Well… Goodbye thread. Was nice knowing ya. People can’t discuss the topic anymore without resorting to filter dodging or swearing at the opposition.
Next up:
Well if the thread is about to get a padlock I might as well deliver the argument the opposition should have used.
If the ship fit with the cargo scanner actually was using only default scanners that the ship had it would be a non-invasive scan. For example the Atron has a magneto-metric scanner by default. If the cargo/fit scanner was limited to this an visual input then it would logically follow it could detect anything that a magneto-metric scanner could by proximity and the cargo/fit scanner was merely correlating the data that already is available. The down side would be that anything that is not classified as having a magneto-metric signal would be completely and totally invisible to this Atron.
Gallente would only get Magneto-metric signals.
Caldari would only get Grava-metric signals.
Amarr’s would only see contents flagged as detectable by RADAR.
Minmatar would only see LADAR outputs.
This would functionally change the way that the cargo scanner works though and would deny much of the ability to detect what really is inside a cargohold. It would break the cargo scanner completely and drastically nerf the ship scanner. Thus I wouldn’t suggest sorting all things that could be fit inside a ship to be classified based on these for what can be output. Instead I suggest upgrading the cargo/fit scanners to be an active directed beam of all of the above resulting in a full spectrum analysis giving information based on cycle. You could set it to scan for a specific object if you so desire but a directed scan of this nature is suspicious if you are not authorized by the faction to do it on their behalf.
Added: Thus a double wrap container would not prevent detection of a specific device if scanned for directly. If I am scanning for a freight container it will tell me if the ship contains one but not what it’s contents are. If I’m looking for compressed blue ice putting it inside a freight container will do nothing to prevent me from finding it.
Resume:
NPC’s have permission to do this within their space (Gallente, Amarr, Minmatar, Caldari, Concord) but capsuleers (while able to fit the device and not strictly denied it) would be suspect flagged for doing such.
It’s a very dangerous double edged sword to do either method without careful consideration.
Continued elaboration:
Right now a Cargo Scanner has a 5 second cycle and a Ship Scanner has a 2 second cycle. This would identify one thing about your target on cycle end. If your target doesn’t exist at the end of the cycle your scan failed. So if I was to target scan this:
(Sorry @Daniel_Simmons but you’re the most current at time of my posting.)
My first cycle of a Cargo Scanner would tell me no cargo but if I was scanning for Antimatter rounds it would be detected as present on the ship.
Specific scanning would be hit/miss output only. General scanning would tell me random item exists on target ship. Note that Tritanium is one object so putting 100 piles of 1 Tritanium would not slow the scan down. Blockade runners just don’t have a signal that can be detected from within the cargohold.
My first cycle of a Ship Scanner would tell me 8 blasters. Second would tell me afterburner and sensor booster. Third would tell me Magnetic Field Stabs. Fourth would tell me no rigs.
I could shorten the Ship Scanner time by just fitting more Ship Scanners.