Auger Range

By Gribble_the_Munchkin, in Rogue Trader Rules Questions

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OK, slap me if this is clearly stated in the rulebook, but how far can auger arrays detect stuff?

Most of the in combat uses of the augers have a range limit, but how about just seeing another ship going under normal propulsion? Should the augers be able to spot anything in system? Or only anything within an AU or only anything with 100VU or what?

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I treat it like submarines a mix between submarines and age of sail ships. NOT like Star Trek with sensors that reveal everything in the system.

You have active and passive sensors. Non-close range ships can be detected only if they are actively putting out energy. This would include using active sensors (pinging), aggressively accelerating, emitting transponder IDs (as all ships do in civilized systems), transmitting other signals (like communications), firing weapons, or entering/leaving the warp (with a psyniscience check).
If a ship isn't doing anything to emit energy (I presume their plasma drives are heavily shielded) they are undetectible by passive sensors, and nearly undetectable by active ones.
For active sensors at long distance I assume they are directional and likely sending off powerful waves of energy to return a reading. So they can attempt to "ping" (which will reveal them to anyone in the area) a world or section of space at distance to get some basic information. But you have to be in orbit to do a "Star Trek" style sensor reading. If they fail their high orbit reading I typically let the into low orbit to try another one, which reveals them to the planet and leaves them vulnerable to attack.
At close range (floating above the same planet) their passive sensors are much more sensitive and they can typically detect other ships in orbit easily, unless they purposefully hide on the other side of a planet, or behind a moon.
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The whole Rogue Trader space stuff has a submarine "taste". In term of range, I use the narrative range :

- In combat everything is in range

- Out of combat thing are "in range" when it serve the story well. The ship having the better auger bay - auger operator combination being in range before the other ships (for "space shadowing" for example).