Okay so slightly confused about what area the passive scan actually covers. Is it the viewing angle you describe, or is it actually the full radius around you?

360 degrees. LOS is the front 60 degrees.

I think people rely on their scanners to much, I can spot people moving around in the hills from way far out and rarely get snuck up on because i actualy pay atention to my suroundings.

I think people rely on their scanners to much, I can spot people moving around in the hills from way far out and rarely get snuck up on because i actualy pay atention to my suroundings.

First off I would like to thank Reav Hannari for being as inquisitive as I on this subject and helping me test this illusive subject out.
Your Minimap is composed of 3 rings.
1st Ring = 20 meters
2nd Ring = 65 meters
3rd Ring = 100 meters
Viewing Angle 60 Degrees (30 Degrees on either side of the median)
Reav's Profile and Precision are both higher than Bojo's (Logi vs Scout)



The Passive Scanning occurs inside whatever your scan radius is. My radius for the test was 18.2 meters. Reav walked all around me, where I was looking and where I was not. Regardless of where I was looking, he always appeared on my minimap at a range of 17 meters. I never appeared on his radar because I had a lower profile than his precision, as long as he could not see me on his screen or as long as I didn't touch him. Nothing you do (actions) effects passive scanning; shooting a weapon or sprinting does not raise your profile.


Anything that you can see will appear on your radar within 80 meters. So regardless of my lower profile, I popped up on Reav's radar as long as he saw me within 80 meters. However if I dropped behind something I disappear.

Blip Brightness Effect

Passive: As something enters your passive scan radius (that is above your precision) and approaches you, the blip on your radar will get brighter as the distance closes.

LOS: The same as passive but with an interesting twist. As they leave your LOS they get dimmer. So when I was aiming at Reav and he began to walk sideways, his blip got dimmer the farther from my cross hairs he got. Aiming at a target instantly makes the Blip at it's brightest intensity.

The Radar Compression Effect

When you initiate a sprint, your radar will lurch objects in it forward (as you are moving), but they will appear to be closer then they are. Once you stop, you will see the blips revert slightly outward, returning to their normal and actual positions. The opposite effect (expansion) occurs when the object is behind you.

The Sum Up

• LOS defeats Profile
• Passive Scan will pick up anything around you with a higher profile than your precision
• LOS Scan drops off at 80 meters
• Blip Brightness correlates to distance, the brighter the closer.

I look forward to doing more dynamic tests on this subject, such as closing precision and profile gaps. If you feel interested in helping me (and reav if he wishes) to test more dynamic fittings to solidify this information please feel free to contact me. In the meantime please take this information and use it! We didn't test this for nothing!

Thanks for the info, Bojo. But I have a question.

Have you tested to see how much material (walls, crates, CRUs, barricades, etc.) the passive scan can see through before losing its effectiveness to see an enemy merc on the other side (both with and without LOS)?

I ask this because I have an alt training up to go into complex range amplifiers in the Gallente Scout dropsuit and on several occassions I have been able to see through thick walls on where the enemy is at without even looking at them directly. But it wouuld be nice if I had a second person confirm it for me.

This is all very interesting but kind of hard to visualize in my head. But really good work.

Same. If I'm not in combat, I look on my radar and move using my side vision.

I also got to see the aim assist adhesion affect during our tests but Bojo kept jumping and it would lose track of him. It's not very sticky which is a good thing.

And the thread has been cursed

/Sprinkling holy water

And the power of Christ compels you!

I have sinned. Forgive me.

Remembered one test: active scanners do not make you appear on the enemy TACNET. I think this was intended at one point. Not sure if it was ever in game.

Great info. Would like to see an addendum with active scanning as well :)

And the thread has been cursed

..
The LOS Scanning[/center]

Anything that you can see will appear on your radar within 80 meters. So regardless of my lower profile, I popped up on Reav's radar as long as he saw me within 80 meters. However if I dropped behind something I disappear.

