So why do we need to face a ship to tell who's in it?
- Thread starter indiebob
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the system isn't shielded, and the noise the scanner makes should hint to how it works, and why it is different to our ship to ship scanner, also, we have to get up close to a planet, and be facing it for any detailed information.
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and this of course
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You 'could' justify it by saying the scanners only scan in the direction you are pointing and it would make no sense for them to be mounted in multiple locations due to weight/cost/available space etc etc etc. Since they are only mounted on the front then the can't scan outside of their field of view in the same way as you cannot see behind you without turning around. Discovery scanners work differently because they 'read' or 'emit' gravimetric waves (or some other such handwavium) and therefore the hull of the ship is not a barrier to that.
OR you could just say it 'should' just works because in the year 3302 it 'just would' but what's then to stop us saying that a forward facing laser should also be able to fire behind us because it's silly to have to turn around. Why don't we have somethign like the phasers on the Enterprise in TNG where they are a ring that seem to be able to fire in any direction (but not through the saucer section).
Add to all this the fact that we seem to know everything about our enemy as soon as they do anything to us without having to turn around and you end up with the inescapable conclusion.....
It's a game and FD want you to have to do something if you want to see info abut a possible opponent, but if you have been targeted they feel it makes sense that you know enough about an opponent to decide whether to run or not without forcing you to turn around (while under fire) to check.
It is what it is and to be honest it's not really as bad as all that is it?
OR you could just say it 'should' just works because in the year 3302 it 'just would' but what's then to stop us saying that a forward facing laser should also be able to fire behind us because it's silly to have to turn around. Why don't we have somethign like the phasers on the Enterprise in TNG where they are a ring that seem to be able to fire in any direction (but not through the saucer section).
Add to all this the fact that we seem to know everything about our enemy as soon as they do anything to us without having to turn around and you end up with the inescapable conclusion.....
It's a game and FD want you to have to do something if you want to see info abut a possible opponent, but if you have been targeted they feel it makes sense that you know enough about an opponent to decide whether to run or not without forcing you to turn around (while under fire) to check.
It is what it is and to be honest it's not really as bad as all that is it?
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Maybe with multicrew we will get the option to let co-pilots scan other ships independently from where our ship is facing... here's to hope!
Bare minimum, this, I'd have thought.
Why? How is that gameplay? There's no challenge, it's just a stick pull and a wait instead of a button press.
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Plus you have already scanned it ...
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But why not single crew too!?Maybe with multicrew we will get the option to let co-pilots scan other ships independently from where our ship is facing... here's to hope!
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But we have already scanned it enough to reveal enormous detail? Surely the ID info comes from an ID transponder of some sort?
It would make more sense if it was a transponder but that you could remove your transponder if you liked ... which would make you illegal in, say, all but anarchy systems, but which would require others to be within a certain proximity/facing before they could identify you.
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Excellent point.
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So we shouldn't get the info we do on ships when their not in front of us? Is that what you are saying?
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I get more bored having to wait 10 secs rotating my ship so I can scan it. Depends on what you regard as entertaining, I suppose. And before someone comes back against this saying "ooo look at him there he can't wait 10 seconds" let's remember who brought up the subject of boredom first, shall we?
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No it is not bad as all that but it is "bad" or at least, what the irish would call a "disimprovement" and one easily removed. I suggest they remove it, thus making an "improvement" in the game. Especially when we can get enormous info about whole star systems, bases etc from enormous distance, regardless of facing.
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If you are talking about scanning it in SC and having to rescan it again in normal space i just think thats a limitation in the game engine and its instancing tech. I'm guessing that Supercruise space and normal/combat space are actually two separate instances and that the drop/jump animation is just a fancy loading screen. I would actually be on board with scanning something in SC and having that exact same info be present on the ship when you are in normal space. OR have it be completely different info where SC scan info is a bit vague but normal space info is more detailed or more combat oriented which would at least explain the reason for having to scan it again.
Reason: gameplay.
That was easy. Next thread!
That was easy. Next thread!
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OK. Do you also want them to remove the requirement to face and be behind the ship you want to interdict? As a pirate or maybe even for griefers you have to turn and face the ship to scan and see if its worth going after and then get behind it to interdict it, and then you need to win the mini-game. This sounds like a real chore. Perhaps they should immediately know everything about every ship, press a button to interdict them (obviously only within a certain range, don't want to make it too easy do we?), and remove the mini-game (if you don't like that just remove it for NPCs then because they don't matter) and they can then shoot them.
Nearly forgot - then every weapon can be omni-directional with perfect gimbals/targeting and be the same power level as fixed weapons so that we don't have to be facing our target to kill them.
It all makes sense because surely in the year 3302 we wouldn't need to face our target to do anything at all would we?
I see the logic in what you are saying but try following your own thoughts through and work out at which point you feel something should be kept in because to take it out would stop it being a game.
Interdiction? Is that a form of scanning or are we completely off topic?
I do not know how interdiction works but basically something is being fired from my ship which I assume is directional - but I don't even know what that really means in terms of hyperspace/supercruise.
Though I may have answered my own question since we're not scanning ships in normal space but supercruise-hyperspace... hmmm no it still doesn't make sense if we can get all manner of information about a target, including damage to it and the state of its shields.
