Intelligence
When a radar track is picked up, intelligence on this track will start being gathered by related components. As intelligence accumulates, more info will be provided on this track, such as ship internal condition, point defense condition, and CIC/weapons/thrusters condition.
Intel Effort
When a track is detected, intel effort will be used to identify the track. Only the intel effort statistic from the component with the highest intel effort is used. For example, if a ship is being tracked by a Sprinter corvette with basic CIC(1pt/s), and the team has 2 Solomon battleship in communication range, with one fitting an intelligence center(15pt/s), and the other one also fitted with a analysis annex (15×(1+30%)=19.5pt/s), only the last Solomon's 19.5pt/s effort would be used.
Intel progress can be made on radar and visual tracks.[1] Intel cannot be gathered on burn tracks or ELINT (but those tracks will show any previous intel gathered)
Intel Packets
All ships initially have a identification difficulty of 200; this is the baseline size of intel packets. If a ship has higher identification difficulty, packets sizes are scaled accordingly. Track info is split into a couple of packets, with default identification difficulty of 200:
- Packet 1 is of size 200.
- Packet 2 is of size 250, reaching the end of packet 2 would require a total intel effort of 450 points.
- Update Packets are of size 400 per update, reaching the end of update packet 1 would require a total intel effort of 850 points.
The track info update would progress as follows:
Packet Type | Track Information | Effort Cost | Cumulative Time For Basic CIC(1/s) | Cumulative Time For Citadel CIC(4/s) | Cumulative Time For Intelligence Center(15/s) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
- | Track ####-Unknown | 0 | 0s | 0s | 0s |
Packet 1 | Warship | 200 | 200s | 50s | 13.3s |
Packet 1 | Warship (Class) | 200 | 400s | 100s | 26.7s |
Packet 1 | Class (Hull) | 200 | 600s | 150s | 40s |
Packet 1 | Ship Name (Hull) | 200 | 800s | 200s | 53.3s |
Packet 2 | Ship Name (Hull), Ship Status | 250 | 1050s | 262.5s | 70s |
Packet 2 | Ship Name (Hull), Ship Status,% | 250 | 1300s | 325s | 86.7s |
Update Packet | Ship Name (Hull), Ship Status,% | 400 | 1700s | 425s | 113.3s |
Update Packet | Ship Name (Hull), Ship Status,% | 400 | 2100s | 525s | 140s |
... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
The intel gathered is shared to the entire team, and if the component providing intel is lost, other intel sources can continue where it left off assuming they can see the track.[2]
Missile intel is similar, but has packet sizes of 20, the first packet identifies that it's a missile and the second packet reports specific name and seeker combo. For most missiles, the second packet will incur an additional 0.1x multiplier on any intel work on it that isn't from a dedicated missile identifier (eg, intel center is reduced to 1.5 work/s, taking ~13 sec to get detailed report, but scryer still gets its full 10/s taking only 2 sec to get detailed report).
Once identified as a warship, the track's heading and velocity will be displayed in the tactical view as a disconnected line pointing out of the track and a line with a circle respectively. The velocity stick approximately shows where the ship will be in 10 seconds.needs confirmation
Ship Status
A ship track can have one of the following status displayed:
- EVACUATED: Ship has been evacuated
- NOT UNDER COMMAND: CIC is disabled or destroyed.
- IMMOBILISED: Drives no longer operational.
- HARMLESS: no offensive weapon available (EW included), either all are destroyed or the ship has no ammunition to fire.
Statuses higher on this list have priority and will be displayed over lower statuses.
However, please do note that ship status are only updated at each update packet. It is completely normal to see a ship under way with the status of IMMOBLISED or NOT UNDER COMMAND for some period due to how this mechanic works.
