Talk:Small Radar System: Difference between revisions
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Actually, I used Budapest as the base site each time. Not an equatorial latitude, but geometric distortion alone cannot account for ranges several times greater than 300 or 450 miles -- Interceptors alone had a detection range of about 500 miles, and bases much, much, further than that. | |||
I'm not positive, but I got the sense that craft have a 100% detection rate when within range of a UFO. | |||
On the basis of this, it's not clear what coverage strategy should be adopted -- although the existing strategy of one base per continent holds up well, especially once you've got Hyper-Wave Decoders. | |||
--[[User:Ethereal Cereal|Ethereal Cereal]] 11:27, 1 June 2006 (PDT) | |||
Revision as of 18:27, 1 June 2006
Radar ranges -- highly anamalous
Well, I started doing some testing of what the actual range of each radar system is, and it's extremely strange. A Small Radar system (the initial base's default) detected UFOs as far as 1300 nautical miles away. (I measured on a globe, using points corresponding to what was displayed on the Geoscape.)
Once detected, UFOs could be tracked as far as 2000-2500 nautical miles away, and with a Large Radar or Hyper-Wave Decoder, the tracking limit seemed to be 3000-3500 nautical miles. For all I know, the tracking limit may be the same as the detection limit, and I just didn't detect any UFOs while they were at the outer edge.
The detection range for ships (I only tested an Interceptor) seemed to be about 450-500 nautical miles.
It is safe to say radar ranges are nothing like what is described in the game.
--Ethereal Cereal 19:52, 31 May 2006 (PDT)
You did remember to vary the radar site positioning for testing? [The internal modeling is skewed by latitude...near equator and poles are not that distorted geometrically (near circle), but the range is hyper near the Arctic and Antarctic circles.]
--Zaimoni 11:18, 1 Jun 2006 (EDT)
Actually, I used Budapest as the base site each time. Not an equatorial latitude, but geometric distortion alone cannot account for ranges several times greater than 300 or 450 miles -- Interceptors alone had a detection range of about 500 miles, and bases much, much, further than that.
I'm not positive, but I got the sense that craft have a 100% detection rate when within range of a UFO.
On the basis of this, it's not clear what coverage strategy should be adopted -- although the existing strategy of one base per continent holds up well, especially once you've got Hyper-Wave Decoders.
--Ethereal Cereal 11:27, 1 June 2006 (PDT)