Blip Brightness Effect

....
LOS: The same as passive but with an interesting twist. As they leave your LOS they get dimmer. So when I was aiming at Reav and he began to walk sideways, his blip got dimmer the farther from my cross hairs he got. Aiming at a target instantly makes the Blip at it's brightest intensity.

First of all, there's an additional twist to the LOS stuff.
Some things may not just show up on your radar, even in your LOS view... UNLESS you specifically run your crosshairs over them.
Technically, its (crosshairs, plus a width approximately the size of an SMG or sniper ADS targetting reticule.

Also.... there may be some very special weapons, that may light it up on your radar, out to 100m. Sniper rifle might be one. but maybe not.

Also... this effect is in effect, even for those weapons that dont have particularly noticable crosshairs. Such as knives. Or hip-carried sniper rifles.

Also... If something is out of rader range, but you happen to run your crosshairs over it.. it may light up, not on your rader screen, but on your REGULAR SCREEN. ie: chevron lightup, or even more details if you are close enough.
Range is somewhat weapon dependant, i THINK. It's usually corresponding to your weapon's efffective range.
Exception being turrets and tanks; they light up at long distance for almost any weapon, if I recall.
I did a long post about this stuff a few weeks back.

This is why you may randomly get a brief light-up of a chevron, for an enemy that doesnt even seem to be there. You just happen to have run your crosshairs across their exact position on your screen while running somewhere, etc. Even if you dont have enough precision to see them normally on your passive scan.
If you stood still, and they stood still... they would continue to be lit up on your screen, even though they're too far for radar.
(IMO, this should really really be taken away)
Unlike the passive-scan "height doesnt matter" feature.. vertical position matters. your crosshairs really need to be ON the target, for this to happen.

Lastly..
There may be a similar crosshair effect, for EXACTLY BEHIND YOU. This is rather difficult to test :) but I seem to have occasionally observed this sort of behaviour. that is to say, a red chrvron in the "behind" position.. but them NOT being on my passive-scan radar, because they were too far away.
This makes absolutely no sense, though. So it may be a +-sign bug in the code, rather than a deliberate feature.
I would suggest not relying on it. But do pay attention if you get those wierd red-chevrons at the botom of your screen that indicate enemies behind you :-}

i

1) Can you specify what those "things" are? Or give an example to test?

mmm. no, sorry.
Suggestion: Try being in a domination, where the enemy is clustered around the one point. Get to within 90 yards, and experiment.
But make sure you are experimenting with either a scrambler rifle or sniper rifle equipped.


3) Are you talking about the blip getting brighter when it is directly behind you? If so, that is true for fore and aft. Except it isn't true that it goes beyond your passive range (as we tested) Reav was pretty much every where he could be on my minimap, and he only shows up behind me when he is inside passive scan radius.

Speaking of which.. turns out that enemy uplink detection is now also a good test of passive scanning. They seem to disappear outside of passive scan range now.

(Unless of course you get them in your crosshairs :-/ )

More useful, concisely worded gifts of knowledge?

Freaks.

One thing I forgot to ask. If you, or anyone you know, have trained up passive scan range skills to the max can you check to see if stacking penalties apply?

I did some Math-Fu of my own. Assuming you have trained up Gallente Scout Dropsuit to Level 5 and Range Amplification to level 5 and have a Scout GK.0 fitted with four complex range amplifiers, you should be able to see up to 99 meters with the passive scan. But if there is a stacking penalty then the range would about 60 meters. Can you check that for me?

just a heads up; as most of you know DUST 514 is currently not calculating movement penalties on armor modules in the right order.

Exampel: Put 2 armor plates on a suit and mark your movement, then put a ferroscale ( 3:rd module ) on and you will see that your movement just increased. This is because the ferroscale is incorrectly calculated as being first in line for stacking penalty - meaning that stacking penalties are applied to the armor modules but not the ferroscale. ( since it is first in line. )

Now if DUST 514 incorrectly calculates 'negative precentages' in the wrong order it would be fair to assume that it could very well do the same while dealing with other modules. Such as 'Profile Dampeners' and 'Precision Enhancers'.

