Science
The science crew screen provides data about the ship's surroundings, and an interface to its scanners for deeper inspection of ships and other objects.
This screen is designed for crews of 5-6 officers per bridge.
- For crews of 1-4 officers, see the Operations screen, which combines functions of the Science and Relay stations.
The Science crew screen has a long-range radar that can locate ships and objects at a distance of up to 30U by default. The Science officer's most important task is to report the sector's status and any changes within it. On the edge of the radar are colored bands of signal interference that can vaguely suggest the presence of objects or space hazards even further from the ship, but it's up to the Science officer to interpret them.
By default, the top of the radar always points to 0 degrees, and the player ship's icon at the center rotates to indicate its current heading.
To make the radar rotate instead of the player ship, toggle the radar rotation setting for Science in the Preferences file, or in the Interface options in the Options menu.
You can scan targets to get more information about them. The Science officer must align the ship's scanning frequencies with a target to complete the scan. (The number of frequencies depends on the server's or target's scanning complexity setting.) Most non-friendly ships are unknown (white) to your crew at the start of a scenario and must be scanned before they can be identified as friendly (green), hostile (red), or neutral (blue).
A scan also identifies the ship's type and faction, which the Science officer can use to identify its capabilities and relationships in the Science screen's Database view. Click the DB button in the target info's Type and Faction rows to navigate directly to the relevant database entries.
A second, more difficult scan yields more information about the ship, including its shield and beam frequencies, and the status of its individual systems. The Science officer must align both the frequency and modulation of each scan type to complete a deep scan. The Helms and Weapons screens can also see the firing arcs of deep-scanned ships, which can help them guide your ship from being shot by their beams.
The Science officer can also link their target to the Target analysis screen, which displays any known details about the target.
There are several phenomena in space that appear on the Science screen's radar.
Nebulae block the ship's long-range scanner and interfere with its signal bands. The Science officer cannot see what's inside or behind them, and while in a nebula the ship's radars cannot detect what's outside of it. These traits make nebulae ideal places to hide for repairs or stage an ambush. To avoid surprises around nebulae, report information about where you can and cannot see objects to both the Captain and the Relay officer.
Black holes and singularities are points of extreme gravitational forces around a collapsed star, and are extremely hazardous to space travel. A ship drawn into a black hole is sucked toward its event horizon with gravitational forces so powerful that they can crush ships, stations, and anything else within their pull. While black holes do not block the ship's long-range scanner, they do interfere with its signal bands, especially the gravitational band.
Wormholes connect two distant points in spacetime. Any object that passes through the center of a wormhole is teleported to a distant point, with potentially no fast route back. Wormholes also interfere with signal bands.
The Relay officer can launch probes and link one to the Science screen. The Science officer can then view the linked probe's short-range sensor data to scan ships within its range, even if the probe is far from the ship's long-range scanners or in a nebula.
To enter the probe view, click the Probe view button at the bottom left of the Science screen. To return to your ship's radar, click the Radar button. If the probe is destroyed or expires, the radar automatically returns to the ship's view.
If your ship has the Sensors ship system, the Engineering officer can increase the radar radius of probes by increasing power to that system.
The Science officer can access the ship's Database, which contains details and specifications about all known ship types, as well as data about weapons, factions, and space hazards. This can be vital when assessing a ship's capabilities without a deep scan, for visual identification of a target, or for help navigating a black hole, wormhole, or other anomaly.