boils down to the same result - you can see all ships around you
[16:09] <+Talvieno> huh. :\ well, that's boring.
[16:10] <+Cornflakes> you may not know who they are
[16:10] <+mcsven> this is similar to the discussion that Flat and I had about transponder vs. handshake... and it doesn't matter
[16:10] <+Cornflakes> but you know that there is a ship
[16:10] <+Talvieno> 'kay, maybe there's a "cloak"?
[16:10] <+mcsven> cloaking is another matter
[16:10] <+Talvieno> Not visual cloak.
[16:10] <+Talvieno> kind of like stealth armor.
[16:10] <+mcsven> distortion cloak
[16:10] <+Talvieno> Just hides your visibility to scanners, so as not to be totally OP.
[16:10] <+mcsven> but that's also an unknown when it comes to LT
[16:11] <+Cornflakes> it may reduces your signature
[16:11] <+Cornflakes> which will be dependent on energy usage and allocation
[16:11] <+Talvieno> I just hope Josh doesn't make it so that AI are all-seeing. >.> as in, you can't ever sneak up behind an enemy ship, or tail it.
[16:11] <+mcsven> anyway, the ultimate point is that turning off your ID is for one purpose - to do illegal things (good or bad) - and get away with it
[16:11] <+mcsven> however there's got to be some danger of being caught
[16:11] <+mcsven> and setting the mechanics for that... I just don't see it
[16:11] <+Cornflakes> they will see you if their scanner detects you
[16:11] <+Cornflakes> and vice versa
[16:12] <+Cornflakes> if you dont look up your sensor its your fault
[16:12] <+Talvieno> Doesn't the scanner work by pointing directly at you?
[16:12] <+Cornflakes> thats the manual mode
[16:12] <+Talvieno> And that's the only way you can detect something?
[16:12] <+Cornflakes> automatic mode scans your surroundings automatically
[16:13] <+Cornflakes> and adds detected things to your contact list
[16:13] <+mcsven> is this something that Josh has confirmed, or that you've surmised?
[16:13] <+Talvieno> I still think there ought to be a cone of LOS.
[16:13] <+Cornflakes> something in between
[16:13] <+mcsven> right, I agree
[16:13] <+Talvieno> even if a very wide cone.
[16:13] <+Cornflakes> more on "josh confirmed it" though
[16:13] <+Talvieno> Otherwise, stealth missions will never happen because the AI will [always] know where you are.
[16:13] <+Cornflakes> why should sensors be more limited than they are now
[16:13] <+mcsven> ship detection within a certain range around your vessel is going to be essential
[16:13] <+Cornflakes> in RL
[16:14] <+Cornflakes> you have to stay at a distance
[16:14] <+Cornflakes> and reduce your signature
[16:14] <+Talvieno> Well, yeah, it should depend on distance.
[16:14] <+Talvieno> If you get too close, even cloak should stop hiding you.
[16:15] <+Talvieno> Maybe just give your sensors a shorter range behind you... and then make it so that turning off your ID makes it more difficult for sensors to pick you up.
[16:15] <+Talvieno> Ships aren't as dense as asteroids anyway.
[16:15] <+Cornflakes> why should my sensor work worse in a specific direction?
[16:16] <+Talvieno> Because you're looking forwards, so it makes sense that you'd want more power to the fore systems than the aft systems (disregarding thrusters).
[16:16] <+Cornflakes> phased array sensors can do it in all directions equally good
[16:16] <+Cornflakes> and those are state of the art in RL
[16:16] <+mcsven> what's RL?
[16:17] <+Talvieno> Do they work at astronomical distances? ____k miles?
[16:17] <+Cornflakes> there is no reason that they do not
[16:17] <+Talvieno> If advanced enough. Today's don't, I can promise you that.
[16:17] <+Cornflakes> because of ping
[16:18] <+Cornflakes> nothing that really prevents them from being used at long ranges
[16:18] <+Cornflakes> but engineering
[16:18] <+Talvieno> Then there's the whole issue of how we have an entire plane missing off the coast of Australia and we still haven't found it.
[16:18] <+Talvieno> Sensors aren't omnipotent IRL. :P
[16:18] <+Talvieno> They shouldn't be ingame either.
[16:18] <+Cornflakes> they are not omnipotent
[16:18] <+Cornflakes> they just dont are better or worse in any direction
[16:19] <+Talvieno> hmm. Okay, point taken.
[16:19] <+Talvieno> Let's say, then...
[16:19] <+Talvieno> that ships give out a smaller signature than an ore-rich asteroid that weighs more than your mother in law.
[16:20] <+Cornflakes> hiding next to asteroids was being liked by josh sometime long ago
[16:20] <+Talvieno> with this, the ships would be harder to detect at the same distance, and with the noise, you might not be totally sure (or even notice, unless you were looking for it) that a ship was there.
[16:20] <+Talvieno> Mhm, I remember that.
[16:20] <+Cornflakes> if there are asteroids in the first place
[16:21] <+Talvieno> If there aren't asteroids, and the space is clean of dust, I think it would be pretty easy to detect a ship at whatever range. Screw stealth.
