Matrix Games Forums

Auto-design puts small sensor arrays in all my military ships. If I am planning on using a ship in ‘fleets only’ (ie frigate designed for escort/point defense duty), can I rely on sensors on the other ship types?

Ex: destroyers w fighter bays, missles, have sensors. Frigates w point defense and rail guns, no sensors

From the in-game description it sounds like it wouldn’t matter, and multiple may be redundant.


The game also says it’s harder to detect stars and ships in nebula. What does that mean? That scanners don’t penetrate as far, or does it mean I have to fly in the nebula to see what’s there?

Thank you for considering!

The question we should be asking is what does sensors do?

As far as I can tell they don't do anything for the ship or the fleet.

Scan Power 75,00 (no idea what that does, combat jammers?)
Scan Range 1M (The Skip Drive is 3M, so 1M is less than the size of a system)
Trace Scan Power 50,00 (ditto)
Trace Scan Range 125000 (Uhm, right next to us fully zoomed in?)
Jump Tracking 5% (So 95% chance of being useless?)

They do get better, the long range one can detect and warn of incoming fleet during wars, but that is a 70 unit item, so not one I would use on combat ships and it's too heavy for most non-combat ones, thought I've used them on constructors and scouts in DW1 (You can use them on scouts in DW2, but not if you want the scout to scout planets as they compete for the same slot).

Countermeasures or Target Tracking seems like a much better option on ships.

Scanners and regular sensors do two things for you:

a) Scanning: which means that for every foreign ship/base within range of the scanner, you can access its design by clicking under its name on the item's card. If a foreign ship/base is out of range of one of your scanners or it has Scan Jamming greater than your Scanning Power, then the design name is replaced with (Unknown) and is greyed out. Beyond looking at designs, Scanning is useful because it lets your ships (particularly automated ones) to judge the relative power of an enemy and whether they should engage it or evade it, act aggressively or cautiously, and so on. They also can use Sensors to judge its role and tactics, which is something your ships consider when engaging targets or choosing their pathing during combat.

b) Jump Tracking: When two ships are engaged in combat, and one of them decides to retreat by jumping away, Jump Tracking lets the other ship know the direction the other ship jumped to and jump behind it to pursue and destroy.

Furthermore Sensors allow you as the player to see objects in systems when they aren't travelling in plain sight. For example, if something is lurking in an asteroid field (like a voidkar) and you don't have any sensors or your sensors aren't powerful enough, then you won't be able to see it's there until you get really close.

Powerful sensors allow you to penetrate nebulas and gain vision to what's happening in there.

Finally, Sensors are meant to counter Stealth, which starts coming into play mid-game (tech level 3). Stealth isn't invisibility exactly, but a more advanced form of Scanner Jamming. Stealth/Scanner Jamming is useful, because it can make enemy ships misjudge a situation and suicide straight into your guns. It can also make hiding in nebulas, asteroid fields and near planets more effective.

Edit: Scan means knowing whether something is there or not. Trace Scan means knowing its design, power and role.

Edit 2: I have no idea if putting sensors on a single ship would give Scan information to neighboring ships. Logic dictates it should work, but I don't know how to go about testing this and confirming it.

Miravlix wrote: Fri Mar 25, 2022 5:54 am They do get better, the long range one can detect and warn of incoming fleet during wars, but that is a 70 unit item, so not one I would use on combat ships and it's too heavy for most non-combat ones, thought I've used them on constructors and scouts in DW1 (You can use them on scouts in DW2, but not if you want the scout to scout planets as they compete for the same slot).

Countermeasures or Target Tracking seems like a much better option on ships.

That what I used my flagship for in DWU.
I did not know the effects of most scanners as well, so I put all the scanners and fleet-boni on one ship, with lots of PD and some Long Range, set to stay out of the way in combat, while other ships did the actual fighting.
Kept my Admirals alive as well.

Long Range Scanner on scouts becomes interesting at mid to late game, when most systems are explored and you are looking for Pirates and Debris Fields you missed. Especially Stuff outside of Solar Systems.
And they are easier to deploy than Monitor bases.

i put scanner on civilian ships as i dont pay for it. i put long range on resorts as they are in most systems. u could put a scanner on a fuel tanker in each fleet to save space for more armor or weapons.

Very helpful. Thank you! So what I got out of this is:

1) Scanners on ships NOT part of a fleet (ie acting independently) are a good idea
2) If a ship is PART of a fleet, as long as some ships have scanners you do not NEED on all of the ships (can replace with weapons).


Final question: some of the effects are listed as percentage (ie 10% chance of jump tracking). Do these STACK with multiple scanners, or does it just provide you with more 'dice rolls'?