Sensors, Detection, Intelligence and Stealth 1.1

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HorseMonster
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Sensors, Detection, Intelligence and Stealth 1.1

Post by HorseMonster »

Sensor Modules
You can't kill a thing if you don't know where it is. Sensor modules allow ships to effectively search locations within a system for ships and other objects.

Sensor Strength
The primary stat of sensor modules, determines the likelihood of detecting an object and also influences the quality of data gathered.

Scan Speed
Scan speed is the maximum number of sensor scans that can be conducted by a ship equipped with this module per turn. This statistic is not cumulative for ships fitted with multiple modules, use the highest value of the modules equipped to the ship only.

Performing scans
Within a fleet each ship equipped with a sensor module is eligible to perform a number of scans up to the Scan Speed. The player in control of the fleet selects the location or locations that he wishes to be scanned and determines which ship or ships will be scanning each location.

Effective Sensor Strength
The Effective Sensor Strength of a scan that is being performed is equal to the Sensor strength of the ship modified by the below factors.

Noise
Noise is ambient interference caused by various phenomena in the universe, each location in a system will have a Noise value and all scans directed at that location will suffer from the same level of Noise interference.

Jamming
Jamming is artificial noise intentionally directed at a fleet to impede its ability to detect targets. A ship with a jamming module may be ordered to engage its jamming equipment once per turn. The player in command of the ship selects a region within the system for the ship to jam, all ships within the jammed region suffer a penalty to all of their scanning attempts until the subsequent turn. Fleets located in space that a jammer is jamming will be aware that they are being jammed.

Stealth
Stealth is a means of passively avoiding detection, the penalty to detection for stealth systems is applied only when scanning targets equipped with stealth technology.

Resolving the Scan

To find the result of the scan a GM will roll 1D100 for each potentially detected object and compare the result to the Effective Sensor Strength of the scanning vessel, if the result of the roll is equal to or less than the ESS of the scanning ship then the object has been detected. (Rolls of 96-100 are always considered to have failed and rolls of 1-5 are always considered successful)

Information Revealed by scans

to determine exactly what information has been gathered on a detected target by a scan find the Margin of Success, this is the difference between the effective sensor strength of the scanning vessel and the result of the D100 roll. Once this is done consult the following table.

Code: Select all

D100 Result| Information revealed
-----------------------------------
0-4  	     | Target Detected
5-10	      | Target Detected, size estimation
11-20        | Target Detected, size estimation, Mass Estimation
21-30        | Target Detected, size estimation, Mass Estimation, Faction
31-40        | Target Detected, size estimation, Mass Estimation, Faction, damage status
40+          | Target Detected, size estimation, Mass Estimation, Faction, damage status, specific object name
Last edited by HorseMonster on Wed Nov 03, 2010 12:03 am, edited 4 times in total.
Reason: Title fix
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Arcalane
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Re: Sensors, Detection, Intelligence and Stealth 1.0

Post by Arcalane »

Thoughts: A ship's inbuilt sensors (ignoring any special sensor arrays) should, at the very least, be able to semi-reliably pick out the presence, size and possibly type/alignment of ships in a system, assuming zero/low background noise, no jamming and no stealth tech. Bigger ships need to be easier to detect to a certain degree.

Tech: Possibly needs dedicated anti-stealth sensors that are highly effective at detecting stealthed ships, but lacking in other areas?

Stealth: Should be fairly hard to attain and use. Installing stealth tech should be expensive and detrimental to a ship's HP/mass allowance. You can't go fitting a battleship with stealthtech and expect it to hold it's own against a non-stealthteched battleship in a 1v1.

Design: Stealth ships should look stealthy. In all the classic ways that are kind of pointless for space stealth, but still. This should be enforced. No rainbow stealth ships.

Weapons/Modules: Energy weapons/high-energy powergen/propulsion (excluding the top-tier gravitics) are detrimental to one's stealth capabilities, as are the employment of sensor arrays.
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