[16:21] <+Cornflakes> but if there is suddenly an asteroid on an total bogus course, even changing course...
[16:21] <+Talvieno> But if you're moving through a dust cloud with your ID off, when it's filled with asteroids, you ought to be practically invisible.
[16:21] <+Talvieno> you wouldn't be invisible to LOS.
[16:21] <+Cornflakes> yeah
[16:21] <+Cornflakes> thats like i envison it working
[16:21] <+Talvieno> however, the enemy ships shouldn't always be looking in all directions.
[16:22] <+Talvieno> There should be a cone. That's what I meant. :P
[16:22] <+Talvieno> Unless your ship is made of glass. >.>
[16:22] <+Cornflakes> line of sight should be a cone, yeah
[16:22] <+Cornflakes> but not radar :P
[16:22] <+Talvieno> Yeah, not radar.
[16:22] <+Cornflakes> *optical
[16:22] <+Cornflakes> or tied to the LOS's of the turrets
[16:23] <+Talvieno> Aren't turrets manually guided like in freelancer?
[16:23] <+Cornflakes> thats a possibility
[16:23] <+Cornflakes> but they will be able to be automated
[16:23] <+Talvieno> or will we be able to fly past a battle cruiser and just let our turrets do the fighting?
[16:23] <+Cornflakes> also possible
[16:23] <+Talvieno> okay, then in that case, I'd say the turrets should probably use the radar too...
[16:23] <+Cornflakes> i will probably do a hybrid solution
[16:23] <+Talvieno> makes things interesting in certain areas.
[16:23] <+Cornflakes> PD turrets on auto, main turrets on manual
[16:24] <+Talvieno> Like... if you get a particularly thick dust cloud made of... say... obscurium (making up a name, don't take it seriously)... then the radar-guided turrets ought to get confused to the point that they don't work as well (if at all) at long distances. they should still work at shorter distances, though.
[16:25] <+Cornflakes> yeah
[16:25] <+Talvieno> turning your ID off ought to make it harder for turrets to target you either way.
[16:25] <+Cornflakes> sensors should be obscured and you may have to fallback on eyeball sensors
[16:25] <+Talvieno> well, at distances.
[16:25] <+Talvieno> and yes, I agree.
[16:26] <+Cornflakes> if he has a radar lock on you it should not make an difference
[16:26] <+Cornflakes> but on long ranges it should be harder to detect you
[16:26] <+Talvieno> Nope. XD That shouldn't make a difference. Unless... maybe you could make him lose it just by going out 2x the normal distance required to be out of radar range.
[16:26] <+Cornflakes> *detects radar echo" "radar echo, are you a ship?" *silence* "may you are not a ship..."
[16:26] <+Talvieno> XD
[16:27] <+Cornflakes> on the fringes of your sensor range
[16:27] <+Talvieno> So then he looks over in your direction.
[16:27] <+Talvieno> And he sees you, and confirms that yes, you're a ship.
[16:28] <+Talvieno> So then he knows you're there, your cover is broken, and he doesn't give a damn that his radar isn't fully cooperating - now he knows where you are.
[16:28] <+Cornflakes> where, but not what and who
[16:28] <+Talvieno> sounds like a fun system. :)
[16:28] <+Talvieno> Yeah, but I think if you're trying to sneak past somebody, they'd assume you're an enemy.
[16:28] <+Talvieno> Perhaps they hail you at first.
[16:28] <+Talvieno> "Rogue vessel, please identify"
[16:29] <+Talvieno> "repeat, please identify"
[16:29] <+Talvieno> And then they decide you're a hostile?
[16:29] <+Cornflakes> maybe
[16:29] <+Cornflakes> or give you a warning shot and then get really pissed
[16:29] <+Talvieno> Yeah, you should probably get a warning.
[16:30] <+Talvieno> Unless you open fire first. :\
[16:30] <+Cornflakes> well, then the question of hostility is settled
[16:30] <+Talvieno> And if you get close enough it ought to be very obvious whether you're hostile or not.
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[16:30] <+Cornflakes> nah
[16:30] <+Cornflakes> if you have your weapons powered up, yes
[16:31] <+Cornflakes> but if you are only flying with reduced signature
[16:31] <+Talvieno> yeah, that's what I meant. Kind of like if your weapons are unsheathed.
[16:31] <+Cornflakes> mhm
[16:31] <+Talvieno> makes it obvious you're hostile... but if you didn't answer their hails, well. They have every reason to assume you're not on their side.
[16:32] <+Cornflakes> or just afraid of them taking your stuff
[16:32] <+Talvieno> Larger ships would probably give off larger signatures, too, because of greater mass, and thus be easier to detect and harder to hide, even with ID off.
[16:32] <+Cornflakes> i'd base it more around energy signature
[16:33] <+Talvieno> hmm...
[16:33] <+Cornflakes> or mass signature as base sensor echo + energy signature on top of it
[16:33] <+Talvieno> Yeah, that works.
[16:33] <+Talvieno> okay, so we have this figured out now, awesome. :) fun debate.
[16:34] <+Cornflakes> :)
[16:34] <+mcsven> make sure you write a post to summarise it
Has Josh seen this??
Post

