I don't like the hard cap on sensors either. However, I can remember from DL when there was no cap, and I had these uber cargo hulls with nothing but a few engines and sensors. Two or three well placed ships revealed an entire gigantic galaxy, albeit at the cost of my cheap graphics card which struggled to render even the mere symbols; there were simply too many to handle well. That's my guess as to why they put a cap on it.

In any case, I don't think it was a good decision, from a gameplay perspective. I think that instead they should employ a system of diminishing returns, where the more sensors you have, the weaker overall they are. They should differentiate between sensor "points" and actual range, where the sensors add a fixed amount of points but the sensor range would be the square root of the total points (actually that would be a little harsh; somewhere around ^(3/4) would be about right I think).

The point?

Well, first off, in most situations, ships with quite that many engines aren't hopping around! A 15 parsec warning time is usually quite sufficient.

Second, in your situation, the best solution is to use forward scouts, like cargo hulls loaded with sensors, and place them so that they cover areas well outside your planets. That gives you plenty of time to scramble interceptors (probably ships with tons of engines yet very few weapons, maybe even cargo hulls). Alternately, start putting garrisons on your frontier worlds to stop them from taking them without having to first clear them with attack fleets.

Sure, I suppose the tiny link in the chain that I am missing and would love to have is an actual alert when a nation that I am warring with comes within my borders.

If I was an Empire builder in real life it would be technology I would deffinately invest in. But because I play on gigantic maps with few planets and ship movement can often be faster than the space covered by sensor range I sometimes get unhappy suprises at my backdoor.

There is the UN deal where nations enemy ships have to be escorted to borders which I really like.

Anyway, I just wanted to join the conversasion but I know that I'm no where near as smart as the STardock guys so I feel the future of my fave game is safe in their hands without my rambling on.

All a part of the game of course, I just like the idea.

Or, as Loupdinour said above, research Sensors IV and build the darn Eyes of the Universe. The AI doesn't really prioritize any of the galactic wonders, so you don't even have to rush much to beat them to it. All ships get 15 sensor range, and you can see enemy ships in the fog. You may not be able to tell what type of ship it is, but you can tell SOMETHING is there, and start responding before it actually gets in visible territory.

NO1 read my post did they????

I DID have star bases a full sector off the nearest planet AND picket ships with nothing but sensors..... the uber fast troop transports i designed could still go from outside sensor range too right on top my planetss.... really agrivating. This game im adding garrison forces of tiny little ships, didn't have enough of that last game, turned real bad real fast. Course these little buggers couldn't hold off a real fleet.

That's what im bitchen about.

It's frackin space, big mostly empty space, there's nothing wrong with big huals full of sensors seeing the entire map, it's not like trying too see a planet where u have nape of the earth concerns...

course I guess theroreticly there would be a limit at which distance u could detect enemy ships because of the nature of space time if u had a big enough engine u could actually out run your sensor signature, having the effect of a limited dection range.

still is there any way of changing the hard coded sensor cap???

I actually LIKE having uber sensor ships covering the entire galaxy:)

If we're talking theory (IE, normal detection of threats using good old EM radiation) then you would never, EVER see them coming, because the opposing ships are bending the rules of physics in order to approach thousands of times faster than the photons they give off. You'll only see them when they pop out on top of you, along with a nice big flash of horrendously blue shifted light. It's not a matter of line of sight... it's a matter of whether or not you can recieve the given information within the span of your civilisations lifetime. A square of space in GC2 can represent either several light minutes (in system travel) or thousands of light YEARS.

The sensors in the game are obviously superluminal, some spinoff of the hyperdrive techs that lets you see things hundreds of light years away nearly instantly. Given that, it makes a hell of a lot of sense that there would be sharply limited range before power requirements became completely unmanagable.