Jon Hawkes
|
Posted - 2005.07.18 10:09:00 -
[2]
The ship scanner operates out to a maxiumum range of approximatly 15AU, which works out at roughly 2,143,970,000km (I'm in work, so can't rememeber the exact maximum range).
I tend to use the ship scanner for 3 purposes:
1: Doing a very quick scan of a system for asteroid or ship types. Set scanner range to maximum and coverage to 360. Head to the sun or a centrally located planet to put you pretty much in the centre of the system and do a full scan (remember to check overview settings since the last patch added this option). If you're looking for asteroids, you'll get a full list of every asteroid in scanner range (can take some time and may not cover the entire system, depending on size) If you see an item of interest, such as a potentially abandoned ship, you can narrow the scan coverage down to 180 and rescan to see if the ship still shows up. If not, turn the camera around to scan the other 180 degrees, and continue to narrow it down until you have the item located between 5 and 15 degrees.
NOTE: You do not need to move the ship, as the directional scanner uses the direction of the CAMERA, not the ship.
Once you've worked out the target's approximate location, start bringing the scan range down until the target dissapears to work out how far away it is. If it is near a planet, moon or other warpable object, check on the F11 minimap, warp there and start dropping Scan Probes if you wish to warp right on top of the target.
2: Scanning gates or stations for potential campers. This is one of the most common and helpful uses of the scanner. Warp to a moon or planet near to a gate you believe to be camped. Set scanner to 15 degrees or so and align the gate with your ship using the camera. Look on the overview and make a note of the gate's distance. Set scanner distance to a little more than the gate's and scan. Any ships at the gate will show up on the scan results. Just be aware that any good gate campers will know this trick and will spend their time actively scanning the planets and moons near the gates for potential targets, so don't stay in the same place for too long!
3: Scanning nearby moons for an POS installations Same as number 2, just make sure to have Control Towers set to show up in overview settings. I mostly use this one for when I'm surveying moons and don't want to run into someone else's POS by mistake. It hurts!
______________________________________________________________
~ The Internet: Where men are men, women are men, and children are FBI agents ~ |