Hi again. So KWS &DSS upgrades. Your thoughts?

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Hevak
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Hi again. So KWS &DSS upgrades. Your thoughts?

Postby Hevak » Thu Jun 22, 2017 11:34 pm

Hi again everyone. So I have made a lot of progress as of late on the engineers. Most if not all are known and many are unlocked and leveled. Still working on some rare mats, but anyways my questions and I'm just looking for people's thoughts I'm sure there may be people on both sides. So just feel free to give your input. :)

First off the KWS upgrades, it seems scan speed is the way to go? At least on a ship with poor handling like an anaconda? It seems I can scan most ships now in my anaconda before they inevitably fly out of my scan angle view. Do most agree this is this better upgrade for them in most cases? Or is distance better/more useful? Perhaps in ships that handle better?

DSS upgrades, this one seems more difficult to narrow down the better choice.. I tried distance so far, and it seems that unless you are talking about bigger stars or big gas giants, the extra distance really isn't all that much. When you get down to the smaller planets, it really isn't that much of benefit it seems. Is this how others feel too?

Is scan speed on DSS a much better/useful upgrade over distance in terms of speed to scan systems with several objects? Or does neither one really save all that much over the base DSS ? Note, I have only used grade 3 upgrades on distance so far. Still need to work on getting some of the rarer mats.

Anyways just wondering what people think as far as the two modules are concerned. And if you feel another upgrade besides the two I mentioned are better I'd be happy to hear thoughts on that two.

Thanks. ;)

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Re: Hi again. So KWS &DSS upgrades. Your thoughts?

Postby TorTorden » Thu Jun 22, 2017 11:38 pm

I think they are both pointless.
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Re: Hi again. So KWS &DSS upgrades. Your thoughts?

Postby Hevak » Thu Jun 22, 2017 11:55 pm

TorTorden wrote:I think they are both pointless.


Fair enough :)

And with the DSS I'm kind of leaning to the same conclusion, though I haven't tried the scan speed. But it seems either way the benefit really won't be that much at all..

As far as the KWS though. I find in an anaconda I can't scan quite a lot without the speed upgrade. Though I'll fully admit this could be more because I'm not that good at piloting. It could also be partly that I ran out of credits and had some setbacks and still haven't A rated my thrusters in it lol. I'm also guessing there comes a point where most players even if they go bounty hunting or to a res don't even bother with a KWS anymore at all?

Thanks for the input.
Last edited by Hevak on Fri Jun 23, 2017 1:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Hi again. So KWS &DSS upgrades. Your thoughts?

Postby BaseKillerWolf » Fri Jun 23, 2017 12:13 am

The KWS gives you about a ~30% increase to the bounty payout of whoever you've just scanned. If you're really hurting for credits or want to buy that shiny new module, fire it up and get scanning.

For the 'conda or other slow ships, I'd get scanner range over scan speed. Pirate NPCs will always fly up to you and stay at 1km away while they do their scans. While they are making their way to you, scan them, then open fire when they enter your engagement range. Go for scan speed on smaller/faster ships, as they can chase or close distance and make up for the lower range.

I haven't experimented with scanner speed on the DSS, but if you have a large amount of planets to scan, it may help. Currently, I have scanner range on the DSS. Pretty handy for starting scans farther away, but its not like it shaves off a good 1000Ls of any faraway scans.
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Re: Hi again. So KWS &DSS upgrades. Your thoughts?

Postby Hevak » Fri Jun 23, 2017 1:10 am

BaseKillerWolf wrote:The KWS gives you about a ~30% increase to the bounty payout of whoever you've just scanned. If you're really hurting for credits or want to buy that shiny new module, fire it up and get scanning.

For the 'conda or other slow ships, I'd get scanner range over scan speed. Pirate NPCs will always fly up to you and stay at 1km away while they do their scans. While they are making their way to you, scan them, then open fire when they enter your engagement range. Go for scan speed on smaller/faster ships, as they can chase or close distance and make up for the lower range.

I haven't experimented with scanner speed on the DSS, but if you have a large amount of planets to scan, it may help. Currently, I have scanner range on the DSS. Pretty handy for starting scans farther away, but its not like it shaves off a good 1000Ls of any faraway scans.