If the stacking penalties are calculated in the right order a medium suit with 1 ' complex profile dampener' and 1 'advanced profile dampener' would have a scan profile of 27.88 dB how ever if it is calculated in the wrong order it would end up being 28.18 dB.

Since a prototype scanner has a scan precision of 28 dB it should be easy to verify if the bug exists while dealing with these modules.

Feel free to send me in-game mails if you have any questions and / or want me to help out in any way.

( Oh and btw you can see that DUST 514 has stacking penalties on percentages by stacking 'cardiac regulators' or 'kinetic catalyzers' they'll experience the standard EVE pattern of stacking penalties. )

One thing I forgot to ask. If you, or anyone you know, have trained up passive scan range skills to the max can you check to see if stacking penalties apply?

I did some Math-Fu of my own. Assuming you have trained up Gallente Scout Dropsuit to Level 5 and Range Amplification to level 5 and have a Scout GK.0 fitted with four complex range amplifiers, you should be able to see up to 99 meters with the passive scan. But if there is a stacking penalty then the range would about 60 meters. Can you check that for me?

all very interesting. However, as a mini light with good radar skills but w/o mods I find myself being skeaked up on very often. Sometimes a heavy would be right behind my back w/o lighting up on the radar. Does it take a certain time for the radar to actually register them in the 10- 20m radius or is it instant?

Its pretty quick but that 10 to 15 meters is also very short. Minmatar light with range enhancement 5 will only be 15 meters. My guess is you are probably misjudging the range and they are engaging just outside the passive range and closing quickly. Even a fat suit could move in at 5 m/s and the time-to-kill of a light is about 1 second.

Since it seems like we are in different parts of the world I'll just share my data and the experiments I was going to ask you to help me with.

First off is the hit-miss charts I made ( I have already made them availible on the forums but I'll put the link in here aswell )
The first chart is no stacking penalty at all ( I'm leaving it in there )
The second is with stacking penalty.

Link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvYSJ6FRJlihdDI1NVpNdk5BQUh0bFphNktjLTU3R1E&usp=sharing

And here is a link to the complete data ( which I haven't shared before and only uploaded to google docs yesterday )

Link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvYSJ6FRJlihdFVJeWI5NVFUcmYwZERDQWhUSXZac2c&usp=sharing

The data is separated into a lot of sheets:

Heavy - Profile Dampening
Medium - Profile Dampening
Light - Profile Dampening
Scout - Profile Dampening

Heavy - Precision Enhancement
Medium - Precision Enhancement
Logistics - Precision Enhancement
Light - Precision Enhancement

Almost Everyone - Range Amplification
Gallente Scout - Range Amplification

All functions are intact in this spreadsheet so you can clearly see how stacking penalty is calculated.

Link to Aenigma's guide on stacking penalties in EVE: http://eve.battleclinic.com/guide/9196-Aenigma-s-Stacking-Penalty-Guide.html

Just a heads up; as most of you know DUST 514 is currently not calculating movement penalties on armor modules in the right order.

Exampel: Put 2 armor plates on a suit and mark your movement, then put a ferroscale ( 3:rd module ) on and you will see that your movement just increased. This is because the ferroscale is incorrectly calculated as being first in line for stacking penalty - meaning that stacking penalties are applied to the armor modules but not the ferroscale. ( since it is first in line. )

Now if DUST 514 incorrectly calculates 'negative precentages' in the wrong order it would be fair to assume that it could very well do the same while dealing with other modules. Such as 'Profile Dampeners' and 'Precision Enhancers'.

If the stacking penalties are calculated in the right order a medium suit with 1 ' complex profile dampener' and 1 'advanced profile dampener' would have a scan profile of 27.88 dB how ever if it is calculated in the wrong order it would end up being 28.18 dB.

Since a prototype scanner has a scan precision of 28 dB it should be easy to verify if the bug exists while dealing with these modules.

