Sensor Dish

The sensor dish is a component used by the Scientist (or anyone with the Sensor Dish Certification talent) at the Science station or lab. When near the sensor screen you can press R to use the sensor dish.

It allows for the Scientist to focus the sensors in a direction, lock them onto a target for bonus signal strength and launch probes into space!

The Pilot and Captain will see a green dish pointing in the direction of the sensors when using an outside view of the ship. This can be helpful if the Scientist is trying to point out a particular feature, object, ship, or path.

Mechanics
There are three primary mechanics: Sensor Lock, Probe, and Scrap collection.

Sensor lock makes a ship visible to all members of the screw and greatly increases the detection rating. To lock onto a ship, point the dish at the ship and hold down the lock on button (Default: Mouse2). Only one ship can be in a sensor lock at any time so choose carefully. If the locked-on ship is sufficiently detected then sensor exploits can be used on it.

Firing probes (Default: Mouse1) is used to increase the detection rating of nearby ships and to collect research in space. If a ship cannot be detected directly on sensors and cannot locked onto, firing a probe nearby will temporarily boost detection and make it possible to lock on. Cloaked ships can also be unmasked by firing a probe nearby. When firing at glowing points on asteroids, 'space jellyfish', and other phenomenon the crew will gain Experience and sometimes Research materials. Aiming directly at the glowing points tends to yield better results.

Collecting scrap via the sensor dish is done by 'locking on' to the items labelled scrap in space (Default: Mouse2). This scrap can either be ship components or processable scrap. If there is a ship within that field of view, the sensor dish will not collect scrap and instead engage a sensor lock.

Math
The Sensor Dish work in conjunction with the EM Sensor to detect other ships and works as follows.

If ship is too close skip all math, else do below

S = signature of hiding ship D = detection of searching ship

If ship is cloaked S = 0 otherwise multiply S and D by .75, can be between 0.05 and 100

W = 0 If player ship is not in warp then W = 1

L = 1 based on sensor dish rotation and ship positions, L equals between 0.2 and 1 If hiding ship is sensor locked then add 1 to L probes being near hiding ship adds 0.1 to L

P = point of search If probe is closer to hiding ship than P then probe becomes P

Q = 1000000/P Q is limited between 0.02 and 1.25

Final detection signature (F) = S * D * Q * W * L If F is above 0.32 then searching ship can detect hiding ship