Scanners and Jump Inhibitors on Stations.
- Thread starter Cornedo
- Start date
Scanners: Yes, but no. You can (probably) place them, but you obviously can't activate them via the hotbar, and logic doesn't work with scanners for balance reasons.
Jump Drive Inhibitors: Yep. Place 'em, link 'em, then link any logic signal to the input. They're like flip-flops, mind you; one pulse to turn on (and stay on), another pulse to turn off again.
Jump Drive Inhibitors: Yep. Place 'em, link 'em, then link any logic signal to the input. They're like flip-flops, mind you; one pulse to turn on (and stay on), another pulse to turn off again.
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The best way I have found for scanners is to dock a scanner to the station, then hop in when you want to scan
therimmer96
The Cake Network Staff Senior button unpusher
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Fairly sure you can press R on a scanner while it is on a station to get the info sent to your nav menu. Not sure if it will decloak peoples though.
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Heillos was right, this doesn't work and scanners cannot be activated on a station unless built on a docked entity and manually activated. I would love to be proven wrong on this though if anyone does have a method that works.
Keptick
Building masochist
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Well, you could have a docked entity integrated into the station to get the same effect.
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...like a radar dish! It's not a bug, it's a feature! :D
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Yeah I know, that's why I mentioned this exact method. I wouldn't complain if I could have one on the station activated by logic either but can understand the argument for that being potentially overpowered.
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People get a bit sad when they get auto detected while spying on people's bases in cloaked ships and subsequently shot to shit I believe is the issue, which in a serious pvp environment is a valid complaint.
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Well, If our stations cant autoscan then it is impossible for them to defend themselfs against a stealth ship(s) Assault while the owner is offline- if your spying on someones station in a stealth ship then the risk of being autoscanned is acceptable yes?
No, absolutely not. With balance as it currently is, and jump inhibitors being available, being scanned means a very probable (if not certain) death for a stealth ship, if the defending forces are intelligent. I'm okay with this, personally, being caught out by another player and then killed because of their actions is fair play. Making that process automatic? Bad idea.
If a stealth ship is attacking a station while its owners are offline, there will still be periods of time wherein the stealth ship is vulnerable (cloaking cooldown after firing; and jammers don't stop automated defenses anyway). Coupled with some automated jump inhibitors, an unattended station can defend itself against any attacking stealth ship well enough (probably better than it could against legitimate warships, due to the inherently weak nature of most stealth ships)
On the other hand, a stealth ship which is there to scout should not be automatically nullified by a few scanners tied to a clock. It is one thing for an attentive player to remain online, firing scans frequently to ensure the scout doesn't get a good look around, but any kind of automated procedure for this would effectively ruin the balance between stealth and scanning. Imagine a fleet of warships with constantly-scanning logic setups (because this would indubitably happen). For very little effort (besides initial setup), a fleet could be constantly secure and aware of their surroundings, and would be able to engage in combat without disabling this functionality (whereas right now, scanning mid-combat means a pilot taking their finger off the trigger for a second).
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Okay, so this idea gave me pause, but I'm gonna go ahead and hit you with a "no" again.
First of all, I'd like to point out that weapons fire while cloaked already puts cloaking on cooldown. As to it disabling shields, stealth ships are already a class of ships that have very limited capability in direct combat, and I think this would just be an unneeded nerf to their already-limited chances of survival once discovered.
Anyway, my primary issue with this idea is that it would basically nullify part of the usage of manually-operated scanners, just to justify logic-operated ones. When players are online, and aware that a stealth ship is in the area (thanks to the "Player has entered your space" notifications which faction players receive), they would no longer be able to actually scan this person out properly, leaving them at a disadvantage (no automated weapons can fire on a cloaked ship, as far as I am aware). This would mean that, besides a manually-operated defense (which is relatively hard to coordinate, against a rapidly-moving stealth ship), scouts would have almost no worries, even while contending with an actively defending player.
Without players involved, logic-operated scanners would still achieve very little in terms of base defense. As I've said in my previous post, most competently-built bases can defend themselves against a cloaked attack without issue, with no need for any kind of automatic scanner. It is mainly just players that would be nerfed, and that is not desirable.
So, unless you want to dispute the idea that unattended bases, when built well, do not have a significant need for automated scanners, such systems only really hold water as some kind of small buff to defending players on a station (which manually-operated scanners do just fine right now, and better than they would with your proposal), or in fleet combat, as some kind of constantly-cycling early-warning system (also works just fine right now, with manually-operated scanners). I suppose they could also possibly be used in a large-scale grid to track ships across a large area, but this would require a way for their data to return home.
This last usage is the only one I am not opposed to. It would be interesting to see a different scanner block, which we'll call "Auto-Scanner" for the moment, which just cycles as fast as it can. Some kind of data-return mechanism would be needed; I think the simplest would be that it activates any adjacent Activation Modules or Buttons when it scans a player-controlled ship. I do not think this type of scanner should have the ability to put cloaking or jamming on cooldown, though of course it would still notify any pilots that they had been scanned.
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Fine. All I want is a blasted scanner that will work on a blasted station. Why don't you have access to a hotbar while in a station anyway. Obviously stations can't move, but there are plenty of other systems that a station hotbar could make easier, even if a lot of them can be activated by logic.
If that's all you want, dock a scanner to the station (ship which is just core, docker, scan comp, antenna). People have posted that already. Some inconvenience in accessing it, but it's far more efficient than one on the station would be.
Also, yeah, I can get behind a station "Control Mode" that has hotbars to put logic, scanners, etc. on. Either accessible through all the build blocks (possible conflicts between multiple users, or a singular block (Currently-existing Faction Module, or possibly a new Station Core block). Regardless of implementation, it'd be a very useful feature.