info on objects in a system : use your long sight !

[Suicide Junkie]

Perhaps we're thinking about it the wrong way here.

AFAIK, the only reason Radar even came into this discussion was because you wanted to call the minimap a radar screen.

Your ship's built-in detection equipment builds up a full system map quite quickly, and allows you to view a small angle of the picture in great detail (on-screen vision), and allows you to pick off one particular object for a very narrow beam scan.

The only things you need extra detection equipment for is:
- to extend the effective range of the 360 proximity scanners (which provide IFF, heading and relative position tracking of planets, ships, fighters, missiles and even bolts(!))
- to allow penetrating scans of enemy ships to the level of IDing individual components, damage %, cargo & etc through the hull.

[PvK]

You can rationalize the 3D view as scanner feedback, but that's another multiplier making the game more arcadish and less like a starship command game. A starship commander not only has scanners but also a crew of people to use them, and to pay constant attention to attacks and potential collisions (which should almost never happen anyway if the scale weren't many orders of magnitude off). However, in the game, the player is the only crew member, the time scale is passing days in seconds of real-time, and the player's view is quite limited, and attention divided.

Is there any way to mod the visibility range to be based on the scanner range? Any way to mod it so the visibility range is affected by the difficulty to see the target?

PvK

[Suicide Junkie]

Visibility range is specified in the one of the options menus by the player, so not really.

Cloaking could work the way you want though...
All the ships would be invisible, but you'd still be able to see planets and stars.
Hopefully allied ships would let you see 'em at any range.