Other E.S.A.

Name:
Endi Sensor Array, Anti-stealth Sensor System, Endi-Catcher, I-Spy


Description:
E.S.A. installations and vessels are visually defined by their massive, dish-like sensor array covered in long spines.


Abilities:
Stealth Detection: E.S.As are used to easily detect ships that are using conventional stealth technology by cross referencing long-range ENDI scans and conventional scanners.

ENDI-Detection: If a ship is utilizing Endi-scattering plating, or any other form of ENDI-scattering (such as the blocking ability of the ENDI decoy probe), it pings back as an error- which is instantly suspicious as that cannot happen under normal circumstances. This allows an additional level of scanning.


Conditional Abilities:
Close-Range: The resolution of an E.S.A gets progressively better the closer something is to the array itself.

Ship-Based: Starship based versions of E.S.As exist, but they’re often purpose built electronic warfare or sensor ships. These vessels are large, expensive, and cannot be equipped with weapons due to the E.S.A’s power draw.


Limitations:
Resolution: E.S.A’s resolution is terrible unless you are within 250km of the array itself, unable to provide a proper picture of something caught within the scan. (Roughly the distance from sea level to low earth orbit; essentially, close to a planet.)

Range: E.S.As have an incredibly long range, however it’s not enough to cover a system. To fully offer scanning around a planet of Earth-like size, you would need roughly a dozen installations. The range is 382,500km, which is the full distance between the Earth and the Moon.

Power Draw: E.S.A is insanely power hungry, requiring its own large, dedicated solarium reactor to function. Even then, they’re often backed up by conventional power grids and large battery systems.

Installations: E.S.As require dedicated installations to properly run, these facilities are large- most coming out to around one hundred meters in length and width, and including the dish a good fifty meters tall.

Traditional Sensors: E.S.As are not a replacement for normal sensors in any scenario, they are specialized, niche technology used to prevent stealth ships from entering specific regions.

Conditional Limitations:
The Rock: Rock-type stealth ships are less likely to attract attention when E.S.As are in use, as when it cross references with other types of sensor, it will show up as being visible with conventional systems.

Endi-Decoy Probe: One of the abilities of the decoy probe allow a vessel to trick E.S.As, as it can provide a false image showing that nothing is present in the location.

How does it work:
E.S.A functions by utilizing ENDI scanning technology to provide an incredibly low resolution scan over an area, not providing more than a general ‘there’s an object here’. In reality, the purpose of this scan is to determine that there is an object present in a given location that may be hidden from conventional sensors. While it can’t define what an object may be, it transmits the location of the found object to conventional scanners to cross reference to see if it’s something under stealth.


Flavor text:
“How did they find us?! We had top-of-the-line stealth tech! This is impossible!”

E.S.As were created roughly around the creation of the law which prevents civ-space nations from expanding out into the Fringe in an effort to prevent stealth ships from potentially crossing their borders. Smuggling is illegal, after all. In modern day, this hasn’t changed much, though now the technology has begun to spread to the Fringe itself, offering a new method to stop stealth craft from arriving onto worlds- albeit at a hefty cost.


Referenced Technologies:
https://lore.galactic-citizen.com/en/technology/manufacturing/endi
https://galactic-citizen.com/threads/endi-decoy-probe.1974/
https://galactic-citizen.com/threads/endi-scattering-lining.1630/


Attainability: [Open]


Tags: [Civilian]


Category:
Other