Feel free to send me in-game mails if you have any questions and / or want me to help out in any way.

( Oh and btw you can see that DUST 514 has stacking penalties on percentages by stacking 'cardiac regulators' or 'kinetic catalyzers' they'll experience the standard EVE pattern of stacking penalties. )

Damn. Also, I assume that the scout-MLT Dampener is a Level 5 scout, nes pas?
Also, the stacking penalties to Range Amplifiers sort of institutes a passive scan range buff IMO.

The way stacking penalties work in EVE ( and Dust, you can check the stacking penalties against Cardiac and Kinetics and they will follow this pattern. ) is like this:

For positive modifiers:
Base * Skill Modifier * Skill Modifier * (1+Module_Modifier) * (1+Module_Modifier*Stacking Penalty) * (1+Module_Modifier*Stacking Penalty)GǪ

For negative ( reductions ) modifiers:
Base * Skill Modifier * Skill Modifier * (1-Module_Modifier) * (1-Module_Modifier*Stacking Penalty) * (1-Module_Modifier*Stacking Penalty)GǪ

The stacking penalty increasing for each additional module.

The stacking penalty can be approximated by = 0.5^(((n-1)/2.22292081)^2) where n is the number of the module. This makes the modules work with the following efficacy.
1st module = 100%
2nd Gëê 86.91%
3rd Gëê 57.06%
4th Gëê 28.30%
5th Gëê 10.60%

If we apply this to a medium suit, which has a base scan profile of 50 dB, we get the following:

Base = 50 dB
Skill Modifier = 2% reduction in scan profile per level of 'Profile Dampening' (10% reduction at level 5)
Complex Profile Dampener = 25% reduction in scan profile
Enhanced Profile Dampener = 20% reduction in scan profile
Standard Profile Dampener = 15% reduction in scan profile

So a medium suit with level 5 in profile dampening and 2 complex profile dampeners will have:
50 * 0.9 * (1-0.25) * (1-0.25*0.8691) Gëê 26.42 dB scan profile

This is clearly lower than the 28 dB scan precision of a prototype active scanner and the suit will not be detected.

However if you have a medium suit with level 5 in profile dampening and 1 complex profile dampener and 1 enhanced profile dampener you will get the following:
50 * 0.9 * (1-0.25) * (1-0.20*0.8691) Gëê 27.88 dB scan profile

This is also clearly lower than the 28 dB scan precision of a prototype active scanner and the suit should not have been detected, how ever it is detected. ( we tried a few different prototype scanners and all of them detect this suit. )

Now we assume the reason for it being detected is because of the "armour bug".

In game:
Complex armour plate has a movement penalty of 5%.
Complex ferroscale plate has NO movement penalty how ever we assume it actually has one that is set to 0%. ( The calculation will show why we think this. )
Medium suit: 5.00 m/s
1st module, complex armour plate: 4.75 m/s
2nd module, complex armour plate: 4.54 m/s

Now the weird bit, we put on a ferroscale plate.

3rd module, complex ferroscale plate: 4.64 m/s

A few quick calculations to show stacking penalties:
5.00 * (1-0.05) = 4.75
5.00 * (1-0.05) * (1-0.05*0.8691) Gëê 4.54

Now for the weird bit:
5.00 * (1-0) * (1-0.05*0.8691) * (1-0.05*0.5706) Gëê 4.64

As you can see here both the assumption that the ferroscale actually has a movement penalty of 0% and that it is calculated 'first in line' in the stack is confirmed.

Now supposedly EVE ( and Dust ) are to apply the largest modifiers first and then the smaller ones. This leads us back to the example of a medium suit with 1 complex- & 1 enhanced profile dampener being detected by a prototype active scanner. You see if you apply the stacking penalty in the "wrong" order you will get:
50 * 0.9 * (1-0.20) * (1-0.25*0.8691) Gëê 28.18 dB scan profile

Which would explain why the suit is, currently, being detected by a prototype active scanner.

