Scanner Computer activation via logic

[nightwalker_007]

Currently scanners can only be activated when inside of a ship core from the quick bar. Even hitting "R" on the scanner computer does nothing (yet the scanner will still soak up energy when charging). Have you ever heard of a space station in any sci-fi universe that doesn't have sensors of some kind?

Lets all allow logic activation of scanners, as well as activation when hitting "R", regardless of where the scanner is attached: asteroids, ships, planets, or stations. With logic activation, it will also allow ship with scanners to automatically scan as they pass through a system (however, a side effect of scanning should be negating the effects of a radar jammer for a cool-down period).

This would also allow an un-manned station to detect incoming cloaked ships, and thus solve the cloaker-pokers problem where a fully armed station wouldn’t be able to detect or defend against an approaching ship (if a vessel has warheads, it's detection radius should double).

 

[Heillos]

No, not for ships at least. Stations? Perhaps.

If scanners could be activated by logic, I would build the following system, as would many other players, effectively removing any cloaked gameplay from the meta: several 1-block scanners on separate entities docked to one ship, linked to logic which activates them sequentially at a regular frequency. It would not be difficult to make them fire at a rate greater than 1 per 30 seconds (this is the cooldown of a cloaker deactivated by scanning), permanently disabling any cloakers in the sector. Increasing frequency would simply cause cloakers to be shut down more quickly upon arrival.

Therefore, at the very least I cannot condone the possibility of ship-mounted logic scanners. Stations are something I remain uncertain about. To avoid the above scenario, I am confident that only the station entity itself, not any docked entity, should be entitled to use a logic scanner. Alongside the fact that an entity can have exactly one scanner, this should prove reasonably balanced, requiring a decent investment in scanner blocks (and therefore power cost) to operate a very fast scanner.

In fact, if this is exclusively about managing warhead-pokers, perhaps logic scanners should only decloak entities containing warheads, or entities in any docking chain that contains a warhead? I'll wager there are loopholes to this, too, but avoiding unnecessary limitation on such a niche mechanic as cloaking is a desirable goal.

 

[Lecic]

Stations and AI need some sort of scanner triggering mechanism. Logic is absolutely not it. Imagine, for one second, a ship with a dozen scanner systems on a long clock so that no ship can stay cloaked or jammed near it for more than a few seconds. Does this sound like a good idea to you? Because it's not. This would absolutely ruin any semblance of balance between scanners and stealth we currently have.
Allow stations and AI ships to scan automatically after taking damage or if they spot a jammed ship within their sector. Do not allow for the scanner equivalent of a chaindrive.

 

[Sachys]

What about:

1: stations get to use scanners (they need them)
2: any station that is the claim station for a system, will auto scan once every x seconds (say one or two minutes), that a neutral or enemy is reported to have entered that sector - PROVIDED there are no faction members on.

Hopefully that would provide some kind of balance - stations need a buff. But scanners and logic would just be abused

 

[Jojomo]

This would mean the complete end of cloaking and jamming though.

Wouldn't it be preferable to have decloak on torpedo launch (child undock) and onboard warhead damage (cloaker pokers)?

 

[Sachys]

This would mean the complete end of cloaking and jamming though.

Wouldn't it be preferable to have decloak on torpedo launch (child undock) and onboard warhead damage (cloaker pokers)?

Also good.

 

[DrTarDIS]

"oh no, a counter to offline greifing! Such a bad idea! Let me ignore mass and dependancy chain thought while I cry foul!"


if you REALLY think ships would invest in enough scanner modules or scanner-plus-computer-plus-core-plus-docker-plus-rail-plus-mass-enhancement-plus-time-plus-energy-plus-logic to "remove cloakers entirely" you have zero math comprehension and need to remove yourself from all balance topics till you GIT GHUD.

 

[Lecic]

2: any station that is the claim station for a system, will auto scan once every x seconds (say one or two minutes), that a neutral or enemy is reported to have entered that sector - PROVIDED there are no faction members on.

The only problem I see with this is that there's no notification for when they've left territory, only entered, so it would continue autoscanning until a faction member logged in.

"oh no, a counter to offline greifing! Such a bad idea! Let me ignore mass and dependancy chain thought while I cry foul!"

if you REALLY think ships would invest in enough scanner modules or scanner-plus-computer-plus-core-plus-docker-plus-rail-plus-mass-enhancement-plus-time-plus-energy-plus-logic to "remove cloakers entirely" you have zero math comprehension and need to remove yourself from all balance topics till you GIT GHUD.

You seriously don't think people would invest a little bit of time in making a docked module that can completely remove all risk of cloaked or jammed enemies? You're a fool. I don't even know what you mean with "mass and dependancy chain thought" or "zero math comprehension"- the mass for such a system would be incredibly low, it has nothing to do with "dependancy chains thought," whatever the hell that means, and the math to set it up is something anyone could do in a couple minutes.

 

[DrTarDIS]

You seriously don't think people would invest a little bit of time in making a docked module that can completely remove all risk of cloaked or jammed enemies? You're a fool. I don't even know what you mean with "mass and dependancy chain thought" or "zero math comprehension"- the mass for such a system would be incredibly low, it has nothing to do with "dependancy chains thought," whatever the hell that means, and the math to set it up is something anyone could do in a couple minutes.

They say, without actually doing it. Gut-feeling argument only. Case in point for what I said.

