I was reading the sensor rules (from JTAS volume 4) this morning, and struggling to make sense of Emissions Control. Maybe I've misunderstood what the rules are supposed to simulate, or maybe I'm misunderstanding the rules themselves. Hopefully someone can help!
My read of how sensors work is that a ship has active and passive sensors. Using active sensors makes you really easy to detect, but in exchange improves your ability to detect other ships. Hence turning off your active sensors is prudent from a stealth perspective. EMCON allows a "halfway house" where you operate your active sensors in a less effective fashion, but that makes you less likely to be detected.
Ignoring EMCON, the sensor rules seem to simulate this. If you turn on your active sensors, you get automatically detected by anyone "nearby" (where "nearby" is defined as one range band closer than their sensors' range). If you don't turn on your active sensors, you don't have this problem, but have to make do with a -2 on any detection rolls you make.
Turning on EMCON, however, gives your ship a -1 penalty to be detected, and a -2 penalty to detect other ships. Presumably, since it's active, it still gets detected automatically by "nearby" ships. Extreme EMCON turns these penalties to -2 and -3 respectively.
So now my choice as a ship with EMCON is:
Only passive sensors: -2 to detect others. No advantage to hiding at any ranges.
Extreme EMCON: -3 to detect others. Automatically detected by nearby ships. Advantage to hiding at longer ranges (-2).
EMCON: -2 to detect others. Automatically detected by nearby ships. Advantage to hiding at longer ranges (-1).
Full active: +0 to detect others. Automatically detected by nearby ships. No advantage to hiding at longer ranges.
This set of choices seems to make EMCON attractive because it makes me harder to detect at long ranges (than if I just went passive), and has no advantage in terms of detecting other ships over and above being passive (indeed extreme EMCON is *worse* than passive).
My read of how sensors worked would be that if I wanted to avoid being detected (regardless of range) I should prefer being passive. [Not the case because having EMCON active sensors makes me harder to detect at longer ranges]. If I wanted to detect other ships, I should prefer being using EMCON to being passive only [Not the case because I get the same -2 penalty to detect using EMCON or a worse penalty if I use extreme EMCON].
Can anybody figure out what I'm doing wrong?
My read of how sensors work is that a ship has active and passive sensors. Using active sensors makes you really easy to detect, but in exchange improves your ability to detect other ships. Hence turning off your active sensors is prudent from a stealth perspective. EMCON allows a "halfway house" where you operate your active sensors in a less effective fashion, but that makes you less likely to be detected.
Ignoring EMCON, the sensor rules seem to simulate this. If you turn on your active sensors, you get automatically detected by anyone "nearby" (where "nearby" is defined as one range band closer than their sensors' range). If you don't turn on your active sensors, you don't have this problem, but have to make do with a -2 on any detection rolls you make.
Turning on EMCON, however, gives your ship a -1 penalty to be detected, and a -2 penalty to detect other ships. Presumably, since it's active, it still gets detected automatically by "nearby" ships. Extreme EMCON turns these penalties to -2 and -3 respectively.
So now my choice as a ship with EMCON is:
Only passive sensors: -2 to detect others. No advantage to hiding at any ranges.
Extreme EMCON: -3 to detect others. Automatically detected by nearby ships. Advantage to hiding at longer ranges (-2).
EMCON: -2 to detect others. Automatically detected by nearby ships. Advantage to hiding at longer ranges (-1).
Full active: +0 to detect others. Automatically detected by nearby ships. No advantage to hiding at longer ranges.
This set of choices seems to make EMCON attractive because it makes me harder to detect at long ranges (than if I just went passive), and has no advantage in terms of detecting other ships over and above being passive (indeed extreme EMCON is *worse* than passive).
My read of how sensors worked would be that if I wanted to avoid being detected (regardless of range) I should prefer being passive. [Not the case because having EMCON active sensors makes me harder to detect at longer ranges]. If I wanted to detect other ships, I should prefer being using EMCON to being passive only [Not the case because I get the same -2 penalty to detect using EMCON or a worse penalty if I use extreme EMCON].
Can anybody figure out what I'm doing wrong?