Nerf the cargo sensor ship

Wasn't sensors already nerfed to give a max range of 15?

I'm against nerfing cargo sensor ships. They are just the game's equivalence of AWACS.

Maybe make the size of sensors larger on cargo hulls?

I agree with Star Pilot. There's nothing wrong with using the cargo hull as a base for a sensor ship. The whole point of the "cargo" hull is that it has lots of space to put stuff, but no durability whatsoever. That's perfect for a radar ship.

Essentially no different from the Sensor Probes in the original galciv, only potentially faster.

Making it so you can't put sensors on cargo hulls sort of defeats the purpose of letting the player design his own ships.

I believe they are way to powerful. It's like having the ability to see everything on the map becuase if you use them right they are impossible to destroy, that said it makes the game a lot easier, because you know the tactics of the enemy, which gives the player a huge advantage. So it should be nerfed somehow. But don't do it so much that it would not be worth using.

You can't nerf Cargo Sensors without making them useless compared to combat hulled scouts. The sensor radius is already set at 12 or 15, so it's not as if you can see everything for 5 sectors anymore. The only time it really counts is for smaller maps, and if that's the case, then the best way to nerf that would be to scale down sensor radius, or scale up sensor size.

Ok maybe it shouldn't be nurfed. But the AI should be adjust to counter them more effectively. I usually play on the biggest map and have about ten of these by the time were almost halfway done with the tech tree (set to slow). and there just so powerful. Mine usually have a radius of 15 and have well over 20 movement points. lets just say I can see anything I want in a couple of turns, and if I'm at war I see everything that the enemy is doing. Everything.

Here's an interesting counter idea:

How about a Starbase module that jams sensors? It would create a field around the starbase (radius depending on tech and overall balance) that was permanent fog of war, except for the basic "visual" range of any ships within the field. That way both you and the AI could cover strategic areas from sensor spam. Could be a fun addition, and opens the door for lots of surprises.

Oooo, I like the jammer idea.

I think they work quite well in the game right now with the 15 pc cap on sensor range. As someone said above, they're basically equivalent to an AWCS in a modern airforce. For anything other than a tiny map, you're going to need a number of them to adequately cover your front ines. And they force the player to make interesting tactical decisions - you want the sensors close to the front, so you can see your enemies. But that means they are at risk from fast-moving enemies.

At most, the AI should recognize this type of ship and prioritize them as a target, perhaps even being willing to sacrifice a fast-moving fighter to get rid of one.

Or just add some kind of stacking penalty for sensors. First two sensors count fully, then the next 2 count for 50%, then the next three for 33%, and so on. Round fractions down. So, to get the equivalent of 4 sensors, you would have to fit 7.

Or, if that's too extreme, then fiddle with the numbers to find something that works for gameplay. After all, in the real world, putting three radars with a range of 50 miles on a ship gives you a total range of

I'm all for them. After all, it's not like the Air Force built their AWACS on a combat frame.

I don't think they mess up the game balance, as if you're up to date on your patches, sensors are capped at 15 anyway. That may be a lot on a Tiny/Small map, but it's nothing on the larger maps. Heck, get the Eyes of the Universe (easy) and you don't even need AWACS, as EVERY ship you've got will hit the sensor limit.

Eek! No! As someone who races for the Eyes of the Universe, I'm already screwed by the sensor patch that was put in and am seriously hoping that they fix the original issue and remove the band-aid. If THEY have an issue with sensor barges, then might I suggest limiting the maximum number of sensors that may be used on any one vessel. Otherwise it's just a tool, use it or not.


Blif

Um... do you read the dev journals? See Link for example. The devs use these sensor ships, so how could it be cheating?

Cargo ships with senor ranges in excess of 15 makes things too easy. I have been in the position of being able to design a single ship with a sensor range of 220, which I simply parked in the middle of a gigantic galaxy. It was tactically advantageous and strategically wise, but completely removed any sense of adventure or risk from my military operations. The most fun comes from a game when the extremes are removed and there is balance, or the chance of achieving balance. Being completely victorious is the same as being completely overwhelmed: one is boring and un-fun, while the other is frustrating, morale-breaking, and un-fun.

Let's say an enemy fleet got loose in your rear areas. That could be exciting because you'd have to track him down and bring up elements to bring him to battle. You'd have to guess where he might be, or get updates from those times when he did wander into a planets sensor range or destroyed a frieghter.

But if you have complete knowledge of the map that excersize simply becomes a clinical and direct removal of a pest. There is no sense of danger.

The only smart way to fight a war is to get as much intel as you can, if you don't =have= to know what the enemy ships are doing 8 turns before they get into your territory then maybe you didn't set the difficulty high enough to challenge you.

As for 220 sensor range. You can't do that anymore. You can't even get 16 sensor range. That first post-retail patch they put out capped it at 15, and this takes effect retroactively for saved games btw.

I love the idea of sensor jammers! It could be a whole new line of research. In order to not be projecting grey soup into enemy territory from a safe area, it should not stack, but you can research more effective ones (As opposed to the typical smaller iterations of ship parts.) through, well, research. Then you could have a really cool sensor/anti-sensor thing going on.

If the AI can be told to do it properly, and can also be told to be suspicious properly, then you could have situations where you send these things in as though they're covering a major force, but in fact are unescorted. Or have several of them going into different areas of the enemy sector, with only one covering a fleet and the rest being decoys. Don't know if the AI could be programmed to react well to this, or if it could use similar tactics in return, but it's a nice idea. I loved having my long-range sensor ships...

Not to menition a stealth line of research that makes you harder to see. (Which was pretty good in the OS2 version back in the day)

Another thing I've been thinking about is it would be cool if you/they could jam communications so that you might not get to see what happened to a unit, or a planet. Could work where a unit being jammed gets to move/attack last, and until then won't show what it can see.

I really don't get this thread.

1. ships are capped at 15 sensor range. Thats being able to see one sector. This was no different than the spy drones in galciv 1. It is definately not over powered as big sensor ships are expensive to build and maintain (well if you use survey modules instead of sensors as far as I know) The enemy will kill them, but they are low priority. They could be however made a higher priority, but that would lead to explotation of the ai I think. It's better for the AI to focus on the real threats to itself then focus on targets of opportunity like sensor ships.

2. The AI will also build sensor ships and scouts and scout you out all the time. Are people blind? do they not see the AI's using scouts to figure out what your up to? Trust me. you need all the intel you can get as the AI is MUCH more efficient than you are when it comes to correlating data.

3. Stealth while interesting, would take alot to balance, playtest to see if its even worth putting in, and programing the ai to use it. This is a feature that would only show up in an Expansion Pack. Further more, stealth works best in player vs player games rather than player vs ai. Stealth would work against a human with ai opponets as again the ai can correlate the data it gathers better than you.

3. If you really don't like then simply don't build those kinds of ships and allow yourself to be surprised often when the AI takes over your worlds because you couldn't see it coming.