Re: Scanner 2.0

#139
So why would people ever turn their "ID" on? Given the clear superiority of stealth having it off provides.
It makes having an ID at all pretty pointless.

Also. You can easily identify what is a ship and what isn't in space.
Ships can maneuver. They emit heat. They are solid. etc. All of this stuff can be picked up by RADAR systems.
Further. Going stealth would be more than just turning off "ID". You would have to turn off engines, lights, power generators, all active sensors, batteries, life support......
Not really worth the effort considering you're easy to spot even after taking those measures.
Post

Re: Scanner 2.0

#140
Sasha wrote:So why would people ever turn their "ID" on? Given the clear superiority of stealth having it off provides.
It makes having an ID at all pretty pointless.

Also. You can easily identify what is a ship and what isn't in space.
Ships can maneuver. They emit heat. They are solid. etc. All of this stuff can be picked up by RADAR systems.
Further. Going stealth would be more than just turning off "ID". You would have to turn off engines, lights, power generators, all active sensors, batteries, life support......
Not really worth the effort considering you're easy to spot even after taking those measures.
Which is why i said (repeteadely) that the ID isnt the major mean of detecting a ship.

The ID is not an active system broadcasting your position and identity but an reactive system answering requests from other ships.

So if you are in sensor range of another ship but not close enough for it to clearly identify it sends an ID request, basically asking "unidentified radar blip, are you a ship?"
and your ID system responds to this request.
(Or not, if deactivated)
So it increases your identification range, not your detection range.
If you get too close you will be identified as a ship, altough the other one cant correlate you to an specific faction or person.
But will assume non-friendly intentions if you dont have an active ID system

So you could also go into stealth without deactivating your ID.
If there is no blip to query, your ID doesnt do anything.

You can reduce your blip by doing all the things you outlined.
Shutting off drives, active sensors, shields etc...

ID systems can also not only be viewed from the military point.
A civilian airliner has no use from being stealth, why shouldnt it use an ID system if it makes traffic control easier and prevents

Also: applying real-world detection mechanics to an sci-fi space game makes sensor gameplay pretty fast pretty useless.
As you could see everything in the system as soon as you enter it just because its artificial and creates heat and radiation.
Removing all stealth gameplay instantly.
So i'd say as always gameplay > realism.
Post

Re: Scanner 2.0

#141
Sasha wrote:So why would people ever turn their "ID" on? Given the clear superiority of stealth having it off provides.
It makes having an ID at all pretty pointless.

Also. You can easily identify what is a ship and what isn't in space.
Ships can maneuver. They emit heat. They are solid. etc. All of this stuff can be picked up by RADAR systems.
Further. Going stealth would be more than just turning off "ID". You would have to turn off engines, lights, power generators, all active sensors, batteries, life support......
Not really worth the effort considering you're easy to spot even after taking those measures.
First, not really, if you turn your ID off, nobody can tell who you are at a glance, and your own allies might attack you, assuming that if your ID is off next to them, you must be a hostile. Keeping your ID on most of the time would be a good thing, unless you specifically plan to use stealth.

