Recognized by Council A Way to Relate Jamming, Cloaking and Scanning With Modules.

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    And burst scans take much larger amounts of power.

    Detection on size could also be based on amount of view blocked in a sphere, so the ship size, distance, and profile matter.
     
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    +1 OP, also pilots should get a warning when an active scan has gone off powerful/close enough to spot them.
     

    Jaaskinal

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    Necro noted, this is a good idea. Although lag shouldn't be too much of a problem.


    Detection should also have some involvement with ship movement. A shooting star flying through the battle will be detected, but a still-sitting command center might. Perhaps a multiplier, with stealth being something you want as low as possible. Scanners should also be movement-influenced, a still-sitting scanning station/ship has a better chance of detecting something than a fast moving combat vessel.


    I think they should both be block based, but take a ton of power. Large ships can afford massive scanner dishes, but a small ship probably shouldn't. Scanning/cloaking power cost could also be based on movement, so if a ship stops and waits and powers down a bit it could manage a heavier scan.

    Only problem is that stations would be kinda OP with this, so stations have a base loss in stealth, and a negative multiplier in scan ability.


    Numbers:
    (Y is a number up to debate for balancing)
    Movement-
    Stealth/Scanning ability
    X/(1+[% of max speed]*Y)
    Power-
    X*(1+[% of max speed]*Y)
    Stealth based on size-
    X/(surface area/Y) : Y=100?
    Stealth and Scanning ability are numbers >0 that increase and decrease with added modules.
    With stations, I think that having them be decent at scanning is alright. If people start spawning stations into combat, then maybe a balance change will be necessary, but until then, I think their scan would be fine. In terms of their stealth though, I agree. Stations, despite being stationary, should be easily detectable.

    In terms of power however, I think with the current meta, power would be far too easy to come by, and I think a systems ratio approach right now would be better. When reactors are changed, if they ever are, then maybe a block based solution would be better.

    For stealth, I think mass should be used over surface area, exclusively for creativity and performance reasons. In terms of creativity, if someone had a really large interior and a very complex ship, that would drastically raise their surface area compared to their effectiveness, so I feel like that would be somewhat unfair. For performance though, if someone's getting ripped to shit, calculating their surface area over and over again might be a little more difficult than just keeping up with their mass.

    I totally agree with movement with ships though, that's a great idea!