Which scanner is the best choice?
 

Some thoughts on the 5 available scanners, I begin with the cheapest to research, end with the most expensive Tachyon sensors:

1) Hyper Optics (255 K of RP):
-BTW you get some tech areas: Combat Support, Torpedo Weapons, PDF Weapons, Weapon Overloading Weapons, Ship Capture, Advanced Military Science
-and some Facilities: Ship + Fleet Training Facilities

2) Psychic Receptors (Racial Trait needed, 350 K of RP):
-Facilities: Psychic Ship/Fleet Training Facilities
-leads to Psychic Scanner Facility (any ship within system can be scanned in detail)

3) Temporal Sensors (Racial Trait needed, 350 K of RP):
-Facilities: Events Predictor Fac.(System Combat Bonus), Temp. Vacation Service (Happiness)
-leads to Temp. Spaceyard Fac.

4) Gravitic Sensors (450K of RP):
- Tech Areas: Stellar Manipulation, Tractor/Repulser Weapons, Stellar Harnessing, Gravitational Weapons, Null-Space Weapons

5) Tachyon Sensors (1100 K of RP):
-Tech Areas: Shields, Sensors, Energy Stream Weapons, Energy Pulse Weapons, Combat Sensors (attack bonus)

I think Tachyon Sensors are WAY too expensive to research, ok you need some of the tech areas of the basic research (e.g. shields), but the 750 K of Research Points at the end just to get Tachyon Sensor III is too much.

Any thoughts ?

Does anyone use Long Range Scanners to detect enemy ships in detail ?

Re: Which scanner is the best choice?
 

Yeah... mod 'em

In my current mod:

Hyper optics: 40 tons like normal.

Tacychon Sensors: 20 tons, research cost has been reduced to make them the easiest to get... but they get spoofed by stealth armor and cloaking easier than hyper optics.

Gravitic Sensors: 50 tons, stealth armor has no cloak vs. them & cloaking devices fail often (level 3 cloak can only beat lvl1 grav scanner)... a new cloak device that works well against grav scanners is available (also 50 tons) through the same research, but it dosen't cloak vs. normal (you need both the gravitic inhibitor and cloaking device)

Temporal Scanners: a bit better than hyper optics but only 30 tons. Can defeat the best nebulas.

Psychic sensors: 40 tons, but only lvl 1 is vunerable to any form of normal cloak... Psychic shielding is available (but requires psychic trait) to block lvl.2, but lvl 3 defeats EVERYTHING! Psychic people have the best sensors, but I didn't improve on their weapons as I did for temporal.

Re: Which scanner is the best choice?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Trachmyr:
... Psychic people have the best sensors, ...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/shock.gif Our Psi Corps applauds... http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/shock.gif

Your mod looks interesting, I will give it a try. Do you have an upload somewhere in the mod section ? I should be able to mod it from your description if not...

Re: Which scanner is the best choice?
 

Trachmyr, I like your ideas about varying the effectiveness of the different sensors . As it is now there is only a need to research one type to level 4 and you are done. I would like to see more varients like you propose, cloaking devices that only worked against one type of sensor, some low level sensors seeing higher cloaking levels etc. You could tailor your fleet to a specific enemy weakness.
I did it with mines, made one type of mine that was only visible to each type of sensor and it was neat. The only problem was I had about 30 different mine designs.

Re: Which scanner is the best choice?
 

My mod isn't ready for release, I have to work on the AI (right now I'm running every race on a modified default), additionally, a lot of what I want to incorporate requires that MM activates the CUSTOM GROUPS in componets.txt... so I'm afraid until then I won't be uploading (I am considering uploading a watered down Version after I fix the AI, but before custom Groups).