Very nice guys. Thanks for this.

On related note, I have noticed a few things that apply to longer (sniping) ranges. Obviously these ranges are not applicable to active scanners.

1. The chevron gets brighter as you move your sight closer to the target.
2. When you look right at a target, you can see it at pretty much any range. Out to >500m, even though your damage drop off makes it way less likely you will do serious damage. I have seen a few scout suits where all you get is a red dot and no chevron but I remember these from previous versions and can't remember (or don't notice!) if I have seen this recently.
3. The "wedge" where you can see something is progressively smaller than 60 degrees at longer distances. From your data at close (<80m) range, the "wedge" is 60 degrees. At 200m it is much smaller (I have not tested the width, but it is much smaller). At 400m it is even smaller (I have not tested the width, but it is quite a bit smaller). It would be interesting to see if this "width" changes depending on the precision modifiers and dB profile of the target suit.

If you catch me, I'd be happy to test the longer range observations with you in-game.

Again, thanks for this.


Munch

Oh, just noticed that DFT has Scan Profile as a non-stacking attribute (i guess it didn't mention stacking in the description). Your results suggest that it is stacking. Is this pretty much the consensus of the community? Also what about Scan Radius (it is also currently marked as non-stacking in DFT)

Me and a corpmate did a bunch of testing with active and passive scanning and yes 'Precision Enhancers', 'Profile Dampeners' and 'Range Amplifiers' all suffer from stacking penalties.

Edit 1: I do not know if anyone got a confirmation that this is a bug from a dev, to be fair I do not remember anyone saying that they heard back from any dev regarding this. I am certain, how ever, that it was reported back when ferroscales were introduced.

Edit 2: It was confirmed as a defect by 'CCP Cmdr Wang' back in july. Link to weekly bug reports: https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1057188#post1057188 - '[BUG] Ferroscale speed bonus?'

'xxwhitedevilxx M' reported the bug on the forums in the begining of july: https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1009079#post1009079

Thank you Haerr

I've released DFT 3.4.2 which enables stacking penalty on those modules, thanks to your evidence.

It also replicates the "armor bug" by giving it a minuscule negative penalty. I should have caught that one sooner
If you find more such issues, please post them in the DFT thread so i can take care of it.

Cheers

Great posts people, props to bojo and Haerr for providing nice in depth math, I have saved these calculations for future reference.

I am most interested in characteristics of passive scanning as I am a heavy and dodging profile scans would eat up to valuable of real estate.

I assume those are implicating the stacking penalty?

But hot dang that's a hot scout buff
(Unrelated: Looks like heavies are getting a buff as well, I think that bringing the heavy and light closer to par is a step in right direction)

It works but modules are vastly underpowered compared to active scanners and nobody but CCP knows how passive scanning actually works.

Base range on all Light and Scout suits change from 10 -> 16

Gallente Scout
Base: 16 m
+Suit L5: 24 m
+Range L5: 36 m
+1Complex: 52.2 m
+2Complex: 72.62 m
+3Complex: 91.26 m
+4Complex: 102.88 m
Google Docs - documents is updated as well.

I am a blip.

Alright, I've brought this up two or three times but I have re-done my testing videos to provide a more clear demonstration of what I'm getting at. I'd like to bring this up for discussion and see what the rest of you think about this, whether it should be changed or not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNmx53VMazo

- Targets at 0m will appear on minimap, regardless of profile/precision.
- Targets on screen will appear on minimap, regardless of profile/precision, up to 75m
- Aiming down the sights of your weapon increases the brightness of their chevron/icon on the minimap, even if they are not on screen.
- Bringing the crosshair over a target will reveal their icon/chevron regardless of profile/precision (a tactic used by snipers to reveal location even if they cannot visibly see them).

Think there needs to be changes to this?

Edit: Grit_Breather on IRC explains it pretty well: "ADS increases forward scan cone range but doesn't reduce angle accordingly"