Deep Space Scanner

Having stumbled on a couple of pirate bases and hundreds of raider vessels while flying various ships, it became obvious that the surrounding space was filled to the gills with bad guys.

While I was apparently able to dispatch these guys with relative ease now using FRG Thor and even CRV Alannis, they still caused me headaches in SVG Excavator and SVG Speeder (although I almost never took her out any more, as she was now obsolete).

In addition, I knew that somewhere out there was a force of ships large enough to blockade the Trading Guild, which were far larger and stronger than my own empire.  Therefore the raider force must be pretty significant.

So it became desirable to locate and map other bases, and either avoid them, negotiate with them, or wipe them out... which I was becoming quite good at, it seemed.

I made plans to build a large deep space scanner.

Scanner scaffolding braces the structure while it is being built.

The scanner would be able to scan 4 sectors in all directions for enemy vessel activity, and scan the entire star system for bases and derelict space craft.  The Trading Guild advised that their own bases employed a cloaking system that bypassed the Geiger signature detected by the scanner, so their own structures would remain invisible to me.

The underside of the docked structure requires its own power and data feed to the station's core.

An independently docked structure, the scanner extends far above the station.

The scanner is docked to the station as an independent structure... effectively it's a vessel.  The station's own Geiger resonance needs to be isolated for the scanner to work, so attaching it directly causes the scanner to fail, requiring that it is its own structure.

Having it separate like this also will allow it to be undocked and moved as Dry Station expands and grows over time with new additional structure.

The scanner towers above the rest of the station, giving great penetration into deep space.

Once the device was fully operational, I engaged it and performed it's first scan of the system (hit P in game to see system/galactic map).

To my great surprise other bases began popping up on the monitors throughout the system... it seems I was surrounded by structures not my own...

My local sector had only my own Dry Station, the local Trading Guild shop and my own vessels in it.

My local star was smothered in other structures... enemy or derelict was unknown at this time.

My star is one of very many in the local area.

After some few hours of scanning telemetry, the device's systems were able to plot every star and wormhole in the entire galaxy... I was an insignificant speck in a sea of stars.

It was time to scout and map every one of those structures in my local space, to identify if they were enemy, friendly, or derelict.