Sensor Beacon Tracking System

[DreadShimmra]

The general idea is this:

1. You have a faction home base (or faction owned station) that has a controlling computer, ala a warp gate computer

2. You have a flavor of the marker beam that allows you to connect that controlling block to a counterpart module, that you could either place on a faction owned ship, or onto a non faction owned ship, like with a warhead

3. The block that is placed on a faction owned ship can be queried by the controlling computer on the station, and it would allow for exact location of a ship by a faction member of a certain rank (ideally)

4. The block that is placed on a non faction owned ship would only locate to the accuracy of a solar system, and you would have to go send a ship with a scanner array on it to find the "beacon" you have attached, which if located would allow you to warp to it once, via the scan results menu, or via the star map.

Further abstracting this idea could potentially allow for some very handy AI usage, such as allowing a bobby AI module to return to either a designated point, or back to the station that the controlling computer is located on. or even being able to put up blocks to serve as way-points for automated ships either using thrusters or via jump drives.

Honestly, I would love to hear from whomever has an opinion on this, all sensible things will be replied to!

 

[jayman38]

I like this idea. I think the beacon should have a massive, certain energy draw, that doesn't show up in the build mode, to be a way that careful spacers could discover that they have a beacon attached. ("Where's that extra 50k energy going?? What's this box in the hold? Why does it have the enemy faction name on it??? EXTERMINATE! Or maybe remove it to an asteroid near the local star and hope they warp into the star.")