What if all ships contributed to sensor profile but only top 5 to sensor strength?
It makes perfect sense that stacking more of the same quality sensors will get you only so far, but it doesn't make sense that stacking more identical ships will stop making them easier to detect as a group. This is not an appeal to realism, I just think this is one of those situations where making it simpler will actually make it more difficult to understand, because it diverges too far from default expectations that are based on reality.
This will of course remove the symmetry that always makes two fleets detect each other at the same time, regardless of size, if neither have special modifiers. But I've never understood why that is a good thing anyway. Why shouldn't a smaller fleet have a stealth advantage over a bigger fleet? I might be missing something, but isn't that what stealth is for?
Mechanics-wise, having all ships contribute to either stat linearly is not viable. Either ships don't contribute an individually impactful amount, or the number gets too high on the high end of fleet size.
Also: while I see your point, I think there's also a simplicty to having the same set of rules for each stat, rather than two different ones, even if one of those two is simpler.
Well, to have a mechanic just so some entities can give a bonus to it seems a bit backwards, no? Alternative bonus for high res sensor could be earlier identification of unidentified fleets or less sensor penalty from environments.
An excellent point. But then for those specific alternate uses, there'd have to be a similar kind of formula to make sure a range of ships can contribute to it without making the results unreasonable (i.e. how much better is 2x Apogee vs 1x Apogee? etc). Well, I don't know. It bears more thought - will definitely leave it as-is for now, though.
it really doesn't make any sense that sensor "strength" scales with ship size. sensor strength should scale with ship technological sophistication. ECM/EW capability can scale with the size of your powerplant, but sensors require very little power generally, compared to the massive amount any starship is going to produce.
to put it another way without muh realism
if a wolf has 1 sensor of X strength, and an onslaught has 500 sensors at X strength, that doesn't actually mean the onslaught sees better. it just means that the onslaught can see the same area at the same strength. what matters is the strength of the sensor, not how many there are. pooling sensors doesn't actually increase their strength, it just allows the onslaught to see around it's own hull.
Just a general note: if one looks for reasons why something "doesn't make sense", one can *always* find them. So, that's not actually terribly interesting - it's always a few thoughts away, for any mechanic. It feels much more reasonable to find reasons for why things *do* make sense - these are also very easy to find, there are many, and I personally find it more interesting.
Some quick examples for sensors, without necessarily saying that's how things work in-universe:
- Sensors could be bound by computational power, with larger ships naturally having more cpu cores available to process the results. Pooling computational resources across multiple ships has benefits but also limits.
- Sensors could operate at FTL speed, making the underlying principles, well, just about anything. It could well be that spreading multiple sensors wider could give more range.
Etc etc. I mean, it's totally reasonable to say "it doesn't make sense
to me", but not an absolute "it doesn't make sense". You're choosing to make a set of arbitrary assumptions that make it not make sense, if that makes sense
Which is fine! But that's not the same as it not making sense in some absolute sense. Ahem.
High Resolution Sensors give a flat +60 to sensor strength
Is this to the ship, or to the fleet?
Example: Say I have 5 capitals, each with 150 sensor strength. Does my frigate with 30 strength and High Resolution sensors do anything?
The frigate will do nothing in that situation.
I do agree that tech level should be a factor in sensor quality though.
I could see that, but I just really don't think the mechanic needs to get more detailed here. An extra +/-10 on various hulls for little actual impact just doesn't feel like a worthwhile thing to have the player trying to optimize. As it stands, this is reflected by certain high-tech ships having High-Res Sensors.