This week I've been prototyping support for smuggling and blockade running as gameplay activities to
Stellar Nomad, and as such, decided I needed to overhaul how my ships detect one another. Previously, every ship could always see every other ship in the system at any time, which made avoiding combat or being sneaky very difficult.
Now, detection is determined by three factors:
- Sensor range of the enemy ship
- Heat signature of your ship
- Stealth rating of your ship (reduces the effective enemy sensor range)
Here you can see my heat signature changing (green debug sphere), based on whether your main engine is firing or if any of your weapons are firing
Here you can see enemy sensor ranges changing (red debug spheres) as I increase and decrease my ship's stealth rating. Overlapping the green and red spheres results in detection.
Each ship will have different values for heat, sensor range, and stealth, and each stat will be moddable with equipment, so it's entirely feasible for you to turn most any ship into an effective stealth ship if you wish.
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