Editing VB-Basic Beam Warship Tutorial (section)

===Sensors===
Although the beam weapons are short-ranged compared to missiles, the ship will need to find and target its enemies so we need one or more active sensors. We already designed an active sensor with a twenty million kilometer range for our geological survey ship so lets add one of those. That sensor won't be suitable for detecting missiles though so we will need a second sensor with a resolution of zero. By the way, if you have no idea what I am talking about at this point then please review the active sensor portion of Part 4: [[Basic Ship Creation]]. If you are familiar with active sensors and resolutions then open up the Create Research Project window and select Active Sensors / Missile Fire Control. Change to an Antenna Size of 1 HS and leave the resolution as Zero. This sensor only has a 100,000 km range but as our 10cm lasers can't fire at targets more than 90,000 km away that is sufficient. Create and Instant this sensor then add it to the design. You will also need a third crew quarters due to increasing crew requirements. Our warship should now look like this:

 Ark Royal class Cruiser    4700 tons     518 Crew     500 BP      TCS 94  TH 200  EM 0
 2127 km/s     Armour 1-24     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 26
 Annual Failure Rate: 176%    IFR: 2.5%    Maintenance Capacity 66 MSP    Max Repair 45 MSP
 
 Nuclear Thermal Engine E10 (8)    Power 25    Fuel Use 100%    Signature 25    Armour 0    Exp 5%
 Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 19.1 billion km   (104 days at full power)
 
 Twin 10cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser Turret (2x2)    Range 90,000km     TS: 15000 km/s     Power 6-6     RM 3    ROF 5        3 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 0
 15cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser (2)    Range 180,000km     TS: 3000 km/s     Power 6-3     RM 3    ROF 10        6 6 6 4 3 3 2 2 2 1
 Fire Control S04 96-3000 (1)    Max Range: 192,000 km   TS: 3000 km/s     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
 Fire Control S04 24-12000 (1)    Max Range: 48,000 km   TS: 12000 km/s     79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
 Pebble Bed Reactor (6)     Total Power Output 18    Armour 0    Exp 5%
 
 Active Search Sensor S10-R1 (1)     GPS 10     Range 100k km    Resolution 1
 Active Search Sensor S20-R100 (1)     GPS 2000     Range 20.0m km    Resolution 100
 
 This design is classed as a military vessel for maintenance purposes

Notice that the speed is dropping and the Annual Failure Rate is rising. We will need to address these at some point. For now let's complete our sensor suite by adding some passive sensors. Go back to the Create Research Project Window and select Thermal Sensors. This is nice and simple with only three dropdowns. The first one just shows our current thermal sensor tech, which is 5, and the last one is for hardening against electronic damage, which we won't bother with for now as we don't have that tech line. Change the Antenna Size to 2 HS. The Thermal Sensor Sensitivity for this sensor is now 10 as we have the base tech of 5 multiplied by 2 HS. The thermal sensitivity of this sensor will determine at what range it can detect a given thermal signature. Lets assume it was detecting our own ship. Check the right hand end of the top line of the class summary and you will see TH 200. This is the thermal signature of this class at top speed and is derived from the total power output of the engines (8 x 25). To find the range at which this sensor (sensitivity 10) can detect this ship (signature 200), multiply them together and multiply the result by 1000 to get the range in kilometers. 200 x 10 x 1000 is two million kilometers. A ship with a thermal signature of 1000 would be detected at 1000 x 10 x 1000 = ten million kilometers. 

A population also has a thermal signature. Check the Summary tab of the Economics window and if this is the tutorial the thermal signature (toward the bottom right) of our population is 11897. So this would be detected at 11897 x 10 x 1000 = almost one hundred and twenty million kilometers. Create and Instant this sensor and add it to our design. You will see that the summary will give you the detection range for a signature of 1000 so you can extrapolate from that if necessary. Or you can open the System Map and switch to the Sensors sidebar view. Click the Show Passive Sensor Ranges checkbox. As you drag the slider, the range of any passive sensors against the signature strength set by that slider will show as a blue circle on the system map. The most obvious one will be the circle surrounding Earth, which has deep space sensors with very high thermal sensitivity. The Show Passive Sensor Range can be used for both Thermal and EM (which we cover in a moment) sensors as their detection formulae against a given signature size are the same.

Now go back to the Create Research Project window and select EM Detection Sensors. EM, which is short for electromagnetic, sensors will detect shield emissions but are primarily used to detect the emissions of active sensors, which I will cover in a moment. Create/Instant a 2 HS EM Sensor and add it to your class design. The design should now appear as follows:

 Ark Royal class Cruiser    4950 tons     538 Crew     521 BP      TCS 99  TH 200  EM 0
 2020 km/s     Armour 1-25     Shields 0-0     Sensors 10/10/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 26
 Annual Failure Rate: 196%    IFR: 2.7%    Maintenance Capacity 66 MSP    Max Repair 45 MSP
 
 Nuclear Thermal Engine E10 (8)    Power 25    Fuel Use 100%    Signature 25    Armour 0    Exp 5%
 Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 18.2 billion km   (104 days at full power)
 
 Twin 10cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser Turret (2x2)    Range 90,000km     TS: 15000 km/s     Power 6-6     RM 3    ROF 5        3 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 0
 15cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser (2)    Range 180,000km     TS: 3000 km/s     Power 6-3     RM 3    ROF 10        6 6 6 4 3 3 2 2 2 1
 Fire Control S04 96-3000 (1)    Max Range: 192,000 km   TS: 3000 km/s     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
 Fire Control S04 24-12000 (1)    Max Range: 48,000 km   TS: 12000 km/s     79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
 Pebble Bed Reactor (6)     Total Power Output 18    Armour 0    Exp 5%
 
 Active Search Sensor S10-R1 (1)     GPS 10     Range 100k km    Resolution 1
 Active Search Sensor S20-R100 (1)     GPS 2000     Range 20.0m km    Resolution 100
 Thermal Sensor TH2-10 (1)     Sensitivity 10     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  10m km
 EM Detection Sensor EM2-10 (1)     Sensitivity 10     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  10m km
 
 This design is classed as a military vessel for maintenance purposes

The EM Detection Sensor has a sensitivity of 10, the same as the thermal sensor. For the purposes of detecting active sensor emissions, the strength of an active sensor's signature is its GPS (grav pulse strength) value. On our own ship design the two active sensors have GPS values of 10 and 2000. The GPS value is calculated from strength x resolution (but you don't need to remember that). EM detection works with exactly the same formula as Thermal detection. So our own EM Sensor, with sensitivity 10, could detect our large search sensor, with its GPS of 2000, at 2000 x 10 x 1000 = 20 million kilometers. If that EM Sensor had a sensitivity of 12, the detection range would be 24 million and a ship with this EM Sensor would therefore detect the emissions from the above active sensor (if it was switched on) before the ship with the active sensor could detect the ship mounting the EM sensor. Bear in mind that engaging active sensors might give away your position to EM Sensors. Imagine how far away planetary EM sensors could detect you. Lets check and find out. Go back to the sensor tab on the system map sidebar, make sure Show Passive Sensor Ranges is checked and also choose the x10 option. Now drag the slider until it has a value of approximately 2000. Look for the blue circle surrounding Earth (you might have to zoom out). If the ship above engaged its active sensor anywhere in that circle, those sensor emissions would be detected by the planetary sensors on Earth. The sensitivity per HS of thermal and EM sensors ship-based sensors can be increased through research. You can also increase planetary sensor strength by researching (oddly enough) Planetary Sensor Strength.