FreeOrion

What's with this? There is actually a yellow ship there, but I don't have visibility of it.

Edit: I'm getting a sitrep message saying that "Information on the area was obtained from an abandoned derelict" on the following turn and am gaining knowledge about all the systems nearby, but I can't see the ship that's causing the detection circles.

It probably makes more sense for the ship to just not be visible, but I certainly shouldn't be able to see the detection circle if the ship isn't visible.

Edit2: I also captured a colony at Oort a few turns later, and when it was recaptured, my empire still thought it belonged to me, and detection circles for both my empire and the yellow empire were showing, even though I didn't own anything in that system, and I had no visibility of anything in the system.

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

I think it renders visibility radii for the latest known status of objects. If you see an object in a system, but then never see the object again so don't know that it's moved somewhere else, your knowledge of the universe still says that it was last seen at that system. So it will then show a radius there, even if you can't see it's there this turn.

I'll try changing it to only show currently visible objects...

Should you see the circles of other empires at all?

Seems to me it would make more sense, if you only saw your own. Also the combined effect of many empire's circles can be a muddy indistinct color.

At least until we have alliances and espionage. Then there could be good reasons for seeing other empire's detection range.

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Whether your ships are in detection range of other empires seems like useful information...

True, nut what basis does an empire have to know the detection capabilities of another empire? Awareness off the enemy's technology?

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[...] for Man has earned his right to hold this planet against all comers, by virtue of occasionally producing someone totally batshit insane. - xkcd

Ships and their parts, or buildings, or specials, or anything else that modifies the detection meter are accounted for client side. The server also sends the actual detection meter (amongst other details) to players with sufficient visibility of any object, which may include enemy-owned objects.

Let me rephrase this: What is the in-world explanation for such knowledge? I'm aware, that whatever is sent to client can potentially be accessed by the player (with some code modifications and a local version of the client).

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[...] for Man has earned his right to hold this planet against all comers, by virtue of occasionally producing someone totally batshit insane. - xkcd

If your empire knows a ship's design and what techs further affect its detection, the empire knows how much detection the ship has. Same for planets and buildings and techs. Also, this is just how the magical instant-signal-propegation FO detection technology works: if you have sufficient detection strength, you can see details such as how much detection or fuel a ship has or the resource output levels of a planet.

It would also help the point eleazar mentioned, I think, to be able to activate one's own visibility circles separately from enemies'. Eventually, when there's a more robust visual lay-over system, I don't think it would be too much detail to be able to turn each empire's on and off individually.

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Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

Yes, it is. That's why i think it is a good reward for successful diplomacy or espionage. See Civ IV where you had to earn various useful features like tech/map trading, diplomacy options, etc.

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