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yeah they should add a press x 10 times every minute "just because " to the game too - gameplay.
Not my definition of gameplay though!
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Surely they could hold the info client side thus obviating the need to concern ourselves with instances at all? or something
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Well I can scan the entire system in super cruise so if I can also scan everything machine in supercruise, then why can't I interdict everything in supercruise? If one doesn't require me to face but the other does then that's not right.
Maybe you don't like the interdiction one. Try cargo scanning or kill warrant scanning. How about then we make it all official and every NPC can scan our cargo from anywhere in normal space and anywhere in SC as well as check our bounties because that 'just scanning right'? These are all gameplay mechanics around scanning, so by your logic we should take them out because that would make the game easier and therefore the gameplay better. That'll make all those long range 'don't get scanned' smuggling missions much more challenging and therefore fun won't it?
Sensing stuff is taking information / energy in, which you can do in all directions because you can, you just can't look it up on a database, seemingly.
Interdiction is projecting something, requiring focussed energy in a particular direction. Like a fixed laser. Though maybe they could have turreted and/or gimballed interdictors?
Maybe you can only project an energy beam from a warp bubble to cause the interdiction in a set direction, related to your direction of motion and that's the reason?
Can't anyone scan anyone else already (albeit with a delay of a second or two)? What are you saying? Though I am guessing cargo scanning might involve the projection of some sort of active scanning technology.
They could easily make the response delay from the info system longer, so it wouldn't take any less time if they are worried about server traffic with people scanning too many ships at once... it is just that "turning your ship" doesn't [seem to] make sense.
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I am all for "because realism" and would be up for some in this game. However, ED doesn't really do it, starting with the abandonment of Newtonian mechanics. I am all for "because of cohesive game universe" however, which is why this doesn't seem to make sense and more or it less comes down to "because reasons".
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Are you saying that if you don't scan people you don't touch your joystick?
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What I'm saying is that once you start applying absolute logic to scanning then you would also have to apply absolute logic to other types of scanning. So if we can get ship idents without facing them we must therefore be able to receive something that is being actively transmitted. So if we want to see if someone is wanted, why should we face them? If we are already receiving an ident, why not just look them up without facing them? Both wrk with your receiving data logic.
Then take it further based on the 'in the year 3302 wouldn't we be able to...' approach and we might as well remove plenty of other gameplay mechanics like gimbals wobbling all of the time so that it isn't a 100% hit rate. Turrets that have worse targeting than gimbals. The need to manually aim the ship at an opponent at all when a computer would be far more accurate. How about inst-load/unload, it would make sense that we actually have to wait for cargo to be loaded or unloaded or 50% damage takes hours or days to fix like it would in real life. Ultimately lets just take the pilot out of the equation because who in their right mind would trust a lone human to pilot a craft that weighs upwards of 500 tons and is the size of a tower block into a relatively small slot in a space station housing many thousands of people?
The entire thing is gameplay mechanics so I am serious when I say take your logic to its ultimate conclusion. Where do you allow gameplay mechanics that defy obvious logic and where do you remove them? See what game you would come up with. Start with scanning of all types and work your way out from there.
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I am applying absolute logic. I cannot see how it adds to gameplay however I can see a gameplay argument for your gimball/turret argument.
a) we already have the every last detail of the external of the ship, hence it doesn't make sense that we have to face it to look it up on a database.
b) there are generally 2 forms of scanning: passive, where you just receive information from an external source, like a radio telescope and active, where you project some sort of energy, often in a beam and sense what's reflected, like normal active radar.
From the fact we can sense every last detail about ships in SC I would guess that is passive and I'd guess we have plenty of info with which to identify them. However, penetrating the outer hull of a ship to see what's inside would seem a likely candidate for active sensor technology, hence there might be more reason to be closer, or facing the target.
Similarly interdiction might require the projection of a great deal of energy along the axis of movement of a ship. hence, within the game universe there's an internal logic at work which makes sense. it's not about "what we could do in 3302" its about avoiding the justification "because reasons" in something that calls itself a sim.
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Maybe with multicrew we will get the option to let co-pilots scan other ships independently from where our ship is facing... here's to hope!
Still dont see who would want to sit looking at the nav computer orscanner when they could be flying
I restrict the logic application of passive scanning to the kill warrant scanner in my last response. What are your thoughts on that? I see no reason why we would need to actively scan a ship to find out if it's wanted yet it acts as if we do. It seems more likely it is looking up the ship ID and the time would be based on communications delay. Would you change that too based on your logic?
As an aside, we don't have to scan cargo to know what it is. Every piece of cargo that is ejected tells us what it is without us scanning. So should the reverse be true and we insist on actively scanning each piece of cargo or adding our own in-game explanation along the lines of 'cargo in a vacuum automatically broadcasts it's contents'?
@Brimstone - I agree it doesn't make sense in any other sense than it being a gameplay mechanic. My points are when is a gameplay mechanic acceptable over something that would just make sense? If you only accept something that makes sense then are we actually left with a game any more?
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When we get multi-crew can I be the zero-g swimming pool attendant in the Orca? Or maybe the barman?
Subspace radar is omnidirectional, so it can tell the model, distance and direction of travel of another ship in any direction, but your scanner is at the front.