Enginnering options for Frame Shift Wake & Detailed Surface Scanners

[Bannor]

Please note - this is not a question of which kinds of ships to scan, or which kinds of systems to scan them in.

Which scanner engineering options are most efficient for scanning wakes and planetary surfaces? Is it better to choose Fast Scan (which reduces range), or Long Range (which still takes just as long?

My thinking is, that if I choose Fast Scan, then I will take more time to get within range (I must travel further). In normal space with the FSWS, I could opt to put it on a fast ship, perhaps with engineered thusters, to get within range quicker. But for the DSS I don't have this option - supercruise is still supercruise.
Or I could go for the Long Range engineering option, and then it won't take as long to get within range - but the scan itself will still take as long as it does now (bloody ages!)

What works out better in the game world? And is the answer the same for both of these scanners?

[Salt_Extractor]

Fast ship- fast scan cuz you can get in range fast
Slow ship- LR scan

[Mr Eko]

For me personally, I prefer long range for the wake scanner, mainly because I just like to sit in one place and not have to move and still be able to scan pretty much everything.

Everyone is going to have a different preference. I don't use the detailed surface scanner much at all so can't really tell you about that one.

Oh, and I mainly use the ASPX

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

For DSS, the fast scan will always help you to scan the main star, while the long range one may help you with exploring star systems.

For non-exploration ships it's always a fast DSS for me. For exploration ships I'm still not sure, if the long range one brings me the advantage.

[Bannor]

Originally posted by Lucifer:

For me personally, I prefer long range for the wake scanner, mainly because I just like to sit in one place and not have to move and still be able to scan pretty much everything.

An A-grade FSWS has a range of 4km (unengineered). What range do you get from engineering it to Long Range G5 (maximum)?

[Bannor]

Originally posted by Dolphin Bottlenose:

For exploration ships I'm still not sure, if the long range one brings me the advantage.

Is that because exploration is not *just* about scanning - you want to actually get closer to planets and things to get a good look at them?

[Eddo]

Originally posted by Bannor:

Originally posted by Dolphin Bottlenose:

For exploration ships I'm still not sure, if the long range one brings me the advantage.

Is that because exploration is not *just* about scanning - you want to actually get closer to planets and things to get a good look at them?

Because some of the more interesting bodies might be:
A) Farther away, like the second star
B) You have multiple interesting bodies, but they might be be far away from each other in the orbit.
Hence why you might want long distance scan

I personally would opt for faster scan for DSS but I haven't actually engineered it. Reality is, you just want the one that saves time.



I agree with Lucifer, long distance scan is probably better as only time you gonna use it a lot is when you are wake farming.

[Jankules]

Long range wake scanner has 8.6km range,you can scan from one position only,you dont need to travel from wake to wake.And the fast mod is not bad ,you will run out of wakes prety fast also...

[Salt_Extractor]

Well... I guess fast scan is only for PvP...

[Thyriel]

I use long range on my DBX. Being able to scan from further away is definitly better for exploring. The benefit is not only that you can start to scan faster, but you also need to consider that when traveling away from a planet your speed is limited by the gravitational field you are in. So the closer you are to a planet, the longer you need to get to the next planet too.
This comes especially handy if you have small bodies around a big gas giant for example. It's a huge difference in time needed to get within range (and back out of it) if you only need to get like 10-15ls close instead <5ls

The only downside is the slight increase in mass of the module (=less jumprange) but it's only a minor decrease as the module doesn't weight much at all

[Bannor]

Originally posted by Thyriel:

I use long range on my DBX. Being able to scan from further away is definitly better for exploring. The benefit is not only that you can start to scan faster, but you also need to consider that when traveling away from a planet your speed is limited by the gravitational field you are in. So the closer you are to a planet, the longer you need to get to the next planet too.
This comes especially handy if you have small bodies around a big gas giant for example. It's a huge difference in time needed to get within range (and back out of it) if you only need to get like 10-15ls close instead <5ls

This certainly makes sense - something I hadn't considered. Thanks for posting! :)

[Tough2Name]