Second, Cornflakes has everything else down.
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Re: Scanner 2.0

#142
I like the Idea of the toggleable vin, what about detecting the heat signature or gravitational signatures of a ship? it seems like Mk 1 eyeball would be extremely unreliable in space :mrgreen:

What about stealthy LOS laser communication between friendly ships that are running silent. I have been thinking about how neat it would be to have dedicated sensor ships in a well protected but otherwise unimportant part of a main fleet formation, these ships, due to their powerful active sensors would light up like a beacon, but they could broad cast their collected data to the rest of the fleet via the safe point to point, but limited by line of sight, laser comms. so as to allow the rest of the fleet to stay comms and sensors silent.
The victorious strategist only seeks battle
After the victory has been won
Whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights
And afterwards looks for victory

-Sun Tzu
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Re: Scanner 2.0

#143
HoratioScumdog wrote:I like the Idea of the toggleable vin, what about detecting the heat signature or gravitational signatures of a ship? it seems like Mk 1 eyeball would be extremely unreliable in space :mrgreen:

What about stealthy LOS laser communication between friendly ships that are running silent. I have been thinking about how neat it would be to have dedicated sensor ships in a well protected but otherwise unimportant part of a main fleet formation, these ships, due to their powerful active sensors would light up like a beacon, but they could broad cast their collected data to the rest of the fleet via the safe point to point, but limited by line of sight, laser comms. so as to allow the rest of the fleet to stay comms and sensors silent.
Yep.
ThymineC wrote: Partial support
I suggest that a player should have the choice of flying a support vessel that mixes raw damage-dealing ability with support capabilities to enhance the abilities of allied vessels. One possible form of support would be to supply data to allies that are gathered from the vessel's sensors. At the operational level, the player would be selecting vessels to fire on as well as vessels to focus scanning on. The player would then select allied vessels to transmit the sensor data to. The number of hostiles that could be simultaneously scanned and the quantity and quality of data received about them would depend on the sensor bandwidth of the support vessel (along with things like their resolution), and the number of allies that this data could be transmitted to and the quantity/quality of transmitted data would depend on the broadcasting bandwidth of the support vessel's transmission modules.

In my opinion, the accuracy, range, critical hit chance and overall damage done by weapons should depend upon the quality of sensor data being received by the vessel, because more accurate sensor data allows a ship's weaponry to hit their targets more often and also better aim for the most vulnerable parts of the enemy. Support vessels therefore should in effect be able to grant bonuses to allies that are firing on enemies that the support vessel is maintaining a scan lock on. Here, the player is simply picking and choosing hostile and allied targets and letting the ship's computer handle manipulation of the ship's sensors. The ability of the sensors to automatically gather data will depend on their intelligence, which in turn depends upon the amount of CPU that is allocated to them, as specified in CPU Allocation. This still allows the player the opportunity to do other things in combat, such as deal direct damage to hostiles, but its ability to deal damage directly will be limited compared to that of pure damage-dealing classes of vessels.

Full support
Here, I see the player inside a capital or C&C vessel, dealing zero direct damage against enemies himself but instead precisely controlling sensors to deliver the best sensor information to allied vessels in the fleet, in terms of both quantity and quality. Here, the player will cycle between different visualisation modes corresponding to the data provided about local space from different kinds of sensors. He will focus and target different sensor systems around the battlefield to gain the most information about hostiles within it to transmit to allies and give them the biggest bonuses when combating them. Is a particular hostile particularly well-stealthed to infrared sensor tech? Then the player ought to switch to another type of sensor such as gamma sensors and focus them on that hostile instead. This will require full use of the player's time, though they're free to stop at any time, delegating control of sensors back to the ship's computer or just abandoning this type of support entirely and focusing on supporting allied vessels in other ways.
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Re: Scanner 2.0

#144
Thread necro to continue discussing stuff from the RTB Chapter 1 discussion thread.
Cornflakes wrote:sven:

your first point could be pretty cheap to implement actually.

we know that we will have some kind of event log, for the data market and for fulfilling contracts.

so what if that is just a general log of what happened and you sell excerpts of that logs?

instead of the logs being quest objects, you generate a general log of happenings which contain all you know about the objects related to that event.

so you have log data in your system which for example says "combat [system] [area] [list of combattant ships [Faction][ship type][Status after combat (damaged, destroyed, unknown)]]"
and in the ship list you can select a ship,
this opens the general ship viewer, form where you can look at all the data you have of that ship.
spectra, observed combat capabilities, known equipment etc.

and when you sell some logs, or turn them in for a contract, you only give the relevant parts.
So this is kind of what I meant, but then kind of not. Clearly in all cases you'd need to store your scanned data, which may not be trivial if there's a lot of it (not sure how efficiently it can be stored, after all). However I'm talking about mining that data for patterns (not just ships) that you may have missed - or not even have known about - when you first did the scan.

