Questions about ships sensors

[MightyCthulhu]

Ok,
I'm having a devil of a time figuring this out.


1) Detecting ships. Suppose the PCs ship and another ship are "passing in the night" at extreme range. What does the PC have to roll to detect presence of the ship? I assume this is a "general" test, so Shipboard Systems (Sensors) TN: 11 ( 5 +6 for range ) ?


2) Extended Tests. Suppose the ship has been detected and the PCs what to scan it to detect the presence of an alien agent that they think may have "contaminated" the ship. I expect this is a an "uncommon, specific element" (TN:15) and the ship is large (X4). Does that mean I have to make 4 tests @ TN:15 with an aggregate TN:60 to succeed?

Also I recall reading somewhere that any test with a TN:30+ should be doable as an extended test, but I'm not sure how to calculate the individual TNs for this type of an extended test. Any Ideas?


3) Countermeasure. Does the unknown ship's shields (if they are up) hamper sensor scans at all?


4) Analyzing Ship Status. At the end of the description on pg 102 NG, it says that this action increases TN of the next Sensor action by +5?!?! Does this mean that if a PC attempts this over multiple rounds that it becomes more difficult? That doesn't make sense to me.


Thanks everyone in advance for your help.

[Doug Burke]

Originally posted by MightyCthulhu
1) Detecting ships. Suppose the PCs ship and another ship are "passing in the night" at extreme range. What does the PC have to roll to detect presence of the ship? I assume this is a "general" test, so Shipboard Systems (Sensors) TN: 11 ( 5 +6 for range ) ?

That sounds right to me.

2) Extended Tests. Suppose the ship has been detected and the PCs what to scan it to detect the presence of an alien agent that they think may have "contaminated" the ship. I expect this is a an "uncommon, specific element" (TN:15) and the ship is large (X4). Does that mean I have to make 4 tests @ TN:15 with an aggregate TN:60 to succeed?

Yes, that's correct.

Also I recall reading somewhere that any test with a TN:30+ should be doable as an extended test, but I'm not sure how to calculate the individual TNs for this type of an extended test. Any Ideas?

Really, that's pretty much up to the Narrator. Do you want each test to be more difficult but have fewer time intervals, or do you want several easier tests?

3) Countermeasure. Does the unknown ship's shields (if they are up) hamper sensor scans at all?

No. Shields do not interfere with sensors. (Unless it's a story point that they do...)

4) Analyzing Ship Status. At the end of the description on pg 102 NG, it says that this action increases TN of the next Sensor action by +5?!?! Does this mean that if a PC attempts this over multiple rounds that it becomes more difficult? That doesn't make sense to me.

I believe that means any sensor test against another target, because you are focusing your sensors so precisely.