Space Probes and A Possible Use For Stations

[Skwidz]

The first half of my suggestion is unmanned space probes which can be equipped with long-range sensors (seems like it'll be recon chambers) to detect and pinpoint the location of ships. To make the probe unmanned/remote control it can be given a Bobby AI module with some remote control functions. Fleets give remote control functionality but don't allow viewing from the ship (probe in this case) without the player in it. With those probes a sensor net can be set up in a system with each probe a certain distance (up to 2x2x2 sectors from the probe?) from each other. The distance can probably be modified with the recon chambers.

The second half of my suggestion nerfs the probes and promotes stations. Instead of always having an op sensor net with a few probes sensor stations could be used wihich have greater sensor range and few would be required. I've also been considering a control station which would be required to process all the data from the net and transfer it to allied client ships and can serve as a strategical attack point or could receive a bonus if used as a homebase. If the processing station would be used as a homebase, the bonus received could increase the processing efficiency but would nerf some other homebase thing to promote even more seperate stations.

 

[Nosajimiki]

If you do this, those stations will just be tiny 10 block bases anyway... so not much point. A better nerf would be to scale scanner range based reactor size such that a tiny probe could keep an eye on a small, tactically important area like a warp gate, but much bigger command ships or listening outposts would allow you to keep an eye on larger areas of space such as building something big in the void a whole system away from an enemy HB to keep an eye on them unnoticed. Perhaps there could be a base specific chamber to enhance range a bit to offset its lack of mobility, but this should be of secondary importance.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

I would like a directional component also. Functionally like thrusters would be nice. Could include applying the same or similar thrust management GUI, but applied to scan strength by scanning direction.