Ship Sensors
Federation starships and shuttlecraft are fitted with a suite of scanners and sensors. Scanners are active--they send out faster-than-light subspace pulses and analyze the reflection. Sensors are passive--they analyze incoming particles and radiation. What follows is the type of information that could be gathered by someone using the Electronic Operations (Sensors) skill.
This page is a work in progress.
Federation Starships
| kilometers | lightyears | Parsecs | Potential Information |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5x10^15 | 500 | 150 | number of ships and speed |
| 1 000 000 | 0.7 | general size of ship | |
| 500 000 | 0.3 | shield status, fire control active, silhouette, and warp signature | |
| 200 000 | 0.13 | power utilization curve | |
| 140 000 | almost all facing weapons can be identified | ||
| 80 000 | interior specs | ||
| 60 000 | life form readings, weapon arming status |
It generally takes about 20 seconds to complete a scan around a vessel. Taking extra time improves results by one range category. [GSS 44]
Federation Shuttlecraft/Fighters
| kilometers | lightyears | Potential Information |
|---|---|---|
| 2x10^13 | 2 | number of ships and speed |
| 350 000 | general size of ship | |
| 200 000 | shield status, fire control active, silhouette, and warp signature | |
| 60 000 | power utilization curve | |
| 40 000 | almost all facing weapons can be identified | |
| 10 000 | interior specs | |
| 2 000 | life form readings, weapon arming status |
It generally takes about 20 seconds to complete a scan around a vessel. Taking extra time improves results by one range category. [GSS 44]
Situational Modifiers
- If the scanning/sensing ship is in passive mode, decrease ranges by 25%.
- If the ship being scanned is being stealthy (1.), decrease ranges by 33%
- If the ship being detected is running silent (2.), decrease ranges by 50%.
1. A ship is being stealthy if it is in passive mode, minimum shields, warp 2 or less, and has no weapons armed. Violating any one of these conditions means the ship is no longer being stealthy.
2. A ship is running silent if its sensors/scanners, shields, and weapons are down and it is traveling at sublight speeds.
Discussion
An interesting thing to do is compare the starship range/shuttle range ratio:
| Ratio | Potential Information |
|---|---|
| 250 | number of ships and speed |
| 3 | general size of ship |
| 2.5 | shield status, fire control active, silhouette, and warp signature |
| 3 | power utilization curve |
| 3.5 | almost all facing weapons can be identified |
| 8 | interior specs |
| 30 | life form readings, weapon arming status |
Note that a starship's sensor/scanner range is about 3x that of a shuttle. Why does it breaks down at extreme ranges?
Q: Why are starships superior at long ranges?
A: At long ranges, sensing/scanning is primarily limited by the linear size and collecting area of a simple course detector. Starships are much bigger than shuttles.
Q: Why are starships superior at short ranges?
A: At short ranges, a greater variety of materials can potentially be searched for (e.g. biosigns, superscience materials, esoteric particle emissions). Detecting these is more a matter of bringing the fullest spectrum of sensor/scanner suites to bear. Starships have them, shuttles don't.