Talk:Hyper-wave Decoder
The information the Decoder gives can sometimes be incorrect. For example, a retaliator Battleship showed up in Africa and the Decoder said the destination is somewhere in South East Asia. However, it headed north, straight onto my European base! Another bug: my base got attacked but no Battleship showed up on the Geoscape! Even if it would enter the atmosphere right above my base (which is unlikely, to say the best), I would get a warning before the base is attacked, right?--amitakartok 15:12, 9 November 2008 (CST)
- While I don't know what caused the prior issue, the latter issue is easily explainable. Each radar at an X-COM base runs a detection check for every UFO in range, every half hour. (XX:00 and XX:30.) During the intervening time, the radar will detect no UFOs, so even the 100% detection HWD falls flat if the UFO enters and leaves the range of the radar in that narrow window. Arrow Quivershaft 15:51, 9 November 2008 (CST)
- On the first point, it is very often the case that a UFO will take a random and indirect route to its final mission location. You were just unlucky I think. Spike 06:32, 10 November 2008 (CST)
Range and immediacy
A couple of points for possible correction...
The article says that the range is unknown, but the UFO Detection article states the range of a Hyperwave Decoder as 4800nm, slightly more than a Large Radar.
Also the article states that a UFO will be detected immediately. This is misleading. The HWD will detect UFOs on the half hourly cycle, same as other forms of detection. So it would be correct to say "automatically" but not "immediately", unless anyone knows different.
These corrections would apply to the Transmission Resolver article as well.
Spike 19:00, 16 June 2010 (EDT)
The short/long range radars work on the same cycle, but at each "tick" they only have a chance of picking up a target - meaning that in most cases, multiple ticks will be required to pick one up. Hyper-wave decoders pick up every in-range UFO with every sweep they do. All forms of detection work "automatically" (in that they require no user-intervention to pick up a target ), but only the decoder is "infallible". - Bomb Bloke 20:09, 16 June 2010 (EDT)
The article is correct in that it detects the ships immediately with its 100% chance-to-detect level. What it fails to mention is the mechanics of the radar ping, which is where the radar detection rolls occur.
As for the range - the nautical miles are just what's mentioned in the ufopaedia and the OSG. Prose values, which might not translate into in-game ranges that easily. I'm guessing it means the actual in-game distances aren't certain, though the overlay we've got kicking around somewhere on the wiki does give a good estimate. Nevertheless the text can be misleading. -NKF 01:17, 17 June 2010 (EDT)
edit: all right, I thought I'd go for a slight rewrite. Tell me how it sounds now and what parts need improvement. While I was at it, I added the in-game info as per what I've started to do with the TFTD weapon articles. Just one thing, should researchable topics like this that don't appear right away have a separate subheading that outlines what's required to get them? It's never been a problem with the weapons since they become available the moment you get one. This is not so with the more involved research topics. -NKF
Yeah I was aware of the stuff about the half hour cycle but I thought it was misleading to say "immediately", precisely because of the half hour detection cycle. "Infallibly" is perhaps the best word.
On the range question, the Small and Large Radar ranges are out by x8 in the UFOPaedia, so they are not sourced from there (maybe the OSG corrects this?), but the 4800nm for HWD specifically is not sourced to the OSG or the UFOPaedia, it's from code digs. And it's tested experimentally, I have hacked the HWD = 4800nm value upwards and downwards such that a single Hyperwave Decoder detects UFOs all over the planet, for example. I also tested giving HWD lower range than Radar, but the HWD is used in preference regardless. So I would say the exact range value *is* known. Spike 12:02, 17 June 2010 (EDT)
I've made some minor changes to the grammar (the "detection sphere" picks up UFOs in its "detection sphere"?), though I'm also not sure about the use of the term "radar sweeps". It's a signal receiver - why would it need to send out a radar ping? Granted, there's no indication of what a "hyper-wave" is, but the game does note that they're transmitted. I'd assume it's some sort of "magic" radio wave.
Which of course brings up the issue as to why the hyper-wave modules only detect UFOs on the half-hour. Granted, odds are this is just a game-engine limitation, but I suppose it could be explained by aliens only sending their transmissions at certain times (which just so happens to coincide with X-COM's radar timing system)... - Bomb Bloke 04:28, 17 June 2010 (EDT)
It's just easier that way I guess. Since players will be using higher time compression settings to while away the time between inactivity, time and events are abstracted sp it doesn't matter too much. But you do start to see the effect of UFOs flying under the radar on the slower time settings.
Of course, since this is X-COM and judging by the artwork used throughout the core titles in the series, I like to think of some of the technology used in the game as being a bit like your typical B-grade movie sci-fi low-tech high-tech technology. -NKF 05:10, 17 June 2010 (EDT)