My experience is that the sensor only affects the distance that you can see the ships and their emissions, now, if it affects the heat / thermal signature to the weapons, if it is a somewhat cold ship, the gimballed weapons almost shoot as fixed, as you get out of the lattice they lose the target, now with "emissive ammunition" solve this, now I can get out of the lattice and keep firing, the turret variants seem not to be affected by the emission of the ships.
A detailed inquiry into Elite Dangerous Sensor Mechanics / Target Lock Acquisition
- Thread starter CMDR Mechan
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- sensors
It should provide the same advantages (and limitations) as stealth in a real-life warplane. I don't know much about aerial combat, but my understanding is that the main advantage of stealth is in the area of Situational Awareness; and if this report is to be believed, this is the single most important determinant as to who wins a fight.
Just like stealth in Elite Dangerous, stealth in real-life is not an invisibility cloak. But rather (this is taken from this Wikipedia article, with my commentary added):
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Stealth aircraft make it more difficult for conventional radar to detect or track the aircraft effectively (this is why you show up as an unresolved contact on sensors, rather than just disappear entirely)...
Stealth is the combination of passive low observable (LO) features and active emitters such as low-probability-of-intercept radars, radios and laser designators (In Elite Dangerous this translates to: Low Emissions Power Plant and low-power modules, Efficient/Lightweight Engineering, forgoing things like shields and boosting, for the passive portion; and Thermal Vent Beams, Heatsinks, Silent Running, and Dazzle Shell for the active portion)...
These are usually combined with active measures such as carefully planning all mission maneuvers...since common actions such as hard turns or opening bomb bay doors can more than double an otherwise stealthy aircraft's radar return.
(In Elite Dangerous, this means considering things like using Clean Drive Tuning or Reinforced Drives if you're planning on doing a lot of hard turns, or accepting that you'll always have to make judgement calls between maintaining a stealthy profile but sacrificing turn speed/radius or making fast/sharp turns that give away your position if you use Dirty Drive Tuning. Other factors like the amount of time it takes for a ship to deploy its hardpoints also become considerations, since retracting hardpoints when you know you aren't going to be using them instantly lowers the Thermal Load of your ship, but opens up the possibility that you won't be ready to attack at a moment's notice. An Eagle can deploy its hardpoints in about a second, while a Vulture takes around 3-4 seconds.)
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Using stealth is all about planning your maneuvers in advance of doing them, since attacking a target will always reveal you to them for a short time no matter what your thermal signature is.
As for the in-game effects of this... an NPC that can't target you will still fire at you if they can see you, but they will do so less accurately. They will also not use gimbals or turrets, even if set to fire-at-will. A ship that can't target you also can't get a missile/torpedo lock on you, or target specific modules on your ship, or use any of its scanners on you. No micro-gimbaling effect for fixed weapons either.
If another ship can't target you, they also won't have a leading targeting reticle for weapons that have a travel time; meaning your biggest threats are thermal weapons, which are the only hitscan weapons in the game, so you can plan your shield/armor resistances around that.
If there are multiple targets for them (such as in a CZ, or if you have an SLF out), they will also turn their attention elsewhere shortly after they lose lock on you.
As for your other questions, the size and rating of the sensor doesn't matter, per se. It's more about the Typical Emissions Range of the sensor which increases with sensor size and rating. But a small E-rated sensor with Long Range Engineering could be better than a large A-rated sensor engineered with Lightweight or Wide Angle if the E-rated sensor's Typical Emissions Range ends up being bigger than the A-rated's range.
Heat doesn't matter in supercruise for detection purposes. In supercruise you can see out to 40x whatever your speed is (and they, in turn, can see you). So if you are traveling at 10c you can target any ship that is 10 x 40 = 400 ls away from you.
As for your pirate example, that's probably a mistake in FDev's AI behavior. If an enemy wants to scan you but can't target you they will approach to try to get a sensor lock. But I'm guessing FDev programmed some kind of minimum approach distance for AI ships so they don't get too close to you; this in turn means it's possible for you to be in a situation where a ship can't get close enough to scan you..