Intel Accuracy and Details
COND% is determined by the percentage of functioning components (i.e, any component that's above its functioning threshold), and adds or subtracts up to the intel accuracy[3] to it (eg, a ship with two green components, and one red component will have COND: 66%, if the Intel source has 20% inaccuracy that number can vary from 46% to 86%)
Debuff count is just the amount of debuffs, plus minus multiplied by the inaccuracy (e.g. a ship with 10 debuffs and a Intel accuracy of 20% will show anywhere from 8 to 12 debuffs)
PD% condition is similar to COND%, but only looks at PD systems. Each PDT, decoy type, and PD missile type are counted as a component(e.g., if a ship has 5 PDTs, chaff, flares, active decoys, and two types of PD missiles, every PDT getting knocked out but all decoys and PDMs functional will result in PD: 50%). Note that this percentage is also subject to intel inaccuracy, same as COND%
Working on remote tracks
Most sources of intel can only work locally, which means that the intel source can only work on tracks that the ship itself sees. However, certain components such as intelligence centers can work on remote tracks, allowing them to work on all tracks that is shared to the ship by the team.
Note that the intel doesn't just work for the player bringing the intel center, it works for all players on the same team.
If an intel ship cannot recieve tracks (due to ships being comms jammed/comms off/comms destroyed), then it will not be able to work on that track.
Ships can still recieve intel if comms jammed or comms destroyed, as intel is automatically shared teamwide, with the information independent of the communication network[possibly a bug]
Seeker intel distinguish
If a ship class and/or hull type is identified, Seekers with intel distinguish capability (Such as EO seekers) are capable of using that intel to identify and focusing on a specific class or hull if fired in TRK(track) mode. Note that this cannot seek out specific ships by name, it only gets as specific as the hull type.
Re-Acquisition of a Lost Track
After a track is broken, if it is re-acquired more than 2.5km from its last known position, then it will be assigned with a new track number with no intel. This would force the track to go through all the intel packets again before detailed information is regained. Likewise, if the track is re-established within 2.5km from the last known position, all information is preserved.
Decoy Container
Decoy containers can mimic ship signatures of Ferrymans and Marauders. These decoy containers cannot be revealed by intel alone, and will require visual spotting to distinguish from a real target. Decoy containers will typically have their heading pointing in the direction in which they are moving, which is not necessarily typical behaviour for Marauders.
Visual
Ships within visual range will have their model revealed, which can reveal their loadout and current status. The ship's bridge lights switch to blue to amber when the ship has no more power (eg, all reactors disabled or destroyed) External modules show black smoke and sparks when destroyed.
Sound
[WIP] Sounds can be used to learn information about the ship. You can hear sound effects near the location of your camera, regardless of how far any friendly ships may be from the location.
Alarms
Upon being destroyed, a ship typically sounds an evacuation alarm which will occur several seconds before lifepods get released.
Damage
Visible ships have a chance to play a certain sound effect when some of its components are directly damaged (hits on structure before structurebreak will not play this sound). This chance starts at ~1.50% per hit, increases to ~3.00% at 130 damage, ~50% at 300 damage, then increases by 0.0317% per point of damage past 300 damage
The sound effect can only play once every 2.5 seconds, and will only play if the model is visible.
If a ship gets structurebroken, a damage sound effect is played immediately, ignoring the above restrictions.
Weapon Sounds
Most weapon types have unique sound effects when in use. Turrets have a distinctive sound when rotating, and missile tubes have distinctive sounds when launching missiles
Intercom Chatter
Intercom chatter can give clues to the status of a ship.
If the ship's model is visible and the player's viewpoint is close enough, radio chatter can be heard from the ship.
[transcript WIP]
Fire will have a smouldering, crackling sound, and either a visible external yellow/orange fire or white sparks (electrical fire). The two different vfx are only a visual difference, the fire behaves the same.
Atmosphere leak will have a hissing, air leak sort of sound and a bright white cloud appearance
Notes
- ↑ Note that visual tracks are not transmitted over the network, which means remote intel like intel center will not work on them.
- ↑ It seems like all ships on the team can receive intel even if their comms are destroyed.
- ↑ As a result, intel accuracy is often better described as intel inaccuracy, as a lower number is better