D-scanner

[Carmen Kalua]

Everyship in EVE has a Directional Scanner (d-scan) that can be used to discover the rough location of certain kinds of objects up to 14 AU (appx. 2 x109 km) away from the ship. There are other kinds of specialized scanners, such as the probe launcher (used in Exploration) or the survey scanner (used in Mining), but the d-scan comes with the ship and requires no additional training or fitting costs.

The directional scanner can be used to see most ships or probes that may pose a threat, or to gather intel on objects that are off grid such as enemy fleets. This is especially important in wormholes as the local chat there does not automatically show other players, and the d-scan is a good tool for this situation.

The d-scan search begins at your ship and extends out in the shape of a cone. Each scan will produce a report listing the items that it has located within the cone. The list will give you only the names and types of the items; not their distance, or coordinates, or any other data.

As explained below, you can set the range and width of the cone. The widest search is a sphere. Its report will list any items found anywhere around your ship - but it will not give any directional information. The smallest search is a narrow cone. Its report will list far fewer items than the widest search, but you will know that they lie in the direction of the cone. (This is why it is called a directional scan.) If the scan is at all narrow, then you have to aim it in the direction that you want to scan.

You can change the cone's viewing orientation in the d-scan window by left-click dragging to rotate the view and right-click dragging to move the view back and forth. Note that this does not aim the scanner, but only changes the display that you see in the window.

The easiest way to aim the scanner is to left-click on an object in the system map and hold until the radial menu pops up - then choose the d-scan icon from the menu. The scan cone will move to point at that object.

The cone can be narrow or wide. At its widest it is a 360 sphere; at its narrowest it is a 5 beam. The parameter that controls this is scan angle which is set via a slider in intervals of 5, 15, 30, 60, 90 180 and 360.

Every time the scan button is pressed, the list in the directional scanner window updates to show all relevant objects in the scan cone. The scan also refreshes after you change the range, angle or filter parameters; and after jumping into another system. After a scan it takes two seconds for the scanner to reset.

A variety of filters can be set to narrow down the results of a scan. The filter selector in top right corner of the directional scan window opens a menu of possible filter configurations. The filters are listed, each with a number to the right. The number can be pressed on the keyboard to select a filter - or you can click on the number; or on the checkbox to the left of the filter.

The d-scan can use any of your overview presets to filter the results. Again, note that the scanner does not see any information about the objects other than name and type. This means that the filtering function will not take into account any of the state settings the overview may have. (The standard E-UNI overview setup is explained in Installing the EVE University Overview.)

In fleets it is common for intel reports to be made by pasting the scanner results into an online parser. These can give a Fleet Commander intelligence on enemy fleet compositions to help decide whether an engagement is worth pursuing. Directional scanning is also widely used in mining and exploring to give early warning of hostile ships and/or combat probes. Good scanning can provide the vital seconds needed to escape an incoming attack.

The d-scan is a tool whose fundamental function is to detect hostile targets before a PvP engagement happens - whether they are trying to find you, or you are looking for them. Because it is standard equipment in every ship, and because it requires no specialized training, the d-scan is most pilots' first call for intelligence.

An important use of the directional scanner is to find potential PVP targets. Keep in mind that the scanner only returns ship names and types; never the pilot's name. (This is the reason why you should rename your ships as soon as you buy them. Your name also appears on the system chat list, and an enemy can match the name with the ship.) Nor will the d-scan provide you with the specific distance to a ship, or its coordinates.

The best way to show the use of the d-scan to locate ships is by example. Since every ship, even your capsule, has a d-scanner, you can do this exercise yourself ... and this is the best way to learn how it works. The next few images were created at High Sec Campus in Amygnon. This is a good place to practice scanning because there are almost always a bunch of ships in system.

Even if you mostly plan to mine or explore, it is worthwhile at least reading this section. Hostile ships WILL be looking for you, and this is how they do it. If you try it yourself, you will have a better feel for the process and more easily defeat it when it happens to you.

