Can't find this on the forums or in the books.

How sensitive are Auger Arrays?

Do they only work against other ships? They can determine (depending on the DOS) what type of weapons, components, etc. are on another ship or the location of a ship in silent running.

Can they scan a planet and detect life-forms, basic mineral content, energy signatures (natural or man or xeno made)? I don't see (and don't want) RT to be the same as Star Trek... they can scan a planet for 3 dudes... and find them after 33 mins.

A handheld Auspex (depending on the quality) can detect a few or many things but to a limited range, 50m (Ghost Voice Auspex from Lure of the Expanse is 100m and cannot be blocked by normal materials and can detect mouse farts).

What kind of a auspex/augers are on a Guncutter, Lighter, fighter/bomber?

My players are wanting to scan before boarding a hulk or going dirtside and I do not have a answer that I like.

Any ideas or input would be appreciated.

Thanks

It's left a little vague as to their exact capabilities, but they definitely do not work like Star Trek sensors. They cannot scan the interior of a ship for life readings, and in fact in most Warhammer fluff people will release boarding parties full of expendable servitors to scout the interior (or even more expendable crew members) before heading over a large boarding party.

Planets would be a little more interesting since again I also don't think it would be specified. You could certainly detect whether or not a planet could support life, and possibly if you were in orbit I would let my players perform the equivalent of a satellite picture search and report what could be seen from orbit. I definitely wouldn't allow them to locate any individual life forms unless they carried specialised locator beacons.

As far as I know though, those are just my own interpretations of the rules. I can't say one way or the other what the actual rulings on these matters would be.

Auspex of voidships are specialized equipment to some degree. Some are better at spotting ships in the void, others are advanced mining sensors to scan for precious metals, still others are even attuned to the Immaterium in some way to locate ships before they enter.

However, fluff aside, on a voidship you're going to have cameras for most frequencies of light, powerful telescopes, electromagnetic sensors and so on. Thermal imaging is most likely the most important sensor, since it's what finds large settlements on planets and also locates ship in the void. From orbit, you'll be able to determine temperature, atmosphere, rough humidity, significant thermal and/or electromagnetic radiation, rough mineral composition etcetera. You won't find individual life-forms (unless they're REALLY big), but you'll find likely habitats for lifeforms, possibly. It's also likely you'd spot a Titan or similar, simply due to scale and energy output.

Voidships probably carry auger equipment similar to the large Auger from the rules, except with maybe ten or thirty times the range. It's probably the same, roughly, as the voidship's, but smaller and, due to range, probably more accurate at finding and separating smaller sources. A gun-cutter could probably separate different individuals with some clever code and just a bit of tweaking to the sensor arrays.

For the hulk scenario, you're not going to get any specifics. Apart from the obvious, like size, mass, temperature and so on, they might notice large sources of thermal or electromagnetic radiation (as well as any large source of gamma rays, obviously), but it'll be jumbled and not very indicative of the location of said source. Active plasma cores would be obvious, as they're all three of the previously mentioned. Life signs would pretty much be limited to "Maybe some", "Maybe none" and "Unknown". You might also find atmosphere via scan, but that'd also be pretty difficult to trace and small pockets might go completely unnoticed.

Thanks, that's the same direction I was thinking it would go. I have some ideas for house rules that I'll test out on my players.

Thanks for the feedback.

Remember also that radio waves are a type of electromagnetic radiation. This is a BIG neon bright sign that life is on the planet or in a system. Could it be encrypted? Depends on the technology level of the inhabitants. Can it be translated? Depends on the race and cultural background of the inhabitants, and how intelligent your Tech Priest is. Happy gaming.

Augur arrays in 40k are less useful than current state of the art sensors in real life. So consider that. Just think of a lower resolution, worse than what we have right now.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardetect.php

Especially look at 'what sensors reveal', and then make it WORSE than that.

Augur arrays in 40k are less useful than current state of the art sensors in real life. So consider that. Just think of a lower resolution, worse than what we have right now.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardetect.php

Especially look at 'what sensors reveal', and then make it WORSE than that.

Thanks for the link, lots of great info. I'll get some ideas for scanners and other stuff from that site.

If I may put my two cents in:

Stars of Inequity , pg. 18

"ASSESSING AND SURVEYING
Upon arrival in a new system, one of the first tasks any captain gives to his crew is a long range sweep of the system with his vessel’s augers. This is not merely a matter of prudence or caution. Neglecting it means not only operating blind to any potential dangers deeper in the system, but also lacking more than the faintest chance of locating the planets and other resources of the system that prompted the ship’s journey in the first place. As such, it should be assumed that such a scan is performed shortly after leaving the Warp, unless there is a reason not to do so.
Long range scans are more intensive than most such efforts, requiring the gathering and processing of enormous amounts of input and data. They typically take 1d5 hours to complete, and any sudden course changes or collisions require the process to begin again. As such, a sudden attack is among the circumstances that might prevent the scan from being carried out immediately. Pirates and raiders often make use of their targets’ blindness to their surroundings in planning ambushes.
A completed long range scan automatically provides the following information: the System’s Star, the presence and identity of any dominant or weak Solar Zones, the presence (but not details) of any active vox traffic in the System, and the presence and location of Planets, Gas Giants, and similarly sized System Elements. A Challenging (+0) Scrutiny+Detection Test can refine the results further, providing one of the following pieces of information per Degree of Success: the presence and location of a single further System Element (selected at the GM’s discretion), the presence of life on one or more Planets within the System, or the origin(s) of active vox traffic within the System. Further details can only be gained by close range sweeps (such as the Active Augury Extended action) or directed scans (such as the Focused Augury Extended Action)."

Yup, which is profoundly worse than real life telescopes and computers and such!

Perhaps the auger arrays are taking in SO MUCH information that the manual processes your crew use to parse the logs take significantly longer than they otherwise would?

It's a problem more of stealth being possible in space at all. It's beyond what that would account for. Both the augurs and the methods of parsing the information have to be worse than having a bunch of people with optical telescopes looking every which way around the clock in a pattern.

And yet, by RAW and apparent RAI, that isn't how it works in 40k, so there must be an internally-consistent reason for not being able to do it (Or GW/FFG just didn't realise the scope of what augers should be able to do).

So your options are either to houserule what can be done with an augur and essentially make the Disengage and Silent Running actions worthless, or justify why it is the way it is. The Stars of Inequity description is essentially accurate in what it detects, but ships are presumed to be invisible unless they're blasting vox traffic to one another or are within 20VU for Active Augury. Ergo, there must be supercapacitive cooling banks around the plasma reactor or something.

Or GW/FFG just didn't realise the scope of what augers should be able to do

I'd bet money on this...

Or it is because Rule of Cool. And because battle in BFG and later Rogue Trader are naval battles IN SPACE. Which I believe is the most probable reason.

Or it is because Rule of Cool. And because battle in BFG and later Rogue Trader are naval battles IN SPACE. Which I believe is the most probable reason.

+1