I haven't ever bothered engineering a wake scanner but if I were going to I would mod it for long range. Even with an unengineered wake scanner I manage to scan the wakes before new wakes spawn in anyway, so the convenience of long range would be more appreciated when I am farming for wake data. As for the DSS I use fast scan on mine. The decision is mostly personal preference and I believe time saved with either mod is going to be extremely similar. The fast scanner has an edge in my opinion because the star you jump in on is always right in front of you and not scanning it is pretty wasteful. It can be useful when moving around to scan neutron stars and black holes. Also I get the point of staying out of the gravitational field of planets with long range as when you need to get close to the moons around a gas giant long range helps you avoid getting quite as close and staying further from the gravity. On the flipside the moons around a gas giant are pretty darn close to each other which helps the fast scanner. The point of long range is saving travel time but how much are you really saving when the distance is only like 10 Ls? Sure that 10 Ls takes a bit longer than elsewhere due to the forces of gravity, but even then the time it takes to move around is going to be much smaller than traveling to a different planet in general.

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Long Range Wake Scanner is universally better IMO. The Fast Scan reduces range, and since you're most likely to be wake scanning outside of a station, it makes more sense to have as much range as possible.

For Detailed Surface Scanner I also went Long Range Scanner, but I think the metrics of both Fast Scan and Long Range Scanner work out about the same. Long range scanner just lets you ping Gas Giants especially, from much, much further out, which is nice for the quite Valueble Class II gas Giants, which otherwise might not be worth the ~2,000 LS to get into range. (Class II gas Giants are worth between 60,000 and 240,000 depending on their mass)


Note that Long Range Scanner ALSO REDUCES TIME TO SCAN because scan speed is based on what I'm going to call Scanner resolution. That is, the closer to are to the target body being scanned, the faster the scan completes based on its mass (More massive objects resolve easier than less massive objects), and since Long Range Scanner increases the effective scanner resolution, it also compresses the time it takes to scan, so long as you are on approach to a target body. (Obviously if you are scanning just at the edge of range, it'll take forever just like a standard DSS)

[Thyriel]

Originally posted by Bannor:

Originally posted by Thyriel:

I use long range on my DBX. Being able to scan from further away is definitly better for exploring. The benefit is not only that you can start to scan faster, but you also need to consider that when traveling away from a planet your speed is limited by the gravitational field you are in. So the closer you are to a planet, the longer you need to get to the next planet too.
This comes especially handy if you have small bodies around a big gas giant for example. It's a huge difference in time needed to get within range (and back out of it) if you only need to get like 10-15ls close instead <5ls

This certainly makes sense - something I hadn't considered. Thanks for posting! :)

To add a bit more to my previous statement after i tried around now a bit with an AspX and just for fun using a fast scanner:
I'm not so sure meanwhile which is really better and i tend to say it purely depends on your "exploration style". If you like (like i do) to scan/tag every star and are a lot around in regions with unexplored systems it's a huge time saver having a fast scanner after jumping into a system.
Also if you just like to scan the good stuff (ELWs, etc.) and skip everything else it's definitly the better choice as you rarely have more then 1-2 bodies to scan in a system.

If you scan everything i still guess that the long range might be superior, but in the end probably only if you scan almost every system you come across. But definitly would be quite interesting if some people would do a real test with similar ships, similar experienced exploration players and predefined systems to scan and compare time. For example i could imagine that systems (and those are quite common) where you have a lot bodies close around gas giants to scan that are almost all well within range of a fast scanner, would be a lot faster then using range scanner.
On the other side, typical systems with 4-8 planets scattered around a sun and quite some thousand LS between them, should be definitly faster with a ranged scanner (if you know how to properly stop at distance)

[Jankules]

If your exploring lets say neutron field or black hole field,i mean prinary star jump,primary star jump,fast scan is far better option,also I find it very practical at the bubble, where already all systems are fully explored.Doing missions and few jumps in bubble i use fast scan.But if you want pure exploring out of bubble long scan mode is better.

[the smoking mค็็็็็n]

has anybody tryed using both together to see if they can work in tandem?
i mean to oneday but have not got round to much exploring
as for that i use a long range scanner myself when travelling as quite alot of high value planets seem to sit within 500ls of the main star meaning you just have to point at it with long range without even moving from the main star to scan
have not even made a quick scan yet though so can't compare