Horizons Super-Cruise Scan Distances

[Rardain]

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Hi fellow Commanders.

Have you ever started scanning a system and thought it might be good to know when your scanners were likely to kick in? Ever found yourself closing in on a planet too fast and found it whipping past before the scan was completed? Ever thought, do I have time to do something else whilst covering 400,000 Ly to the next star in a system?

Well, I have done a few calculations recently whilst out exploring and have come up with a couple of fairly reliable calculations that will get your scan distances to within a Ls.

To calculate the Super-Cruise distance at which your scanners will activate you need to know the radius of the object you intend to scan, which can be found conveniently in the basic data for the object in the system map.

Ok, so first off, scan distances for Stars.

As a general rule the scan distance to a star will be considerable and you will likely have completed your scan at least 1000Ls before you get anywhere near it. The scan distance for a star is fairly closely related to it's radius, so for example, a star with a radius of 0.3293 will trip the scanner at 3055Ls and a star with a radius of 0.5803 will trip at 5385Ls.

The calculation for estimating the Star scan distance is RADIUS divided by 1.0776



Next up, scan distances for Planets.

I have produced a handy little reference guide below, although I quite often find myself using the calculator on my phone to quickly calculate a distance.

The calculation for estimating the Planet scan distance is RADIUS divided by 74.9


I have added some more information to the original table following a suggestion from Kitty further down this thread. So, now you can see how long it will take you to scan any body once you have calculated the maximum scan distance.

For example: Lets say that the radius of our target planet is 75,400 Kilometres. Using the calculation for planet scan distances gives us 75,400 / 74.9 = 1006.67Ls. This will start the scanner running at the maximum range and will take 33 seconds
to complete.

So now if you divide 1006.67 by 100 and multiply by whatever percentage you want to use from the table below you can see how long it will take for the scanner to complete it's cycle. Lets say I want to get half-way to the planet before initiating
my scan...1006.67 / 100 * 50 = 503Ls. At this range it will take the scanner 20 seconds to complete it's cycle.

I find making these calculations immensely helpful though it is a bit of a pain having to open the system map all the time. I would hope in time that ED include basic data like radius and gravity in the HUD.

Hope you find this helpful.

Fly Safe

EDIT:All calculations were made using the Advanced Discovery Scanner

Rardain

 

[Zieman]

Nice info, the figures feel plausiple. Didn't think stars were related to radius as well, I thought the brightness was a factor.

BTW, isn't this more of Exploration forum topic than Horrizons topic...

 

[Korben Dallas]

This could find a nice place on the wiki too

 

[Marcus Machiavelli]

Nice Cypher, rep inbound

 

[Ziljan]

Nice info, the figures feel plausiple. Didn't think stars were related to radius as well, I thought the brightness was a factor.

BTW, isn't this more of Exploration forum topic than Horrizons topic...

Brightness is directly related to radius. L ~ R²T⁴
L is luminousity
R is radius
T is the temperature

You cannot separate the size from the luminosity. The larger the star, the brighter it is.

 

[who?]

Cheers for posting this!

I think there are outliers though (or else bugs in the system). I've seen stars that I was able to scan when >34,000Ls away, and I don't think they were particularly large.

 

[winterknight]

Those figures are in line with my graph. I worked out from four calculations it was a straight line graph, and just judge it from there.

 

[Rardain]

Nice info, the figures feel plausiple. Didn't think stars were related to radius as well, I thought the brightness was a factor.

BTW, isn't this more of Exploration forum topic than Horrizons topic...

Technically I suppose it is an exploration topic, however, I feel that the Exploration sub-forum is a little niche. whilst most Commanders who are doing system scans may be explorers, there are probably just as many others scanning systems who do not fit that category and I thought it more helpful to make the information available to as wide an audience as possible.

I am glad people are finding this useful.

 

[stoneys-nutz]

Technically I suppose it is an exploration topic, however, I feel that the Exploration sub-forum is a little niche. whilst most Commanders who are doing system scans may be explorers, there are probably just as many others scanning systems who do not fit that category and I thought it more helpful to make the information available to as wide an audience as possible.

I am glad people are finding this useful.

What a great guide, I would have to agree, more people are likely to see this here than the Exploration forum.

 

[Rardain]

If anyone is using the Basic or Intermediate Discovery Scanners perhaps they could test out the figures and see if they stack up, although the ranges of 500 and 1000Ls scan distance respectively will restrict these scanners I would have thought.

 

[Kitty]

The table relate to my own experience and feelings, although I just cruise in to the body and keep the ETA to between 7 and 10 seconds, so when it kicks in I tend to slow down. When it comes to scanning Gas Giants, Most of these are of quite a small diameter so I then start at the outermost body and work my way across the plane, so all the bodies start scanning as soon as you lock them.

It would appear that the larger the mass, the faster the scan, but is also related to the distance from that mass too?? Now that would be great addition to the table

 

[Rardain]

The table relate to my own experience and feelings, although I just cruise in to the body and keep the ETA to between 7 and 10 seconds, so when it kicks in I tend to slow down. When it comes to scanning Gas Giants, Most of these are of quite a small diameter so I then start at the outermost body and work my way across the plane, so all the bodies start scanning as soon as you lock them.

It would appear that the larger the mass, the faster the scan, but is also related to the distance from that mass too?? Now that would be great addition to the table

Hmm, I must admit I have never actually timed the scan lengths - might be something worth looking into.

 

[CDR Michael Darkmoor]

Cheers for posting this!

I think there are outliers though (or else bugs in the system). I've seen stars that I was able to scan when >34,000Ls away, and I don't think they were particularly large.

Likely, they were Super Giants of one type or another. (http://imgur.com/En5MJoP)
The one pictured was scanned at the distance noted

 

[CMDR Argent Steel]

I often felt that the mass of the object was what made it scan from farther away, though in most cases a high mass object is going to have a greater size and diameter anyway. The only things that would fit into this are neutron stars and black holes.

I like to imagine that the detailed surface scanner reads its target through gravity waves, which is why you can target a planet on the other side of a star and still scan it.

 

[Rardain]

The table relate to my own experience and feelings, although I just cruise in to the body and keep the ETA to between 7 and 10 seconds, so when it kicks in I tend to slow down. When it comes to scanning Gas Giants, Most of these are of quite a small diameter so I then start at the outermost body and work my way across the plane, so all the bodies start scanning as soon as you lock them.

It would appear that the larger the mass, the faster the scan, but is also related to the distance from that mass too?? Now that would be great addition to the table

Following Kitty's request I have done some testing over the last few days and have amended the original table to include the scan durations at a given percentage of distance from any body, be it a star, gas giant, planet or rocky body. Please ignore the old table, I am awaiting the mods giving me access to my images so I can remove it

 

[Kitty]

Jolly decent of you + rep!

 

[Rardain]

I like a challenge