Cadet I/Signature

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← Miner defense

Forward deployment →

What is signature?

The signature indicates how visible you are to enemy sensors, using a measure in percentage. A 100% signature means that you can be seen at 100% of the scan range of enemy sensors. You are visible to the opponent when you have "eye". The "eye icon" eye icon appears in the top right corner of your HUD.

Example My bomber has a 350% signature. A probe, with a scan range of 1000m (fictive value), is nearby. The probe will be able to detect me at 3.5*1000 Equal signs breaks the example template 3500 meters. So if I fly at 3500 meters or closer to the probe, I will be detected by the enemy.

Items influencing signature

The ship itself has a base signature, the one that your ship will have when it is empty. However, mounting certain equipment can raise your signature. Note that anything located in your cargo bays cannot influence your signature.

Mounting your shields and missiles will greatly raise your signature. This is why any stealth fighter/bomber and troop transport will fly with its shields and missiles in cargo, unless the situation is particular and requires otherwise. Any ship that doesn't wish to be seen must keep both its shields and missiles in cargo.

As a regular bomber, you'll also not want to be seen most of the time. Therefore, keeping your shields and missiles down would seem like a good idea. However, a bomber needs its shields because it is likely to undergo heavy fire. Therefore, simply unmounting your missiles might be enough. In some situations, you may need more missiles, and then you might keep them on as well, since you'll need all the cargo space you need for your turrets' ammo. You need to balance between attempting to go stealthy or have a fully charged shield right at launch.

As a Bios bomber however, you might want to keep both your shields and missiles down, since Bios use their heavy cloak to sneak up close to enemy stations.

Actions influencing signature

In addition to equipment, performing certain actions will raise your signature.

Firing your weapons and boosting are the two actions that will reveal you to anyone nearby. This is why turrets must NEVER fire unless the bomber is detected. Also, certain tactics, like a Galv run, require all the fighters not to fire their boosters until they are detected, which is different from the usual flying pattern, where a pilot generally boosts if he's going somewhere. As the fighters in the Galv run are detected, they can start boosting as the enemy prepares defenses. Knowing your stuff

If you wish to know by how much does an item raise your signature, simply place your mouse over it in the ship's loadout window (F4 in stations only), and the signature will be indicated, among all the other properties of the item. The ship loadout window gives you all the information about everything.

Tip: In most ships you should always fly with your F4 cargo screen displayed. It makes signature management easy.

Optional: TEK (Tigereye's Knee Pad) is a program that you can use to explore the core's code. With it you can pick a ship/faction/equipment and see the actual values for your signature, TTK (Time to Kill Values), etc. You do not need this to play the game. But if you are curious and wish to learn more, download the tool HERE. There is a .PDF file with a brief tutorial also.

Making a difference

Keeping your shields and missiles down makes a huge difference. Let's take the example of the stealth fighter. Fully equipped, a stealth fighter will have a signature of approximately 200%. However, taking shields and missiles down will reduce the signature to 50%. Then, you can cloak, which can reduce your signature to as low as 12% approximately, enabling you to pass by probes and interceptors as close as 100m. This is why, after destroying a target like a miner, a pilot takes his shields and missiles down and cloaks, allowing him to remain undetected even though he's surrounded by enemy defending ships. You can also use a heavy cloak, taking your signature to levels as low as 7%, almost having to collide with the enemy before being detected.

Using enemy sensors

If you're defending a miner, chances are you won't be detected by the enemy. If, however, you suddenly become detected (an eye appears on your HUD), you can tell that an enemy scout or stealth fighter has probably entered the sector and is relatively near. If you really know your stuff and remember the enemy's ships' scan ranges by heart, you can even use your signature to calculate the maximal distance that the enemy is from you. If you're only human, however, get ready for possible combat, and call for help if you feel it's required.

Similarly, if you wish to verify enemy presence in a sector, you can raise your signature using your weapons and boosters, and see if you become detected. If not, surely there is no enemy nearby. If you get an eye, the enemy has either a probe, ship or station nearby. This is also useful for certain tasks that require you to remain unseen. Since GigaCorp can (or at least used to be able to) use luxury fighters to drop teleport probes, the crafts would fire all their four weapons and their boosters, raising their signatures close to 1000%, in order to find a spot where they could go undetected despite such signature-raising actions. They would then use the spot to drop the high-signature teleport probes, which were hard to find for the enemy. This is basically a way to scan for enemy sensors.

In the forward deployment lesson coming up signature does become important.

Note We are going to go a bit indepth here on actual scan ranges, formulas and information. It is not necessary to know this material indepth. It is entirely optional for you to know. Many veteran pilots do not. But it is offered up here for those who would want to go more indepth with the actual math behind the game. TEK is the best tool (at this stage of your learning) for doing this on your own. It can be found on the download page (along with a basic guide) on this site.

Here are a few basic scan range figures for you. Please note these are generalized numbers to cover all factions.

wikify - data needs to be put in a table

Scan Ranges Garrison 3600 Starbase 4500 Tech base 2400 Adv. Tech base 3000 Refinery 2400 Outpost 2400 Teleport 2400 Scout 2400 Advanced Scout 3000 Early Warning System Probe 1,2,3 500, 600, 700 Pulse Probe 5000 Rescue Probe 1000

Your scan range is 2400 (3000 if Adv. Scout) as an example. Signatures Bomber** 200% HTT 100% Miner, Con 200% Enh Miner/Con 175% Advanced Miner/Con 150%

• • Bomber - This is assumed the bomber does not have his shields or missiles mounted. Otherwise it will increase accordingly.**

So with a Sig of 100% a Garrison will eye you at 3600 meters If you have a Sig of 90% multiply 3600 with 0.9 and you have 3240. Please note that this are only basic numbers and GA's and Faction perks/nerfs count too. To be sure keep a safe distance.

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