Scanners
From Starport: Galactic Empires
All ships are equipped with scanners. You start with Short Range Scanners until you decide to upgrade to one of the 4 other types. You can only equip one type of scanners at a time. Scanners can be purchased in the hardware section at Star Base shipyards. When purchasing a new ship, your scanners, like your primary weapon, will be automatically transferred to your new ship. A scan can be performed by using the Scan command on the Orders menu at the top of the game screen, or by pressing Alt-S. Scan results are reported in terms of tons of unidentified compounds. These notable materials can indicate the presence of other ships, deployed defenses, colonies, aliens, outposts, and artifacts in the area scanned. Colonies on greenhouse type planets that have built the Ion Tower are not detected by scans. Here are descriptions of the 5 scanner types and how they are used:
- Short Range Scanners can be used to scan your immediate vicinity. They can be helpful when you first land on a planet surface if you would like an estimate of what lies on the planet without having to go around and look it all over. When used in space, these scanners report on the solar system space alone, and not any of the planets. Short Range Scanners use up 1 unit of warp fuel.
- Broadband Scanners are used from space and scan every planet and moon in the entire solar system in one fell swoop. The result obtained is a total, representing the combined tons of all unidentified compounds across all planets and moons in the system. Broadband scans use 3 gallons of warp fuel.
- Neutrino Scanners operate like Broadband Scanners except instead of reporting the total for all planets, they are capable of scanning each planet individually. So results obtained from these scans are more concise. Neutrino scans cost 5 gallons of warp fuel each use.
- Tactical Scanners are Short Range Scanners that have been modified for combat purposes. When your ship is equipped with Tactical Scanners, you can see the shields levels of other ships.
- Battle Scanners can only perform short-range scans, just like Tactical Scanners. With Battle Scanners, you get both the tactical ability to see another ship's shields level, and you can see cloaked ships. Just what an Avenger captain fears most!
Object Weights
Reported Values
| Object | Weight in tons |
|---|---|
| Alien | 1 |
| Resource | 1 |
| Beacon | 10 |
| Mine | 15 |
| Flak Cannon | 25 |
| Compound Mine | 35 |
| Laser Cannon | 40 |
| Artifact | 100 |
| Player | 200 |
| Biodome | 500 |
Note concerning aliens: Aliens will initially scan as 2 tons. This value includes the resource they're on top of. For example, a planet with 3 aliens and no extra resources will scan at 6 tons. If the aliens are killed without picking up the resources they guard, the planet will now scan at 3 tons.
Understanding the Neutrino Scanner Report
Here are the weights to look for:
- 0-70 = Only aliens on planet
- 100-195 = This is usually an artifact; however, someone could have placed mines.
- 200-495 = This means some combination of aliens, artifacts, and players. Usually, it's a sleeping player or an artifact.
- 500-~570 = Almost always Biodome with no cannons. Could just be multiple players or artifacts.
- Over ~570 = Almost always Biodome, likely defended. The higher the weight, the higher the defenses. Subtract ~570 (biodome and aliens) and then divide by 25 to get the maximum number of cannons. Sometimes, there will be a sleeping player.
- 3625-5500 = This means the planet is probably a fully defended colony. At lower weights in this range, the colony could be either have the maximum number of flak cannons, or a smaller number of lasers. Higher weights indicate a larger number of lasers.
- Be careful; maps with an extremely wide landing area could kill you before you fly back to the warp. Land on these at your own risk, as you will likely be destroyed if you are unable to immediately take off again. Also, be careful when landing on greenhouse planets because the Ion Tower (a special building) will cause you to scan only the weight of aliens and player ships which makes it appear empty when it is defended.