So ... imagine that a hunter is looking for mining targets. The first thing that he or she does is to enter a system and look at the Overview to find a moon or planet with a number of nearby asteroid belts. In this case Amygnon VIII has three belts within d-scan range. So the hunter warps to the moon. The plan is to scan each of the asteroid belts looking for mining ships. Although the scanner will not give the range to a ship, it will give the range to the asteroid belt, enabling the hunter to warp in farily close to the target.

Next the hunter sets the scanner range to match that of the farthest asteroid belt (in this case 5 AU), and sets the angle to something that will blanket the belt (in this case 30). Using the first menu at the top left of the Map, the hunter unchecks all the boxes except for Asteroid Belts. The next step is to zoom the Map in as close as possible.

As you can see on the image to the right, only asteroid belts are now marked on the map (the icon for a belt is a cluster of 3 dots). The hunter selects one of these, and using the radial menu (left click on the belt icon and choose the scanner icon when it pops up) points the scanner; then the hunter initiates a scan.

That first scan is empty (and not shown here). So the hunter clicks on the next belt icon, aims the scanner and takes another snapshot. This second scan shows three ships: a Skiff, a Miasmos and a Moa. Keep in mind that the scanner is finding ALL visible ships in its range, and since there some stations nearby, ships docking and undocking will show up in the scan. On the other hand, the Skiff is a mining vessel, and likely to be in the asteroid belt.

Let's assume that the Skiff pilot, a good Unista, has been keeping close watch and has noticed the hunter's ship as it was lurking by the moon making these scans. The Skiff would not know where the hunter was, but it would know what the hunter was. So even as the hunter is warping in, the Skiff has finished pulling in its drones and aligning for warp. And away it goes!

No problem. The hunter now goes back to the map, selects the third asteroid belt and repeats the scanning process. There it finds a Procurer, surrounded by cargo containers and dead belt pirates. This belt is only 0.3 AU away, and the hunter warps in a mere 21 K from the Procurer.

The first time you do this, it seems clunky. Setting and scanning takes awhile. But after a few tries, it becomes second nature. You set up the d-scan filter before you even enter the system, and you know from experience what ranges and angles you need to use. In cases where you are looking for ships that can be found in fixed locations ... in asteroid belts, for example, or undocking from a particular station ... this method will find more targets faster than probe scanning will. (You still need probes in situations where your target might be off the grid, or where the target is not located near an object that you can warp to. Remember that the d-scanner never gives you coordinates.)

"Defense" refers to the need to scan for possibly hostile ships while mining or exploring. A better term for this might be "situational awareness" - the need to keep an eye on your environment whenever you are in dangerous territory.

Naturally, you will scan the system before you set up your operation. Once you are started, however, you should refresh the scan periodically. You can rescan by clicking on the large SCAN buttion, or you can set up the "Refresh Directional Scan" hotkey.

Your goal is to spot ships as soon as they come into range, decide whether they are potentially hostile, and then decide how to respond. There are no specific rules for doing this; you will need to develop a plan that is comfortable for you, but here are a few basic techniques.

How you respond to a potentially hostile contact depends on your ship's capabilities, your location, and your level of paranoia. If you are mining in an asteroid belt within a few AU of a station, for example, you may see a constant flow of combat ships passing through your scanner. It's the ship that persists on your scan for more than a few seconds that ought to concern you. A reasonable response might be to move to a more distant asteroid belt and watch to see if the same ship reappears. On the other hand, there are very few reasons to be passing through a wormhole, so any contact should be treated with deep suspicion.

Probes themselves cannot hurt you; it is the ships that are controlling them that you have to worry about. Core scanner probes at a long distance may just be someone scanning for resources and probably should just be watched. Combat probes close to you should suggest a very high level of danger.

Remember that cloaked ships and certain "scan immune" ships will not appear on the directional scanner, so covert ops frigates, stealth bombers, recons, and Tech 3 strategic cruisers (in some configurations) will be able to warp to you without being detected.

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