As for sensors/cloaks, here is what I have or will have in the game:

Ladar (30 Tons, early in game) gives Active2/Active3/Active4

Xadar (50 Tons, Middle-Late game) gives Active3/Active4/Active5 and scans to 3/4/5 sectors

Tachyon Sensor (20 Tons, Late game) gives Active 3/4/5

Hyper optics (40 Tons, Early) gives Passive 2/3/4

Emmissions Scanner (30/25/20 tons, early) gives passive 2/2/2 and scans to 1/2/3 sectors

EM-Band Sensors (40 tons, mid game) gives passive 3/4/5

Full Sensor Suite (75 tons, late game-requires both passive & active sensor research) gives both Active&Passive 4/5/6

Radscanner (30 tons, late game) gives Passive 3/4/5 and scans 5/7/10 sectors

Multiscaner (60 tons, late game) gives Passive 4/5/5, active 3/4/5 and scans 7/10/13 sectors

Gravscanner (50 Tons, Racial-gravity tech is a new racial area) gives gravitic scanning 1/3/5

Temporal Sensors (30 Tons, Racial) gives temporal 1/3/5

Psychic Reseptors (40 Tons, Racial) gives psychic 2/4/6 and scans to 0/2/4 sectors

Resonance Scanners (80 tons, Unique) gives passive 4/5/6 and scans to 3/7/13 sectors


Cloaking Devices:

Stealth Armor (Armor 30 Tons, early game) Provides passive 2 cloak (Which means lvl 2 passive scanners will beat it), and active 3/4/5 cloak

Emissions Cloaking (Will be Armor or componet of about 30 tons, early game) may give active 2 cloak, will give Passive 3/4/5 cloak

Scattering Armor (Armor 20 tons, early-Mid game) gives active and passive cloak of 1(which does nothing!)/2/3 and blocks scans

Reactive Camufalge surface (Armor of 20/10/10 tons- early-mid game) gives active & passive cloak of 2/2/3

Scanner Jammer (Device of 20/15/10 tons-mid game) blocks scanning

Claoaking Device (40 tons-late) active/passive cloak of 4/5/6 and temporal claok of 0/1/2

Distortion Cloak (50 Tons-very late) active cloak of 5/6/7, passive cloak of 4/5/6, temporal/Gravity cloak of 2/3/4, Psychic cloak of 1/2/3, Blocks scanners

Gravitic Inhibitor (40 Tons, Racial) gravitic cloaking of 2/4/6

Psychic Shielding (25/25/50 tons, Racial) Psychic cloak 3/5/7

Chameleon Armor (20 tons regen-armor, Racial(organic)) Active cloaking of 3/4/5 and Passive of 4/5/6

Spatial Cloaking Device (60 tons, new tech area, active/temporal cloak of 5/6/7, passive cloak of 7/7/7 gravitic cloak of 2/3/4, Psychic cloak of 3/4/5, blocks scans


Nebulas have a cloak from 2-6

Mines cloak passive 7, active 4, psychic 3, temporal 2


well, that's it... not all are in yet and they still need to be tweaked!



[This message has been edited by Trachmyr (edited 21 April 2001).]

Re: Which scanner is the best choice?
 

Your ideas about cloaking and sensors are very interesting Trachmyr. Did you check out what happens if you combine different cloaking components? Are they adding up their cloaking in the different areas? The most critical point IMO is, that it should always be impossible to create a totally invisible ship, because this would unbalance the game.

Re: Which scanner is the best choice?
 

Yes the componets work together, as does the sensors... The only cloak that is "unbeatable" is Spatial Cloaking Device... and only against passive/active/temporal... gravitic can still find it unless it has gravitic inhibitors (60 + 40 tons=100 tons of cloaking), and psychic will find it unless it has psychic sheielding (+50 tons more for 150tons total... and that's 3 racial tech areas: Spatial, Psychic & Gravitic). But the spatial cloak cost a lot of supplies, and their are no quantum reactors in my mod! (not to mention the supply cost for the other 2 cloak componets)... furthermore, big ships need more engines & crew/lifespt. in my mod than the normal game... so you have to be very cautious about using your tonnage (for instance, a dreadnought needs 40 engines to get top speed and requires 8 crew/lifesupport). So far it seems to be balanced, but I got a lot more testing to do on these componets.

