Fighter radar packages from the 1980s would be an upgrade. Contemporary fighters have radar ranges in the 100s of km and are not restricted to heat detection.
Fighter radar packages from the 1980s would be an upgrade. Contemporary fighters have radar ranges in the 100s of km and are not restricted to heat detection.
Strange, the sidewinder seems to have the same directional coverage yet does so at a couple of orders of magnitude less mass.
This isn't rocket science.
For small/medium ships, A-rated sensor are a choice.
For large ships, A-rated sensors are used for "BALANCE" by artificially inflating their mass to ridiculous levels. If you could strap a an A-sensor Sidewinder to a Corvette, you would have better sensor performance and less mass than fitting an A-sensor module to the Corvette.
So D-sensors with lightweight mod is the way to go if you're looking to avoid a mass hit on a large ship. The sensor range will suffer.
On a side note, why is the sensor range so limited in the first place? Other sensors work in SC or for planetary analysis at vast distances. But in normal space, you're limited to klicks, which makes no sense whatsoever. Poor game design, that's my opinion.
Neither is understanding that wifi signals and thermal imaging aren't comparable, or that ED Sensors make no sense, but hey, you do you.
Yeh, the weight of the larger sensors is ridiculous and should be fixed.
Our sensor suites are more than just Thermal Imaging. Doubt it? Turn your sensors off and try to request docking.
What is the temperature of a cargo container full of gold, floating in the vacuum of space?
Hey all,
So, as per the title, I always fit D-Rated sensors and I'll often lighten them too. My understanding is that better sensors simply extend the detection range slightly, no other features. There was talk - and I think it made it into a Beta once - about better sensor improving Gimballed and Turreted weapons locks so they'd resist things like Chaff better and be able to detect cold ships more readily. However, I think that never made it out of beta. Basically, as I've been away from the game for a while only returning fairly recently, is there any plus to having A-Rated Sensors? Is the drop in Speed and Jump Range worth it? Personally, I'd love it if A-Rated stuff allowed for better targetting as per that old Beta, but I suspect D-Rated is still the way to go.
Just something I was wondering about is all.
Cheers, Scoob.
Ok, time to get out my crayons I suppose...
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Sidewinder: Class 1 Sensor, Mass 1.3 - 2.0 tons.
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Anaconda: Class 8 Sensor, Mass: 64-256 tons.
Now with our heads in the full, upright and extracted position, let's postulate a little here. Our little tiny sidewinder, at 21.4 x 14.9 m needs two sensor nodes, one in the front, one in the back, and has 360 degree coverage, out to their range of 4km. Our much larger Anaconda, at 61.8 x 152.4 m needs many more sensor nodes, let's say 2 in the front, 2 in the back and 6 down each side to give that same 360 degree coverage out to their range of 5.12 km.
Some basic math:
Where x = the mass of the sensor node
2x < 16x
Thus the 8E sensor suite of the Anaconda is heavier than the 1E sensor suite of the Sidewinder.
Falling back to my earlier example of WiFi equipment for a home versus that of a business...
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This is a heat map. It shows the coverage and strength of coverage for this floor of an office building. As you can see, there is no coverage on the east side of this building, because someone didn't bother to think about the coverage area of each access point. For this office, simply moving some of these access points around would provide good coverage for the entire office. A single access point might not provide very good coverage though, but might be just fine for your home.
Thus, covering more area requires more equipment, more equipment has more mass.
This isn't rocket science.
![]()
This is rocket science.
Ok, time to get out my crayons I suppose...
![]()
Sidewinder: Class 1 Sensor, Mass 1.3 - 2.0 tons.
![]()
Anaconda: Class 8 Sensor, Mass: 64-256 tons.
Now with our heads in the full, upright and extracted position, let's postulate a little here. Our little tiny sidewinder, at 21.4 x 14.9 m needs two sensor nodes, one in the front, one in the back, and has 360 degree coverage, out to their range of 4km. Our much larger Anaconda, at 61.8 x 152.4 m needs many more sensor nodes, let's say 2 in the front, 2 in the back and 6 down each side to give that same 360 degree coverage out to their range of 5.12 km.
Some basic math:
Where x = the mass of the sensor node
2x < 16x
Thus the 8E sensor suite of the Anaconda is heavier than the 1E sensor suite of the Sidewinder.
Falling back to my earlier example of WiFi equipment for a home versus that of a business...
