Engineers Sensors engineering for explorers... which one?

[euchid]

There are systems were long range is better and other systems were fast scan is better.
IF you want to scan everything go for fast scan.
IF you want to "snipe" only ELW and so on go for long range.

 

[CMDR Spadino]

Fast Scan DSS, no contest. When you find a completely unexplored new system, it'd be really annoying to leave some moons for others to imprint their names on, so every single rock must be scanned, which requires being close to the parent planet anyway.

I understanf your feeling, but I do not share it. Actually, I'm almost always in freshly discovered, unscanned system and I did not feel the need to always scan it in a whole. Sometime, it happened to me in enter an almost totally already discovered system with two or three names on it, and with some bodies or moon yet untagged, and it's very amusing and rewarding to, after sell the datas, see my name on it. I let many times some body unscanned, especially on interesting systems (very high/low to the galactic plane, far away, reachable only with jumponium, etc...), so the next explorer can tag it and share the same achievement.

For very long trips, it's almost unthinkable to always scan the whole system, to me... Even with a very high range, it tooks hundred of jumps to reach SagA from Colonia, for example.

 

[Aussiedroid]

Very interesting thread. I've only done a bit of testing, and haven't been out on a long haul exploration trip since engineering, but initially fast seems like the logical choice, but changing that to long range seems to give an overall reduction in time spent traveling greater than the scan times.

My conclusion was that fast scan is a good choice for scanning around the bubble systems for example, where you might only ping the star and few close things, but long range will save more time in the long run for more dedicated exploring/traveling.

I assumed the sensors didn't impact these scanners, so lightweight there.

 

[CMDR Spadino]

I agree with you. I found the Fast Scan good for Passenger Sight missions, when you do not have all the time to properly scan all the bodies. Definitely, on the long, I found the Long Range scanner faster also, as it seems that on short ranges it reach the "scanning sweet spot" before... maybe just a feel, but I'm certainly able to scan a whole system faster with my long range that with the fast scan.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

So, after a long exploration trip to Colonia with the Fast Scan DSS, I switched to a Long Range DSS and heading toward, once more, to Sagittarius A* (maybe, Thargoids will be kind to me if I do not mess with them...). I have to say that I definitely enjoy more the Long Range one. Being able to scan very far objects is way better to me that the slight faster Fast Scan. The difference in time it's not so good, and for close objects it's almost unnoticeable. This is quite remarkable for scan that far away lonely gas giant or companion star...
When you are approaching a big HMCW and your scanner start scanning at 540Ls (which mean that in normal circumstances, for the same planet, it will start at 195Ls), it's an HUGE advantage. It's very time saving, as you do not need/have to approximate if your following objects it's on a very different vector. So, it give me more freedom in trace an elegant path across the system. It also frees me to those frequent deceleration/acceleration sequence, as I can stay more on 60-70% SC speed.

Thanks to all for the help. Fly smart, fly safe!
CMDR Spadino

EDIT - Beeing able to scan an M star from 16000Ls it's very funny!

duly +1'd.