Directional scanning
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The directional scanner is a device built into all ships (even shuttles and capsules) which can detect objects within a specified range (up to 2,147,483,647 km, or about 14.355 AU) from you, and within a specified angle. Notice that the directional scanner will never give you a point you can warp to. All it can do is tell you whether an object is there.
Using the Directional Scanner
The directional scanner can be accessed from the second tab in the window brought up by pressing ALT+D. The tab contains a field for entering range, a slider for choosing the angle of the scan, and a checkbox to apply your overview settings. You can also bring up the directional scanner by clicking the button above the autopilot button but below the cargohold button on the left-hand side of your HUD.
Range and Angle
The distance of your scan is either typed in manually, or set by a slider. You can set it between 1 km and approximately 14.355 AU. (Since Rubicon 1.3 release in early 2014, you can specify this range in km or in AU, and the range slider was added.) 150 million km is about the same as 1 AU (the actual conversion is 149,597,871 km:1 AU). To quickly perform a max-range scan, you can fill the range field with multiple 9s until you can no longer put any more in, and it will default to the max range.
A slider bar is available to choose the scan angle from preset values at several key stages between 360 degrees and 5 degrees. Together, the angle and range parameters define a cone shaped scan area, with the apex being your ship (or a sphere/hemisphere if the angle is set to 360 degrees/180 degrees, with your ship being at the sphere's center) and the axis of the cone being a vector shooting from your ship away from you, and toward the direction which the camera is pointed at (see below). Changing either the range or direction slider will cause a fresh scan to be run automatically, using the new settings.
A more intuitive representation of the scan area can be brought up by pressing F11 out in space. In the bottom section of the new window that pops up, a green triangle represents the current scan area, and the grey area is your field of view. This map, however, is a flat plane, and one should remember directional scan is performed in 3D.
Overview Filter
The last option is to choose if the current overview setting is used. With the option unchecked, anything that can be picked up by the scanner will be displayed, potentially making desired information difficult to be picked out. Selecting this option will apply your current overview filters to the scan results, essentially turning the scan result into an extension of your overview.
Since the release of Incursion, probes can now be added to the overview without editing the .xml file. Probes are located in the overview settings under Filter > Types and the Charge folder. You can make a probes-only overview preset. This makes it far easier to pick up combat probes, as they are the only results when this overview is active and the directional scan is set to filter to overview types.
Directional Scan and the Camera
The "Directional" part of directional scan is quite unique in that it is controlled by moving the camera around, and has nothing to do with your ship's bearing. It may be helpful to imagine directional scan as a flashlight. By moving the camera, you are essentially pointing the flashlight toward the direction you want to check. Meanwhile, the angle setting specifies how wide the flashlight is going to scatter its light, and range specifies how far away the flashlight can illuminate.
Because camera manipulation is involved, it is also necessary to enable brackets, since otherwise you will not know where exactly you are pointing your camera at. With brackets enabled, aligning the camera is as easy as moving the target celestial's icon toward your ship's indicator. Check the Overview Guide to see how to enable brackets.
Locating Ships
An important use of the directional scanner is to find ships such as PVP targets. Notice that the scanner only returns ship names and types, but not the pilot's name. (This is an important reason why you should set the name on your our ships, so that d-scan does not give away your name.)
Most people will start by checking if the target is located at a place that can be easily warped to, such as planets, stations, or asteroid belts. For example, you can start by using a small-angle scan on a planet's "cluster" (including the planet itself, its moons and associated belts, as well as nearby stations) from a distance away. You can then warp to the planet and check its surrounding celestial bodies with the scanner in the event that your first scan turns out any potential target.
Again, notice that the directional scanner will never give you a warp-able point to the target ship itself. Ships sitting at off-grid safespots will necessitate the use of combat probes. However, directional scans can still help by pointing out the general position of the target, thereby reducing the time needed for probing and the chance that the target will move away upon seeing your probes on their own directional scan.
Other Uses of the Directional Scanner
Another important function of the directional scanner is to locate potentially hostile ships before they get to you. As was mentioned above, it is very helpful to pulse the scanner to check for ships or combat probes close to your current location. It will generally take at least 4 probes at 2 AU away to probe you out. So if you see that many probes on a 360 degrees scan at, for example, 4 AU (roughly 600,000,000km), you need to prepare to defend yourself or run away. As was mentioned above, to have probes show up on your directional scan, you need to add probes to your overview, or the overview setting box should be unticked.
This is doubly important in wormhole space, where the member list of local chat will not display other people in your system: the directional scanner can be your only warning that you have company.
Remember that cloaked ships will not appear on the directional scanner, so covert ops frigates, stealth bombers, force recons and Tech 3 strategic cruisers (in some configurations) will still be able to warp to you without being detected.
In lowsec/null-sec, directional scan can also be used to check for POSes at moons you intend to travel to, as a defended POS can kill your ship very quickly.
The directional scanner can also be used to check gates for gatecamps without warping to the gate's grid. You will need to have an off-grid bookmark near the gate from which you can scan it.
The directional scanner can be used for fleet scouting purposes. This could simply involve telling scan results to the FC through Mumble or chat, but more complete results can also be sent using tools like Dingo's Toolbox.
Links
- Scanning Guide from Grismar's wiki, contains some nice pictures showing how the scan area is shaped.
- Blog entry from EVE Newb, general information on intel gathering, section (d) shows the directional scanner in action.
- Agony Unleashed's Introduction to the Directional Scanner, a 22 min video walkthrough on D-Scan use.
