Josh wants to use it in principle but as always, it would be nice to spot the holes in my design before anything gets implemented. =)
The range at which you see targets is not the same as the range at which you are seen.
In most space games (like the one where the name starts with an X) there is no such distinction.
Your own sensor range (at what range you can see ship X) depends on...
- What kind of sensor package you have installed
Again, I would not make this a completely vertical progression. There should be a reason for not always wanting the one with the highest range.
Properties of your sensor system could be:
- Range, obviously.
- Resolution. Time after which additional information about a target is revealed.
Same as moving closer and getting a better view - only with shadowing the target without being noticed. - Time / modifier to achieve missile lock.
- Number of missiles the ship can fire before sensor echoes increase lock-on time / rate of fire.
- Number of targets the ship's turrets can track at any one time.
This can be a huge advantage in missile defense but it depends on how the turret AI works.
The X3:AP missile defense (aka mine) fires a burst at one missile, then switches to the next while the bullets are still in flight. That way a battery can engage an entire swarm of missiles without having a long stream of wasted bullets incoming to... the dust cloud formerly known as a missile. - Ability to accurately fire at targets that another ship sees.
Without that ability (or with a low score in it), accuracy would be terrible when working with a "spotter".
I'm thinking capital ship with Big Bertha guns here. Earth-shattering kaboom. - Dedicated passive system. (more on that below)
Better range than a similarly sized system... unless the other one goes active. - Ability to scan asteroids for content.
- Energy settings of your Sensor system.
Energy settings would be the distribution towards weapons, shields, sensors, and so on.
- (0 - 50%) : Passive sensors. 0 - 50 km range.
- (50 - 100%) : Active sensors. 75-150 km range.
- Size and stealth rating of the target.
Stealth rating reduces the range at which your sensors can see the target.
If a ship has 33% stealth you (at the 150km setting) would only see it at 100km.
Bigger ships can be detected at much longer range and investing in their "Stealth" properties may not be very advantageous. - Target emissions.
- If the target is using active sensors,
( target.active.sensor.range * 1.2 ) is added to your sensor range for the purpose of seeing it.
The same slightly stealthed ship from above, that you see at 100 km, now turns it's sensors to full power. Also 150 km active.
Now you can see it at 280 km. (100 + 150 * 1.2)
It's pretty pointless having a stealthy ship if you radiate your presence all over the system. Strong emitters are very easy to spot. - Weapon, Shield, and Engines energy settings.
Shields are energy surrounding the ship and can be detected.
Weapons may leak energy or show their "warmed up" state.
Engines have exhaust of some sort. Detectable.
Either way, the more "offensive" a ship is acting, the easier it can be seen.
The problem here is that we are dealing with cases of potential output.
Your engine system can be at 100% power... while the ship is stationary.
That is counter-intuitive.
While it would be "correct" to tie emissions to actual output, such as weapon fire or actual shield strength, it would be a very turbulent system.
How many guns are you firing and what kind of? If your shield gets hit and it's strength so reduced, it would be creating lower emissions. Impossible to keep track of.
With delayed energy settings it wouldn't be much of a problem because it becomes a gameplay item.
Delayed would mean that you set your shield power to 100%... but it takes a minute or two to actually reach the 100% setting.
(the stronger your generators are, the less responsive they get)
This is important if you want ambushes in the game because this creates a reaction time.
A capital ship tries to remain undetected and lowers it's weapon / shield energy... and then the stealth fighter wing comes out of nowhere, attacking while the capital ship's systems are crawling towards their 100% settings.
Should have used scouts. =)
While not ideal, I'd rather have a playable system, where you adjust your systems like this and you get that result. Always.
Please, someone convince me that it can stay manageable with a system based on "output" rather than "availability". =)
- Engines.
I wouldn't want to tie major emission output to them.
It's super annoying if you have to crawl somewhere when "sneaking".
There will be a moderate increase when running engines at 100%... but a big jump when you also use some sort of afterburner system in a combat situation.
- Engines.
- If the target is using active sensors,
- ECM.
Transmitting junk to confuse enemy sensors and missiles.
As always, the fact that the target is transmitting something makes it more visible.
OTOH, it lowers your resolution. (see above)
You know that something is there but you can't tell what it is. You have to get closer or use even stronger sensors to "burn through" it's ECM.
You do know that it's using ECM so it's probably up to no good.
This might also make it impossible to see the other ships that are close to it, even though they are technically "in range". Surprise!
Another way to look at it would be that ECM lowers the sensor range of other ships within "ECM range".
This way a dedicated ECM ship could cover an approaching strike force... while being a brightly lit target itself.
If ECM is a separate system from sensors, it should add (somewhat) to the "active sensors" range.
IMO, the stronger of the two is the base, the other adds maybe 1/3 of it's "range value".
Have to avoid things scaling to silly values.
If ECM is a function of your sensor system (and not available if you have "all passive" sensors), then there can only be one range.
But you have to adjust power between ECM and sensors. You can't have both at 100 %. You can have one at 30 and the other at 70 %. What's more important to you? - Wake Field / Proximity
The Wake Field already computes a gradual effect of some sort on the smaller ship... so it could use a similar gradiant to somewhat reduce the sensor echo of the smaller ship. You would be able to hide behind (or rather around =) a bigger object. That could be a capital ship or asteroid.
Asteroid fields would be... dangerous ground.
Lots of asteroids to mask the sensor echos of potential hostiles. Great for making a quick getaway if you hop from asteroid to asteroid.
You might get a mission to dig a pirate clan out of an asteroid field. Jungle warfare in space!
The speed reduction suggested for the wake field might also be a useful trade-off. You can "dive" down on an asteroid and skim it's surface to evade detection, but that would come at the price of speed. Any potential ambushers would have trouble evading the orbital bombardment if they were found.
Much more gameplay than asteroids being just a navigational hazard that you can see from a million kilometers... so that they're no real danger in the first place. - Orientation
I'm not a big fan of that because it's terribly fiddly to control an AI ship in a way that makes use of this. But it's one more possibility...
A ship is more visible if it points it's engines towards the scanner trying to find it. (original suggestion) - Excessively Large Sensor Arrays (ELSA)
Stations and/or planets could ignore mass / size / volume limitations that make ELSA impractical on space ships.
Therefore these could have really large sensor ranges and give the defender an edge.
In space and with 3D movement, defense is terribly difficult to begin with. Stacking the deck is probably required for interesting gameplay. =)
Musings and implications
There is a point to the "sensor power" setting. If there is no trade-off, what would make you want to not run it at full power, all the time?
This system would allow sneaking and ambushes. Clever strategic maneuvering. Use of scouts.
Much, much more interesting than 100% gods-eye view over your entire sensor range... with everyone having the exact same sensor range. (as in a certain other space game)
It might lead to an entirely new ship class! The C&C vessel.
All packed with sensors and ECM. Not much of a fighter but the eyes and ears of a task force... and suuuuch an inviting target! =)
All stop, silent running.
It's doesn't get any cooler than that. =)
A constant trade-off with zero additional fiddle to be added anywhere.
It's just a consequence of your energy settings and the ship's equipment.
Of course, it needs UI elements to illustrate the "emissions" that you're currently creating. That's easy, though.
An "Overall Visibility" display on the HUD would be tricky because it always depends on the sensors of the ship(s) looking for you.
It may be possible to add this information to contacts that you know about but that don't know about you, yet.
If you have spotted them and have enough resolution / time on target for an evaluation of their sensor strength, you could know how close you are to being spotted.
Stealth gameplay stuff.