Red Six
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Posted - 2003.12.02 00:17:00 -
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This is an illustrative post to try and help people understand the logic better. I'm going to get my chaos setup updated and have to come over and test this as I haven't yet. I won't comment on it's effectiveness/ineffectiveness until I have. I'm going to use RL comparisons for illustration purposes. Hopefully this will make sense, if not I apologize in advance.
The way I see this, the new sensors targetting method makes me think of submarines and their sensors namely sonar. Looking at it in that context helps put this in perspective for me.
The Caldari ships, while advanced have a large signature(electronic noise) which would make it easier to acquire a localization of the target because of all the medium slots they have.
RL example, the Soviet Alfa class of submarines was one of the most advanced hulls in any submarine fleet. During testing when the reactor was run up to full power and the submarine went to flank speed during a test in the seas north of the old Soviet Union. The Alfa was heard all the way down at a US Navy listening post in Puerto Rico. A large signature that was easy to localize similar to Caldari ships high tech noise with all those medium slots.
Here's where my logic breaks down some. As I see it the Amarr ships for the most part with their low numer of med slots should have the lowest signatures. Although some Minmatar ships do have equivalent number of medium slots compared to equivalent Amarr ships. My only way to explain this is that lasers are more high-tech than projectile weapons and thus do have a slightly larger electronic signature. Weak argument I know but only thing that seems to fit the facts.
Anyhow, based on the signature radii a Scythe (Minmatar cruiser tier 1) has the lowest electronic signature. It's putting out the least amount of electronic noise to detect and use to localize the target. That causes the Scythe's attakcers to have to wait a very long time to localize and lock a Scythe.
Going back to my real world analogy, this makes a Scythe comparable to a USN 688 Los Angeles class attack sub. It has a very small signature and is harder to localize and lock up. Meaning attackers will have to be more patient and wait longer for the sensor to gather enough data to localize the 688 class sub. In real life 688 class subs have trailed Alfa subs at 800 meters for days without being detected. Won't go into reasons why take to long and may bring about unnecessary flaming. Something like that obviously can't happen in the game, at least not without cloaking.
I realize the firepower comparison in my real world analogy is relatively equivalent between the Alfa and LA class subs. So that part doesn't hold up however the signatures of the two subs are what we are comparing not firepower, in that instance the analogy does hold up.
Industrial ships are like modern merchant cargo ships. Designed to haul cargo not be stealthy, hence the large signature.
Signature radii were taken from Zyrla's post. If the signature radii are changed to reflect a more physical sensor reading, similar to Radar Cross Section, then things will change.
Hopefully this made sense to someone besides me.
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