In the combat case, my avocation of this was merely because you're likely to NOT be looking at the scanner too much. In all other cases, my concept is that you've upgraded your scanner but you don't want to have to go back and rescan all of the systems you visited (or at least those you recorded). Instead you can just mine on what you already have.
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Re: Scanner 2.0

#145
mcsven wrote: So this is kind of what I meant, but then kind of not. Clearly in all cases you'd need to store your scanned data, which may not be trivial if there's a lot of it (not sure how efficiently it can be stored, after all). However I'm talking about mining that data for patterns (not just ships) that you may have missed - or not even have known about - when you first did the scan.
What would a "pattern" be in that context?
In the combat case, my avocation of this was merely because you're likely to NOT be looking at the scanner too much. In all other cases, my concept is that you've upgraded your scanner but you don't want to have to go back and rescan all of the systems you visited (or at least those you recorded). Instead you can just mine on what you already have.
Thats illogical.
Its like saying: "i've got an IR camera now, lets go through my UV camera images again if i can find something new"
errr...

If you dont have the data, you dont have the data.

And if you got a better data gathering device you have to use it to get the data.
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Re: Scanner 2.0

#146
Do we need a continuous stream of data to be recorded passively? That, I think, would get prohibitively large pretty quickly.

But I think I recall Josh commenting on the possibility of recording what we might call "snapshots" of particularly interesting scanner results.

What if the scanner could be programmed to watch for spikes above a given threshold around a given frequency?

Alternately, maybe everyone's scanner passively records a Note -- a particular type of information record -- whenever it detects something interesting, where "interesting" is defined by checking desired boxes for predefined frequency spikes:
  • Star
  • Wormhole
  • Planet
  • City on planet?
  • Asteroid? (maybe too many)
  • Ship (maybe too many? maybe just BIG ships)
  • Concentration of "rare" or "unique" mineral
  • Anomalous reading (no such signature defined in scanner yet)
In either of these cases, a Note would consist of:
  • Timestamp
  • System name
  • Coordinates of signature
  • Signature values
  • Signature description (might be "Unknown")
As you fly around and your scanner picks up particular signatures, it would record discrete notes. You'd then be able to review these notes at your leisure.

[Edit: Scanner notes, as information objects, could be traded like any other piece of information. Detecting a scan pattern belonging to a particular kind of ship -- or maybe even a specific ship -- could be valuable to the right person. New wormhole locations could also be valuable, etc.]

[Also, on a larger point, if we will be able to collect lots of different information objects, I'd sure like to be able to sort them by field, as well as search them by keyword or value range. That's the kind of downtime data mining I'd want to do to figure out, say, where that asteroid was that had the strong spectrum for the extremely valuable Barqite ore.]

[Also nice would be to have a button on every information object record that has system/coordinates associated with it, where I could click the button to add navigation waypoints to that location. (Or maybe autopilot, but waypoints at least.)]

[Er... assuming there will be a navigation planning/waypoint subsystem. Maybe?]

That's not quite the same thing as recording a mass of Big Data and looking for patterns, I know. I would also find that fun. (I don't get out much. :D) But that would be an awful lot of data to record, versus individual notes that I think deliver much of the "where was that cool thing I saw?" kind of fun.

Here's my question: by "signature," are we talking about every energy-emitting source spiking in exactly one frequency?

Or do most sources have multiple simultaneous characteristic spikes, at different levels of intensity, at multiple frequencies?

While I appreciate that matching an energy source type to a characteristic pattern of frequencies is trickier than saying that every energy type has exactly one spike, the more detailed option sure sounds like more fun to me.

[Edited to clarify and enhance the "Scan Note" idea.]
Last edited by Flatfingers on Thu Jan 15, 2015 6:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Scanner 2.0

#147
In principle the detective work approach sounds nice but it would probably turn into a serious chore eventually.

I imagine something like this:

If you notice an odd spike (in realtime) you can bracket the origin of the signal. If you "hit it" closely enough and for a few seconds, you "lock on" to it.
That lets you save some kind of waypoint or mark for a potential point of interest... to be investigated at a later time.

Less abstract than recreating your position and everything at a later time to get a "good look" at it again.
Also a lot easier to find again since you have some sort of anchor to lock into your autopilot. =)
There is no "I" in Tea. That would be gross.

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