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Ship Identity and Transponder


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Well,so I actually get this idea from Starsector(the former Starfarer).In starsector a transponder is a system that broadcasting a signal that tell everybody in range who you are and where you are.It can be switched off so others won't notice you that easily and your ship will become kind of "unidentified vessel".Thinking about how to implement this system into DU, I get some ideas and questions.

 

First of all, how ships identify each other in the current build or plan.Is there some kind of Arkship Database?When you build a ship you register on it so whenever somebody else find you they automatically know what's the name of the ship and other informations.Or there's nothing like this, most of time we have no idea what ships we run into.I mean, with a transponder system,there would be a lot of interesting stuff.You can turn off the transponder and do some dirty smuggling work.We can have normal ports that required you to turn you transponder on and free ports that don't give a damn who the hell are you.And your ship can be register under Arkship or player organizations.

 

A few questions still remain though,such as how players register and obtain transponder system.How to verify the information that a transponder broadcasting(with some form of code?) especially when register under player organizations.And other things such as faking ship identity.Just some basic ideas, might be weird and unworkable.

 

P.S. Sorry if I make some stupid grammar mistakes.Since English is not my first language, this always happen.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hmmm, this might be a neat idea!

It might be hard to prevent pirates from copying a transponder code though and using it to wreak havoc on unsuspecting players or ports. Unless each transponder signal was somehow registered in a central database, and no identical signals could be produced without consent from the original owner.

It would be cool to look at your radar screen and know exactly who is flying a particular ship, assuming they have the transponder on.

It could also play a role at busy ports in granting landing permission, just like an airport in real life!

 

It could also be used as a decoy. Lets say you are flying a stealth ship, and as an extra level of protection, you create a sattelite of sorts that can be deployed. This sattelite would be relatively cheap, with no stealth tech; you WANT it to attract attention. If you added an active transponder to it, it would create that much better of a distraction, so while the opponent is focused on the decoy, you can slip past undetected.

 

Or.....

 

It could be used to create an illusion of a large number of ships to intimidate an enemy.

 

Some cool possibilities if they include this in the game!

 

By the way, your English is perfectly understandable.

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There will likely be a way to broadcast identity and/or ship name, but it will likely be an element you add to a ship that provides that function.

 

Constructs of any kind (including ships) will be tagged by the player that built/owns the construct. There won't be a way to fool the game into thinking you are someone else, or your ship belongs to someone else, as it would badly skew the balance of pvp/nonpvp. If simply hiding your identity prevented automated defenses from kicking on, there would be no point to automated defenses. That would be akin to making it optional for weapon fire to be slowed or dampened by shields, and making the choice in the hands of the shooter.

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I like it, i also like the idea of someone being able to copy your transponder signal of course to prevent abuse of this make it so they would need to be in range of your transponder to get the frequency and only if it's turned on and of course only if they have the right skills..

 

Could create some interesting gameplay mechanics and turning it on or falsely broadcasting opens up many aspects of emergent gameplay.

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Good point, except the enemy could simply turn off their transponders before approaching your construct. Still, if someone is stupid enough to leave it on.....

 

 

Then you set your defence to attack any unknown ship.

 

True, but that might not work out too well for some people; markets for example. They don't want to have their defenses blow a customer out of the sky just because he doesn't have a transponder or doesn't have it on. Still, if you have the option to set up your auto-turrets that way, there might be a way to set them on "Reactive" mode, where they only shoot at something/someone who attempts to damage something on the property.

(This is kind of off topic, but it would also be cool if they created a way to detect weapon systems activation. That could act as an additional safety measure since your defenses could come online and be ready to fire if the person actually does shoot.)

 

There won't be a way to fool the game into thinking you are someone else, or your ship belongs to someone else, as it would badly skew the balance of pvp/nonpvp. If simply hiding your identity prevented automated defenses from kicking on, there would be no point to automated defenses.

 

I don't think what is being discussed is necessarily tricking the game​, just other players.

You have a point about automated defenses, maybe the pirated transponder displays a friendly signal, but can be detected anyway by automated defense.

 

Also, if they do allow transponder signals to be copied, they should also create some sort of tech that defends against it, and some that can detect a counterfeit. It wouldn't be all that unrealistic, kind of like the rolling codes a modern car's computer uses to verify that the key someone is trying to use is actually authorized. If the code it gets doesn't match the algorithm used for that car, no dice.

 

The more sophisticated a copycat defense system is, the more technologically advanced a pirate ship would have to be to hack it.

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The more sophisticated a copycat defense system is, the more technologically advanced a pirate ship would have to be to hack it.

Thats a really nice idea, it could even be linked to the same skill. adding balance into the equation.

 

Additionally the cost to create a sophisticated defensive system could scale in accordance to how difficult it is to "copy" Along with the equipment needed to hack it scaling accordingly as well.

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I'd prefer if theres no explicit ID system but instead something thats built on LUA communication.

 

Like a few standard communication tags with assorted data sectors (like xml or json tags).

For example vessel name and affiliation.

 

Security features atop that could be handled by player made LUA code.

 

i'd also make it hard to impossible to intercept such communications.

Transport layer security should be hard to circumvent

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Theres a RL thing called maratime tracker that requires all seagoing vessels to have a transponder on it. The website is pretty cool, not sure if im allowed to link it here, but you can pan around on a global map and see all the big ships realtime. (heres a sccreenshot http://prntscr.com/cls3ds )You can click on them and see where they came from and where they are going. it also shows photos of the ships and statistics. The point is this. Smaller ships do not need the transponder, but they will still show up on say a cargo vessel's radar. So in the busy shipping lanes the cargo ship can see 'known' ships and 'unknown' ships.

