I am quite confused about how ships are seen on the solar map, as well as mines etc. So far I've seen pure black hexes, cloudy black hexes, pure red hexes, and cloudy red hexes. It seems that it is Pure vs. Cloudy and Red vs. Black. But what is the difference between these? It seems that "cloudiness" is banished for 19/20 hexes around planets, and beholders banish red hexes making them black, though they are still cloudy unless it overlaps the 19/20 area around planets.

I've noticed that I can see ships in hexes that aren't cloudy, but I've come upon certain situations that doesn't seem to apply. Also, it seems I can see mines in black hexes but only my own in red.

How do these filters work? What are they for? How are they influenced?

EDIT: Another question that has occured to me, how do footprints and passive scans work?

'Cloudy' means it is further than 20 from a planet. This means that RipDrives will work - ie you can jump out. If you try and jump close to a planet then the jump will fail.

The only time this will fail is if you miss 2 turns (don't play for 10 days) and then your ships will force jump and if too close to planets they will take 8 damage each.

The black hexes are seen - ie they are illuminated by beholders. You will see ships and mines and so on. The only counter to this is to fire Scramblers, or ECM to destroy the beholder.

Also ships that do 'noisy' things, fire noisy drones, move with SpinDizzies will appear - in which case the hex they are in is drawn with a black backdround.

You can always see your own mines, and those of Empire embers, even if they are not in an illunimated area. You will also see enemy mines if they are within 2 or 3 hexes (I forget).

Footprint depends on ship size. Passive scan also depends on ship size. If your passive scan overlaps with another ships footprint then you will see it - but it may not see you if the reverse is true. This means Scouts can act as really good, err, scouts for your fleet. Mapmakers was an expert in small ship warfare.

I think that was everything!

Jonathan

Ah, ok. So essentially nothing has changed since I played before, but some things have been added. (With regards to the "filters.")

I didn't realize the passive scans and footprints only had to overlap, so that will be useful.

Thanks.

Here's another question related to passive scanning and footprints:

If a ship has a footprint of 0, will the ship still show up on an enemy's passive scan so long as said ship itself is within range?

EDIT:
And yet another:

Does an Epic Blooms passive scan act in favor of all fleets in system? This seems to be what is happening for me. (And if it's true, perhaps the passive scan of blooms should be increased to 5 so everyone can see everyone else trying to snatch the bloom.)

Hey... as an aside, I just thought of a possible new name for epic blooms: "DarkNovas," coming from the increase in a ship's DarkLight Heart's power. Pardon me while I go find the proper thread....

If the ship is inside anothers passive scan then it will show up no matter what it's footprint. ie passive+footprint<=distance.

Epic blooms passive scan SHOULD act in favour of all fleets in the system. I only gave 'ownership' of the Epic as a kind of heads up to players that the Epic was about. It's totally random who gets the 'ownership' so I figured that was a good thing.

I thing you are right about increasing passive scan for blooms to 5. I'll stick it on the list.

As for the name....I think Epic Blooms will stick, but Dark Novas would have won while I was choosing. I have to trawl the rules if I rename them

Ok, thanks for the help.

EDIT:
While on the subject of Epic Bloom passive scan here, I merely wanted to point out that currently, as Epic Blooms get larger, their passive scan and footprint is affected too. In Leansown the Epic Bloom's footprint is now 1 and the passive scan has become 2.

Yep - good point. I was on the list, but the list got lost on the train. So it's on the new list