Dominion Sensors

Overview
The Dominion use a variety of different sensor-technologies. Limtiations of sensor technologies were historically one of the major bottlenecks in the development of humanity, especially at universal or greater scales. Modern Dominion units will possess a broad array of different sensors working in tandem to create a single perception field of hierarchical scope, known as a sensor-suite.

Tachar
An ultra-long range FTL sensor analagous to a radar. Active emitters transmit low energy high-speed tachyons and use their natural repulsion from bradyons to track even fast moving mass signatures across universal distances. They are also useful for mapping cosmic topography.

The main limitation of tachar is precision, as only a miniscule fraction of emitted tachyons will make it back to the receiver. This can be improved by emitting more but this not only increases passive energy usage but also compromises the stealth of the unit. Limited precision can make it hard to track relativistic or super-relativistic motion at cosmic distances without extensive extrapolation and prediction.

Quantum Cascade
A mid-range FTL sensor that offers high levels of precision and detail. This is the most useful sensor in combat and analysis contexts.

Waves of self-replicating microscale drones are sent out into foldspace, quickly travelling (in realspace time) a set distance around the sender and poking microscopic gateways into reality to observe with closer range sensors like Wave-Receivers. These drones are equipped with miniscule qWeb receivers, both for power and communication, allowing them to near instantenously communicate data about the surroundings back to the sender. They also self-replicate and self-propagate as needed.

Due to limitations in power and data bandwidth, a given unit can only host so many of these drones before having to self-destruct them. As well as greater distances requiring exponentially greater quantities of drones to achieve sufficient coverage (inverse-square law). This leaves a hard practical limit to the range of a given cascade.

Wave-Receiver
A sensitive and universal receiver of waveforms. The Wave-Receiver can accurately filter the entire electromagnetic spectrum and gravitional and matter waves. While obviously limited to STL (excluding theoretical FTL waveforms) it can be used in conjunction with Quantum Cascade to map large volumes quickly.

Most forms of stealth are useless against this sensor.

Gateway Cone
Not a sensor but a technique of reducing the latency of slow sensors. Gateway coning is where a unit projects gateways closer to a desired target to funnel STL information directly to a sensor. This technique can be very effective for units with a large gateway system such as a strategic scale one, but pales in comparison to Quantum Cascade for most units.