Re: Which scanner is the best choice?
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Mines cloak passive 7, active 4, psychic 3, temporal 2<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Is that enough to block all detection?
It would be kind of silly to have mines visible.

Re: Which scanner is the best choice?
 

Like Marty said, just because you can see 'em... dosen't wean they won't hurt you. In my mod, they are invisiable to all passive sensors, can be seen by the best active/temporal sensors, by lvl 2 psychic receptors or by any gravscanner.

Allthough I think I'm gonna try to make some cloaking tech for mines. Particullarly for my new spatial tech line (They already have warheads that skip armor! talk about ouch!)



[This message has been edited by Trachmyr (edited 22 April 2001).]

Re: Which scanner is the best choice?
 

Sounds very cool, but how does the AI deal with all the different cloaking devices and scanners?

Re: Which scanner is the best choice?
 

Ahh... good point about the AI. Truth is I haven't really gotten to AI modding yet... It is quite possible that I might have to reduce the number of sensore/cloaks to let the AI have a chance. What I plan to do, is have the AI only research a few types of sensors and cloaks, thus they'll be less chance of confusion. The I'll have to find a way to make sure the AI uses the best sensors/cloaks available. One thing I'll do with sensors, is create a "Scout" and "Capital Ship" design for attack ships and a "patrol ship" for defense ships... thus only a few ships will have sensors. For cloaks, each race will have 1 or 2 cloak combinations that will be applied to all attack ships & special operation ships(i.e., deystroy star, minelayer, etc.).

For instance, take a "human" empire:

Techs available: Ladar, Hyper-optics/EM Band Scanner, Emissions scanner, Stealth Armor, Emissions Cloaking and scanner jammers

"Patrol" defense ships will have Passive scanning and scanners

"Scout" attack ships will have Passive/active/stealth/emmissions

"Capital" attack ships will have the same as scouts plus scanners and jammers

All other attack ships will have stealth/emmissions/jammers

This will give the "Humans" early cloak ability, that will not be effective in the later game (but it will still be armor), and good sensors.

I would like to give them more variety but that causes confusion because each type of componet that the AI_Design_Creation calls for requires one componet be built... for instance, lets say I give them CLOAKING DEVICES, when the AI reads that the ship needs 1 Passive cloak and 1 active cloak, it will build 1 cloaking device to satisfy each requirement (thus 2 cloaking devices will be built). So for race that use cloaking devices, I can only call for 1 cloak type to be built... which means in the early game they will not be able to use a combination of componets to cloak in multiple areas... I could allow them to research scattering armor, thus the call for 1 type of claok will build an item that provides multiple protection. It's gonna be really confusing to write the AI, and I have to seperate each cloaking/sensor type into seperate tech fields (with a few exceptions, like hyper-optics/EM Band scanners wich are direct "improvements")

Well, I'll just have to cross my fingers that I'll be able to get the AI to use 'em effectivly!

ARRRRRG! Just looked at AI_Design_creation.txt, and realized you can't make calls for seperate types of cloak/sensors! I'm gonna have to alter some things to make it work like I want. All hopes not lost, I can modify the way they research techs, make calls for armor instead of cloaks, or use some of the tags I through out to call for specific items (for instance I through out Emergency Resupply and Emergency Propulsion, I can add those abilities (giving 0 supplies/propulsion) to some of the sensors/cloaks and then call for those abilities (getting the sensor/cloak I want). Oh, well... looks like modding the AI just got a lot more difficult!

[This message has been edited by Trachmyr (edited 23 April 2001).]

Re: Which scanner is the best choice?
 

I use visible mines and it works good. I have some that are invisible unless you have a certain type and level of sensor. The basic, very crude, mine is visible to all.
You still get hit by them going through a warp point, which makes them useful even if you can see them. Once you got into a system you can where others are located, provided you have the right sensors.

Re: Which scanner is the best choice?
 

The AI actually doesn't have any more problem with partially hidden mines than regular mines, which isn't saying much. If they actually build and equip a ship with a sensor they may see a few more minefields than normal. It is definately better in a game with humans.