Well yeah I'm still in the stage of needing credits for sure. Lol. And maybe it's just my thrusters, or a combination of them and my ability but I had a harder time keeping many fast or nimble ships in view long enough to scan them, but this was more of being interdicted by mission npcs or randoms, haven't done a lot of bounty hunting but still had similar issues. But I'll have to give the distance a try to them as you make good points.

The DSS I agree, I think maybe with the bigger stars you get about 1000ly extra with the distance mod and I tend to probably scan more stuff than most people would bother with. But at the point of flying 10k lys to even scan it at that point your going so fast that you'll make up the extra 1k Ly in no time? But it really seems no matter if it's distance or scan time really you're just trading off where the time is wasted so to speak, as far as scanning?

Thanks for your thoughts.

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Re: Hi again. So KWS &DSS upgrades. Your thoughts?

Postby blazingmaniac » Fri Jun 23, 2017 1:34 am

I went with speed. On kws that is. Grade 5 so it's about 2 seconds. Handy for engaging wings of 3 and scanning the lot while they are trash talking you and doing their scans. Never bothered with DSS at all but went for wide angle sensors. When bounty hunting in a RES this is really good as on a decent roll of RNG you can get upto 180 degrees scanning angle. This seems to be above below and side to side. Combined with the fast KWS I found it a worthwhile addition.


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Re: Hi again. So KWS &DSS upgrades. Your thoughts?

Postby Cometborne » Fri Jun 23, 2017 5:47 am

For the DSS, it depends on your exploration style: If you only scan the valuable bits of stellar property, use long range because scanning from farther out means you are not so deep into the gravity well of your target. Lower gravity influence means more efficient FSD operation, and that translates into higher speeds while travelling between planets.

If you are a compulsive scanner who scans every last icy body, fast scan is the way to go. Many of the icy and rocky bodies orbiting gas giants are nothing more than ice cubes or pebbles with delusions of grandeur and can only be scanned from 5 Ls out. At that point, you are so deep into the gravity well of the gas giant that you will not get any effective advantage from the long range mod: You might be able to scan from 10 Ls out rather than 5 Ls, but you are still deep inside the gravity well there, so it will take more or less the same time to get out.

On the other hand, the fast scan mod will allow you to scan those moons and moons of moons in 15 seconds instead of 35 seconds, and those savings add up if you scan 50+ objects in a system.

Never bothered with doing KWS upgrades or even using a KWS except in the early days or in very special BGS applications.
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Re: Hi again. So KWS &DSS upgrades. Your thoughts?

Postby JohnLuke » Fri Jun 23, 2017 9:19 am

I am quite happy with the 'fast scan' mod to my KWS on my Vette. G5, and it scans in about 2.5 seconds (standard KWS is 10 seconds). I lost a lot of scan range by the mod, but that's hasn't been an issue. The only thing that gets tricky sometimes is that if a target pops in close to you, you can finish your KWS long before the passive scan is done. Gotta make sure that ship is wanted before opening fire! :shock:

I've got plenty of cash in the bank, and still scan anything Vulture size or larger. It's free money people..... TAKE IT! Many medium size ships (Python, Clipper) and larger will get you $75-150k or more in increased bounties just for holding a button down for a few seconds. Who wouldn't want that?
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Re: Hi again. So KWS &DSS upgrades. Your thoughts?

Postby TorTorden » Fri Jun 23, 2017 9:41 am

Oh I still have and use a KW scanner on most combat ships.
It's modifying them I find useless.
Who cares if you get a 1 second scan time when you have to be IN PHYSICAL CONTACT to scan.
I believe you can go the other way so you got as long scan range as you can target. But the scan time is trippled.

I would stay with the medium on either thank you.
As far as I'm concerned about the fog horn of knowing is to get mission objectives and I just need the one honk for that.
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Re: Hi again. So KWS &DSS upgrades. Your thoughts?

Postby cyberbofh » Fri Jun 23, 2017 3:27 pm

Hevak wrote:---/cut/---
Anyways just wondering what people think as far as the two modules are concerned. And if you feel another upgrade besides the two I mentioned are better I'd be happy to hear thoughts on that two.
---/cut/---


Hi there CMDR,

you ask and we'll try to answer :)

KWS
Go with the fast scan option, you'll make bounty hunting more efficient that way
but.. there are 2 buts here..
1) scan range: the scan range is shorter, but that's why you have your thrusters, right? ;)
2) always always wait for your normal ship scanner (bottom left) for finishing scanning as well and only open fire when the other ship is wanted


DSS
Long range is what you want



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