![]()
This is a heat map. It shows the coverage and strength of coverage for this floor of an office building. As you can see, there is no coverage on the east side of this building, because someone didn't bother to think about the coverage area of each access point. For this office, simply moving some of these access points around would provide good coverage for the entire office. A single access point might not provide very good coverage though, but might be just fine for your home.
Thus, covering more area requires more equipment, more equipment has more mass.
This isn't rocket science.
![]()
This is rocket science.
Ok, time to get out my crayons I suppose...
![]()
Sidewinder: Class 1 Sensor, Mass 1.3 - 2.0 tons.
![]()
Anaconda: Class 8 Sensor, Mass: 64-256 tons.
Now with our heads in the full, upright and extracted position, let's postulate a little here. Our little tiny sidewinder, at 21.4 x 14.9 m needs two sensor nodes, one in the front, one in the back, and has 360 degree coverage, out to their range of 4km. Our much larger Anaconda, at 61.8 x 152.4 m needs many more sensor nodes, let's say 2 in the front, 2 in the back and 6 down each side to give that same 360 degree coverage out to their range of 5.12 km.
Some basic math:
Where x = the mass of the sensor node
2x < 16x
Thus the 8E sensor suite of the Anaconda is heavier than the 1E sensor suite of the Sidewinder.
Falling back to my earlier example of WiFi equipment for a home versus that of a business...
![]()
This is a heat map. It shows the coverage and strength of coverage for this floor of an office building. As you can see, there is no coverage on the east side of this building, because someone didn't bother to think about the coverage area of each access point. For this office, simply moving some of these access points around would provide good coverage for the entire office. A single access point might not provide very good coverage though, but might be just fine for your home.
Thus, covering more area requires more equipment, more equipment has more mass.
This isn't rocket science.
![]()
This is rocket science.
Grade and Class are not the same thing. Yes, different classes do have different masses, within their grades.
Hence the Sidewinder above, has a mass range of 1.3 - 2.0 tons. Of total sensor equipment, in a Class 1 module. Why is the D-grade so much lighter? It's made of wax paper and plastic. The A-grade, much heavier, is made of aluminum, steel and ceramic.
The Anaconda is a class 8. That's huge. Massively huge.
In Cargo terms, a Class 8 Cargo module holds 256 tons of material. A Class 1 holds 2 tons of material.
This is a class 1, E-Grade satellite dish. It weighs about a pound.
![]()
This is a Class 8, A-Grade satellite dish. It weighs about 190 pounds.
![]()
Inconceivable, isn't it?
Grade and Class are not the same thing. Yes, different classes do have different masses, within their grades.
Hence the Sidewinder above, has a mass range of 1.3 - 2.0 tons. Of total sensor equipment, in a Class 1 module. Why is the D-grade so much lighter? It's made of wax paper and plastic. The A-grade, much heavier, is made of aluminum, steel and ceramic.
The Anaconda is a class 8. That's huge. Massively huge.
In Cargo terms, a Class 8 Cargo module holds 256 tons of material. A Class 1 holds 2 tons of material.
This is a class 1, E-Grade satellite dish. It weighs about a pound.
![]()
This is a Class 8, A-Grade satellite dish. It weighs about 190 pounds.
![]()
Inconceivable, isn't it?
The longest axis on the Conda is 152.4m. E class sensors run to 5.12Km. The worst possible directional coverage from a single point is 4.9676Km. Add a sensor to the opposite end along the center line and the worst coverage is raised to 5.0881Km. That's with 2 points. Conda's aren't that big compared to sensor range even if they dwarf a sidewinder. Even if we assume sensors scale with horrendous efficiency and the mass doubles for each one to get the extra range a class 8 gives if you're bridging the gap from 2.6 to 160T because of a worst case loss of 152.4m you should probably stop trying to be a rocket scientist.
View attachment 140220
Class AAAAA 500m Aperture Spherical Telescope (in China). It weighs a lot
The same could go for rocket engines. Even the Saturn V had a classification against your whimpy A class model rocket engine
At least the basic concept is being grasped at last. And I never claimed my explanation made perfect sense, just sense. I don't disagree either that some of these massive class sensor arrays are grossly over-massed - they certainly are. And while yes, it is entirely possible to build something that is much bigger, without it actually being any better, that also falls into the realm of "why bother?".
However, it also seems very likely to me that Frontier has plenty of other things to worry about than something that really is this minor at this point in time. It's not like Elite is a complete, final game. It still has several years worth of growth left before we really need to obsess over minutiae.