A COMBAT WRITE UP (PT1) RADAR AND SCANNING

To preface after this week's sneak peek i wanted to put into words what I WOULD LIKE TO SEE from space engineers 2

Firstly lets start with how you find things

1. Lets call this ( radar and scanning )

For space engineers 2 to implement this feature in any capacity it would need to have a few key features –

1.--all blocks need emission value that is dynamic depending on the current condition of the surrounding playerspace —- asteroid field —planet–open space–items off items or on and weapon and thrusters firing etta

2.--each type of object would need to have modifiers Things like asteroid fields -gas clouds and other bigger player spaces that could have attributes–-objects that have no signature and atmospheres should dramatically reduce the signature range of objects dynamically based on how close and far you are.

3. Blocks and conditions of blocks should have a signature output

Example

1.Blocks have no signature

2.Reactors ion thrusters jump drives shields all have extreme signature

3.Things like hydrogen thrusters , and generators have lower signature

States of blocks and how they are placed should also make a big difference on signature and direction detectability (for example a ship that has a mix of high and low output blocks–reactors vs batteries hydrogen generators and such can turn off high output items to opt for lower overall power and capability but significantly less signature.) If you make the system dynamic things like thruster covers(blocks on rotors that cover the thruster port) can work to hide signatures till only when they are firing. Or another example is thrusters hidden very deep inside of ships so all but one direction is covered.

Power output vs capability

Things like shields should require so much power they should be detectable from a great distance - lets say that one large shield generator (covers a red ship sized ship in the xyz) requires 3 large reactors to run at full – two very high output systems produce extreme signature able to be seen from 50k(or a large balanced distance away) or more … but if they have all of those systems off you might only be detectable at 15km, a massive difference promoting using cover concealment(asteroids and atmospheres) and building ships to be stealthy, or loud and proud. Each system in game that is related to high vs low output should be balanced so there is no meta, another way to help this out is if you lock onto a target that was stealth you have there signature till there out of your range (a balanced range according to gameplay) obviously this would need tremendous balance and some good work on the data of the blocks to do but i feel like a system similar to this would be very beneficial to the longevity of the game in a multiplayer setting. Additionally these systems can be used for air ships to allow for more varied dynamic scenarios and encounters.

taking all of these factors and simplifying it to a "signature " for gameplay would be much more effective.

on the note of the reactor it would more be a game balance perspective rather than a full real based solution for gameplay

when you start out using batteries and solar-then hydrogen-then reactors- so for gameplay that's how "signature" should be handled. basically the progression dictates what you can use and you dictate why you use it or if you don't use it

how actual scanning works would be a numbers game

so lets try this out

you have a ship that has one 1m reactor and 16 1x2m small ion thrusters and the ship is 10mx10mx10m (for an easy numbers game

The reactor has a signature of 10000

each thruster has an inactive signature of 100 and an active signature of 150

lets say a bounding box is created for the x-y-z of the ship and for every 1m of surface area of the ship calculates for 50m to the baseline detection range so for this the expected minimum detection range of this ship with everything powered off is 5000m

this number is the -visual range - of the ship in question

for scanners lets say a passive scanner set for the next example

the ship is powered up and thrusting

the visual range is 5000m

now the detectable range is calculated as the (visual range) + ( signature output)=(passive detection range)

this equals 17400m for the given example

disregarding the negatives for this

now for active scans lets say -- an active scan for a large antenna has a range of 500000 m each 100000 m interval has a reduction in power of 15% and lets also say that the (power) is 75000( this number represents the signature threshold- the range at which a certain signature is detected )

so

500000m = >75000 -15%

400000m = >63750 -15%

300000m = >54187 -15%

200000m = >46059 -15%

100000m = >39150 -15%

50000m = >25447 -35%

so at 500000m ships under 75000 signature are not detectable

likewise at 50000m ships under 25447 signature are not detectable