DUST Search - Do precision enhancement modules work?

Forlorn Destrier wrote:

Thor Odinson42 wrote:

But the scanning dropsuit skills have to work. They have to be more powerful especially when you put modules on.

This is a HUGE sacrifice of HP and/or damage mods to have this capability. If these skills were to work properly it would really open up a role for a recon player. Their dropsuit could scan down players and they could use the active scanner to present the info to their squad.

To this day I've never heard a decent explanation of these skills/modules and their effectiveness.

Your scan profile equates to the radar cross section of a figther jet. When radar bounces off of the jet, it returns to the sender to give an idea of location, speed, etc. The lower the cross section, the harder it is to detect because the return is lower. Scan profile works in this same way - the lower your profile, the harder to detect you are.

Scan precision relates to the strength of your scanner. The lower the number here, the stronger your scanner is. If the strength of your scanner has a lower value than the scan profile of what you are scanning, a return is presented and let's you "see" them through walls and on maps up to the range of the scanner and for the duration of how long the target remains "painted".

For example, a scout suit (unmodified by skills) has a scan profile of 45. This means that in order to locate this person my scan precision must be 45 or lower. By comparison, the standard active scanner has a scan precision of 46. Since the scout is under my threshold with the standard active scanner, he remains unseen by me (though he knows someone attemped to "ping" him and failed.

The skills help modify these numbers. If I have my scout suit on (note: role specific suit, not the role nuetral basic suit), and I have scout suit operation for the racial choice I have made at level 1, then I get a -10% reduction in my scan profile (I could be wrong about the percentage - I'm not in front of the game at the moment). 10% of 45 is -4.5 applied to my profile, making my new profile 40.5. This means that to be detected my enemy now needs a scan precision of 40.5 or lower to "paint" me. Bonuses from skills to scan precision, I think, only apply to passive scans and not active scanners, but they work in the same way.

I am not entirely sure how the bonuses stack - I know that there is a stacking penalty. I suspect that bonuses acquired from the same source are additive, and applied, and then bonuses from other sources are added then applied to the new total that happens after the bonuses from the first source are applied. What I mean by this is this:

If I have Scout Suit operation at 3, I get a -30% reduction to my profile (making the number reduce from 45 to 31.5. If I also have the profile dampening skill at 3, and this gives 5% per level (again, going from memory on the percentage so I could be off), then I get a total reduction of 15% from the new profile of 31.5, which is a drop of 4.725 points, making my new profile 26.775. Next, if I add a profile dampener on my suit which gives a -10% reduction, I will now lose another 2.6775 points from my profile reducing me to 24.0975 on my profile.

This is my understanding, and I recognize I could easily be wrong . If anyone sees any errors (other than the math or stats from the skills which I know could easily be wrong given my math skills and since I'm not at the game right now), please feel free to add/correct.


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Cody Sietz Bullet Cluster 907	Posted - 2013.09.06 15:52:00 - [1] - Quote Forlorn Destrier wrote: Thor Odinson42 wrote: But the scanning dropsuit skills have to work. They have to be more powerful especially when you put modules on. This is a HUGE sacrifice of HP and/or damage mods to have this capability. If these skills were to work properly it would really open up a role for a recon player. Their dropsuit could scan down players and they could use the active scanner to present the info to their squad. To this day I've never heard a decent explanation of these skills/modules and their effectiveness. Your scan profile equates to the radar cross section of a figther jet. When radar bounces off of the jet, it returns to the sender to give an idea of location, speed, etc. The lower the cross section, the harder it is to detect because the return is lower. Scan profile works in this same way - the lower your profile, the harder to detect you are. Scan precision relates to the strength of your scanner. The lower the number here, the stronger your scanner is. If the strength of your scanner has a lower value than the scan profile of what you are scanning, a return is presented and let's you "see" them through walls and on maps up to the range of the scanner and for the duration of how long the target remains "painted". For example, a scout suit (unmodified by skills) has a scan profile of 45. This means that in order to locate this person my scan precision must be 45 or lower. By comparison, the standard active scanner has a scan precision of 46. Since the scout is under my threshold with the standard active scanner, he remains unseen by me (though he knows someone attemped to "ping" him and failed. The skills help modify these numbers. If I have my scout suit on (note: role specific suit, not the role nuetral basic suit), and I have scout suit operation for the racial choice I have made at level 1, then I get a -10% reduction in my scan profile (I could be wrong about the percentage - I'm not in front of the game at the moment). 10% of 45 is -4.5 applied to my profile, making my new profile 40.5. This means that to be detected my enemy now needs a scan precision of 40.5 or lower to "paint" me. Bonuses from skills to scan precision, I think, only apply to passive scans and not active scanners, but they work in the same way. I am not entirely sure how the bonuses stack - I know that there is a stacking penalty. I suspect that bonuses acquired from the same source are additive, and applied, and then bonuses from other sources are added then applied to the new total that happens after the bonuses from the first source are applied. What I mean by this is this: If I have Scout Suit operation at 3, I get a -30% reduction to my profile (making the number reduce from 45 to 31.5. If I also have the profile dampening skill at 3, and this gives 5% per level (again, going from memory on the percentage so I could be off), then I get a total reduction of 15% from the new profile of 31.5, which is a drop of 4.725 points, making my new profile 26.775. Next, if I add a profile dampener on my suit which gives a -10% reduction, I will now lose another 2.6775 points from my profile reducing me to 24.0975 on my profile. This is my understanding, and I recognize I could easily be wrong . If anyone sees any errors (other than the math or stats from the skills which I know could easily be wrong given my math skills and since I'm not at the game right now), please feel free to add/correct. excellent post. The racial bonus for scouts is currently 5 percent per level. 10 percent per level would be awesome, but I think it make it impossible to detect scouts. Again, excellent post. Edit:also, the PD skill sadly only gives 2 percent per level.