Adding Ship-based Scanners

More about Hull Design

Playing Stars!

To gather any planet details from orbit or space, or the details of an opponent's fleet from a distance, most fleets must have a ship-based scanner. Scanning a planet you don't own will supply data about the planet's environment and subterranean mineral content only. Ships without scanners must send down a robot miner to gather the same information and can only detect an opponents' ship if it is at the same X,Y coordinates.

Minerals Above the Surface
You learn how many minerals are on the planet surface and available for immediate use only after colonizing the planet.

Scanner Types

There are three basic types of ship-based scanners: those that scan planets from orbit; those that scan planets from orbit and fleets from a distance; and those that scan both planets and fleets from a distance. One scanner, the Chameleon, doubles as a cloaking device.

Scanners for Pirates
The Pick Pocket scanner can see the contents of an enemy fleet's cargo holds. The Robber Baron scanner can see surface minerals on enemy planets. These scanners aid the modern pirate in making wise choices on issues concerning pillage and plunder.

Your First Scanner

You start the game with the Bat scanner, a low-tech device that detects planet details only from orbit, and has no long-range fleet-detection capability. You'll want to browse the more advanced models. For a description of all the different scanners, take a look inside the Technology Browser (press F2).

Scanners are Cumulative

Multiple scanners on a single ship are cumulative. Fleets are still limited to the range of the best ship in the fleet, but a particular ship's scanner range is a modified sum of the ranges of its scanners. The formula for calculating a ship's scanner range is the 4th root of the sum of each scanner to the 4th power.  Let's say you have a ship design with two 100 light year scanners and one 60 light year scanner.  (100^4 + 100^4 + 60^4) ^ ¼ = 120 light years.  The same calculation applies to planet penetrating scanners.

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Scanning the Universe