REQUIRES MULTIMOD

Overview

This is a basic utility mod intended to make player ship sensors slightly more interesting to use.

Active sensors are disabled altogether. Passive sensors have 5 range settings (and OFF), increasing power draw and brightness with range.

NOTE: Brightness is increased by stealing the game's Stealth Module CPU program -- loading the Stealth Module in conjunction with the mod is a waste of a CPU slot, though it should do no particular harm.

Installation

Install to the mods/ directory and activate from the Extras menu.

Add keybinds for fsw_so.MaxRangeUp (recommended: K) and fsw_so.MaxRangeDown (recommended: K, SHIFT) to your control ini file.

Usage

Increase and decrease sensor range using bound keys. You can see the effect on your brightness on the HUD, and on your power usage by looking at the passive sensors in the ENG screen.

Customisation

Sensor Overhaul acts as a layer on top of the existing sensor setup, so it should play nicely with mods that alter the default player sensor ranges.

The range, power, and brightness modifications can be further customised by editing fsw_SensorOverhaul.ini.

The main configuration information is in the [Modifiers] section.

range_steps is the total number of settings (apart from OFF) that the sensors will provide in-game. default_power is the initial setting.

max_range_multiplier is applied to the passive sensors' detection and identification ranges when they are at the highest setting. max_power_multiplier does the same for power draw. max_brightness_bump is the value by which the player's brightness increases at the highest power setting.

Intermediate values for each step can be calculated for range, power and brightness on a linear (y = ax) or squared (y = axx) basis. By default, range is linear, while power and brightness are squared, so you sacrifice more power and brightness as range increases. The modes can be toggled by setting square_range, square_power and square_brightness to 0 (linear) or 1 (squared).

The [Options] section allows selective disabling of features. Set break_actives to 0 to prevent the mod disabling active sensors. Set steal_stealthprog to 0 to prevent it overriding the game's Stealth Module CPU program (this also prevents the sensors from affecting your brightness).

The [Lists] section contains comma-delimited lists of subsim names that the game will recognise as active sensors, passive sensors, and the ship's CPU. If you are using sensor or CPU subsims with custom names, adding them to these lists will allow the mod to support them. If you mail me custom sensor names from other mods, I'll add this support to the upstream version.