 

[nightwalker_007]

What about:

1: stations get to use scanners (they need them)
2: any station that is the claim station for a system, will auto scan once every x seconds (say one or two minutes), that a neutral or enemy is reported to have entered that sector - PROVIDED there are no faction members on.

Hopefully that would provide some kind of balance - stations need a buff. But scanners and logic would just be abused

If a scanner on a station behaved differently than on a ship, and would auto-scanned, that would work too. The end result is the same: Cloaked ships approaching a station would be detected before they get close enough to ram the station. Also would mean the scanner would have a constant power drain on the station too.

 

[Sachys]

The only problem I see with this is that there's no notification for when they've left territory, only entered, so it would continue autoscanning until a faction member logged in.

yup - hence i suggest a delayed scan of something like two minutes to give some kind of balance.
of course it would do more than protect from cloak prods by unjamming other unfriedlies in the area, so i dunno.

 

[Heillos]

They say, without actually doing it. Gut-feeling argument only. Case in point for what I said.

Why you are so filled with disbelief, I don't know, but I'm happy to clear things up.

A 1-block scanner in a small module consisting of (core+docker+wireless+scan comp+scan antenna) charges in less than 23 seconds, but we'll call it 25 because that's a nice number. 5 of these can be fired at 5-second intervals continuously, drawing a mere 25,125 e/sec while all are charging (probably less than this in practice). To the best of my knowledge, the majority of cloaked ships cannot cause meaningful damage within 5 seconds of entering a sector. This, therefore, would be enough to nullify cloaked threats, unless you disagree with the previous sentence. A blueprint of the concept for this (which doesn't work, obviously, but illustrates the point) is available here.

Given the small size (24*3*3) of such a unit, I'm confident that most large ships would happily fit one, as they also did when chaindrives were publicized and developed; the convenience is undeniable. Heck, for all I know, a single large docked scanner (also self-sufficient) that charges in 5 seconds is even smaller again! I haven't bothered to investigate that, though.

If you think that 5 seconds is still too slow to stop a cloaker, I'm sure you can see that it would be relatively trivial to increase the frequency, and this proof-of-concept hasn't even been miniaturized (it was built in less than 30 minutes).

Having gone over this, perhaps you will accept that unhindered logic scanners pose an undeniable threat to the very niche cloaking meta, and that more tactful solutions to the (also undeniable) issue of offline cloaked griefing, in particular with warhead-pokers, should be discussed.

 

[Zyrr]

what did he mean by this?

 

[Tunk]

Oh man, I can just imagine modifying a rotary spamhibitor into a spamscanner.
Might as well remove jam/cloak at that point.

 

[Jojomo]

"oh no, a counter to offline greifing! Such a bad idea! Let me ignore mass and dependancy chain thought while I cry foul!"


if you REALLY think ships would invest in enough scanner modules or scanner-plus-computer-plus-core-plus-docker-plus-rail-plus-mass-enhancement-plus-time-plus-energy-plus-logic to "remove cloakers entirely" you have zero math comprehension and need to remove yourself from all balance topics till you GIT GHUD.

You presumably know a docked scanner only considers its own mass, not the mass of its parent. So a "chain scanner" that scanned faster than cloak cooldowns would be small and cheap.

 

[Endal]

You want to buff a stupid system?
Seriously?
Want to know how to prevent unstoppable cloaked assaults on stations? Wait till the whole system is reworked.

Why? Because the current mechanics are bad in their concept alone, not because they lack features.

 

[splatthecat]

Two points.

1. While I agree in a sci-fi universe most ships and stations have a scanner bur in most cases, someone has to run to a terminal of some kind and run a scan.

I have a "scanner desk" which is essentially a docked entity that I run to to perform a manual scan. It gets "round" the problem and adds an RP element.

2. A scanners ability to "break" a cloak/radar jammer should be linked to the power of the scanner. A single block antenna scanner should not be able to disable my cloaker or jammer. At best, an indication of the last know position that fades in time perhaps. A stronger scanner should however be able to shut jammers and cloakers down.

 

[Jaaskinal]

"oh no, a counter to offline greifing! Such a bad idea! Let me ignore mass and dependancy chain thought while I cry foul!"


if you REALLY think ships would invest in enough scanner modules or scanner-plus-computer-plus-core-plus-docker-plus-rail-plus-mass-enhancement-plus-time-plus-energy-plus-logic to "remove cloakers entirely" you have zero math comprehension and need to remove yourself from all balance topics till you GIT GHUD.

I was going to say something, but Heillos beat me to it. If 800+ people downloaded logic that just charges their JD's for them, and lets them go across the galaxy faster, I really don't know how many people wouldn't download something that eliminates both cloakers and radar jammers.

TBH, I like one of my old suggestions with this. Recognized by Council - A Way to Relate Jamming, Cloaking and Scanning With Modules.

 

[jorgekorke]

2017 and people still use the word griefing in Starmade..........

 

[texkiernan]

I think the notion of scanning is fundamental and should be automation capable. Perhaps deficiency is in the cloaking and jamming systems. I haven't worked with these systems much but I imagine they are dependent on mass and require progressively larger amounts of power to hide larger objects.

Would it be practical to detect the presence of a cloaked vessel but not its location until it reaches a dangerously close proximity. So close that it does negate the value being cloaked but it doesn't make it impossible to defend against it?