 

Isnt that what we could have?

 

I guess every ship could have a unique number at the point of creation and its up to the owner if they want to register specifics about it.

As the owner of a trade hub, planet side or in space, you could allow only ships with registered details, shoot at unregistered ships, set docking taxes for 'known' ships.

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Theres a RL thing called maratime tracker that requires all seagoing vessels to have a transponder on it. The website is pretty cool, not sure if im allowed to link it here, but you can pan around on a global map and see all the big ships realtime. (heres a sccreenshot http://prntscr.com/cls3ds )You can click on them and see where they came from and where they are going. it also shows photos of the ships and statistics. The point is this. Smaller ships do not need the transponder, but they will still show up on say a cargo vessel's radar. So in the busy shipping lanes the cargo ship can see 'known' ships and 'unknown' ships.

 

That is pretty neat! Just spitballing here, but that could even be used by organizations to create protected trade routes. All they would have to do is watch the ship traffic via an active map like the one you posted. Then they could go about setting up some kind of automated defense system or regular patrols along the route.

Again, not sure if that is even practical, just throwing it out there. :-)

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That is pretty neat! Just spitballing here, but that could even be used by organizations to create protected trade routes. All they would have to do is watch the ship traffic via an active map like the one you posted. Then they could go about setting up some kind of automated defense system or regular patrols along the route.

Again, not sure if that is even practical, just throwing it out there. :-)

 

That'd be pretty cool! And if there were something like a cargo scanner people could have customs vessels that check for contraband/control the goods coming and going to a region.

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  • 2 months later...

"

I believe this is the best place to post a question about the radar that I hope someone will have the insight to answer. 

 

Given that the radar will be beyond visual range, it will sane to believe that BVR will be possible for scanning constructs that are outside the reach of the primary radar. I'd like to know the limits of the data such a scan will have. The entire game is fully player driven and as such official construct size classifications will be non-existent. 

 

So, what data will the scanner show if it exists? Merely the distance to the object and its name? Is there a possibility of increasing the amount of information the scanner sends back? Take for example, the mass of the constructs, the velocity of the constructs, and certain other information that I'm sure other players may deem important.

"

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It should display simple info such as an antenna in space engineers but it should also allow you to request additional Information if needed threat it doesn't clog up theHUD

Just answering to spam and say nothing?

 

I think there will be more systems in place. Depending on skill/antenna lvl.

Directional scan like in eve to know if there is something at all atin what angle to you in which distance.

The "radar" then can come up with additional information like velocity, vector, possible lifeforms, armaments, engine types, ...

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its a legitimate idea i dont see what your problem with it is. the antenna will show just the ship name and organization tag for instance but then you are able to ask additional info such as the owner of the ship and crew size and what not.

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Just answering to spam and say nothing?

 

I think there will be more systems in place. Depending on skill/antenna lvl.

Directional scan like in eve to know if there is something at all atin what angle to you in which distance.

The "radar" then can come up with additional information like velocity, vector, possible lifeforms, armaments, engine types, ...

"

Yes, indeed. This is more of what I had in mind. The information could be the same as what you have mentioned, give or take; it's five centuries into the future after all. It is almost imperative that the primary radar be more informative than the scanner, as long as the object in question is selected or highlighted from the radar panel or whatever way the interface makes possible, the resulting information should be clearer and more precise than using the scanner for the same purpose. While posting the question, I had the directional scan of Eve in mind, but on which stat should the information rely? The quality of the antenna, the required and specific skill levels of the player, or both?

"

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It would be cool if maybe they had a system to where your radar level gives you the extra information, but its sort of mumble jumble in a sense that it gives mroe info but not info that is easily understood but a dedicated person to it can get alot more info out like how much oxygen the ship has left and what not.

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"

Yes, indeed. This is more of what I had in mind. The information could be the same as what you have mentioned, give or take; it's five centuries into the future after all. It is almost imperative that the primary radar be more informative than the scanner, as long as the object in question is selected or highlighted from the radar panel or whatever way the interface makes possible, the resulting information should be clearer and more precise than using the scanner for the same purpose. While posting the question, I had the directional scan of Eve in mind, but on which stat should the information rely? The quality of the antenna, the required and specific skill levels of the player, or both?

"

 

For a simple dscan you just need to know IF there are any vessels nearby and how far they are away. To start evasive maneuvers.

For the radar there should be more relevant stats: what kind of antenna? how big? Are you near some sort of field which disrupts it (possibly introduced at a later stage)? How high are your skills with operating it? Does the "enemy" vessel have any means of protection on it?

Then you get, depending on how well you did on scanning that ship, different aspects of it as mentioned

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For a simple dscan you just need to know IF there are any vessels nearby and how far they are away. To start evasive maneuvers.

For the radar there should be more relevant stats: what kind of antenna? how big? Are you near some sort of field which disrupts it (possibly introduced at a later stage)? How high are your skills with operating it? Does the "enemy" vessel have any means of protection on it?

Then you get, depending on how well you did on scanning that ship, different aspects of it as mentioned

"

That brings the scan range into question. The developers did say that the scan range for mining is fixed per mining gear. That aside, scanning in Eve has a universal limit. There has been no information on whether the radar range will have a limit as well, but it is safe to think so with the developers stating that skill levels may not pass level 10...or was it 5? I can't remember. It's too soon to ask for the intended range of the scanner: that will have to wait until we are nearer to Alpha. Your reply however is sufficiently valid. For now, enough said. 

 

--edit The mining is fixed per mining gear. Higher levels of gear will mean higher ranges per gear level. It's not so complex, but not that simple either. That would mean, higher levels of gear will need the the respective skill to be trained to the required level, no?

"

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