Aetheria/docs/research/lock-launch-and-graded-visibility-prior-art.md

facts.md - lock-on, visibility and launch signature: Aetheria today and prior art

Serves operator direction aetheria-release:ruling:lock-and-visibility-rethink (2026-10-10) and the in-force rulings it cites. Eyes (eyes-aeth-lock-visibility), session self-2026-10-10-ag2. Facts only; no conclusions or recommendations. Tags: FETCHED (page read this session), SEARCH (search-result summary only, page not opened), KNOWLEDGE (from memory, unverified).

0. Rulings read (eureka-state view)

• lock-and-visibility-rethink (2026-10-10): operator: "not sure what missile lock-on actually represents"; "no line between a missile and a kamikaze drone"; "seeding an area with loitering munitions while you gather tracks should be perfectly viable"; "visibility is one number right now. That launch reveals everything about the ship or nothing". Self holds consumable-ai (its vent-at-half-lock rule assumes the gate).
• ADDENDUM (operator, 2026-10-10, via coordinator, verbatim): "It's closer to the fantasy described in the novella, where you learn about a target by forcing it to reveal its capabilities one by one".
• shared-track-bearing-only (2026-10-03): shared track is a cue (bearing + grudge), never writes EntityInfoGathered, never counts toward Designated; "even a missile in flight only gets a bearing, it must still perform terminal maneuvering itself".
• missiles-fuel-and-seekers (2026-10-06): launch data aims; terminal guidance is the missile's own sensors; manoeuvre spends limited fuel.
• missiles-seeker-retarget (2026-10-06): missile with no/lost target takes the brightest reading above threshold among hostiles (to launch faction) in its cone/range; "going dark and firing decoys plausible".
• drones-and-munitions-are-entities (2026-10-04): both use the entity+gear system with dedicated gear; expendability etc. follow from gear, not a kind flag; how the pilot commands them is not ruled.
• missiles-sim-side-light (2026-10-06): munitions are lightweight sim records (PendingShot + flight struct) targetable via the targeting index, no Entity; full entities later. missile-stats-now-gear-later (2026-10-06): stats on missile data now, derived from gear later.
• lock-warning-strength (2026-10-10): painted ship learns lock strength 0..1; AI vents when one lock passes half.
• sensor-stat-set (2026-10-08): per-emitter power/beam width/intercept factor alpha; passive listening bearing-only, two listeners fix a position; allies share tracks silently; painted target always learns bearing, emitter class, search vs track; "Emission is one more signature, alongside heat."

1. Aetheria today (origin/master of GameCult/Aetheria after fetch; warning from branch origin/eureka/aetheria-release-lock-warning)

Paths under Assets/Scripts/ServerShared/ unless noted.

Visibility / detection representation

• Observer-side knowledge: Entity.EntityInfoGathered : ReactiveDictionary<Entity,float>, one float per observer per other entity (Entity.cs:89). Seeded 0 for each zone entity (Entity.cs:210-221), removed on zone removal (:222-229).
• Only writer: Sensor.Execute (Behaviors/Sensor.cs:137-181; write at :178). Per entity: ping gain once when inside the expanding ping radius (:166-170), else passive gain via sensitivity curve on angle off sensor facing (:171-174); then times 1 - TargetInfoDecay*dt (:176). Gain formula Sensor.cs:190-193: ping = visibilitysensitivityPingBoostdistance; passive = visibilitysensitivity*curve(angle/pi)*dt/distance; times Zone.Obscuration (vapour clouds).
• Target-side signature: Entity.Visibility = sum of VisibilitySources values (Entity.cs:88, :161). Every observer's Gain reads this same scalar (Sensor.cs:169,174). Sources: thermal radiation (Entity.cs:1589), Radiator (Behaviors/Radiator.cs:121), Reflector cross-sectionlight (Reflector.cs:46), Visibility gear (Visibility.cs:44), ConstantWeapon (ConstantWeapon.cs:173), InstantWeapon on each fired round (InstantWeapon.cs:280; value Weapon.Visibility, Weapon.cs:140), Thruster = inputVisibility stat (Thruster.cs:132-134, max-in-place), Sensor ping (PingVisibility, Sensor.cs:117).
• Decay: every VisibilitySources entry decays by GameplaySettings.VisibilityDecay per Entity.Update, removed below 0.1 (Entity.cs:1395-1399; setting Settings.cs:216).
• Threshold to "visible": EntityInfoGathered crossing TargetDetectionInfoThreshold adds/removes the entity in VisibleEntities/VisibleEnemies/VisibleFriendlies (Entity.cs:263-280). PerceivedStanceOf returns hostility only if visible (Entity.cs:729-732).
• Graded use of the same scalar already exists: FireControl.IsRevealed ranks a target's non-hull equipment and reveals item i of N when info >= lerp(TargetArmorInfoThreshold, TargetGearInfoThreshold, i/(N-1)) (FireControl.cs:164-183), derived on every read, never stored. Hit odds read info against TargetingSystem Resolution (Behaviors/TargetingSystem.cs:23-30; FireControl.cs:323).
• Designated: FireControl.Designated(weapon, source, target, out range) = target in source.VisibleEntities AND range in [MinRange, Range] AND not (LockWeapon and not IsLocked) (FireControl.cs:291-298).
• Targeting index: TargetSearch/regions carry ReachPerVisibility; a region is skipped if Nearest > MaxVisibilityReachPerVisibility (Targeting/TargetingIndex.cs:30-62); Entity.DetectionReachPerVisibility (Entity.cs:601-614) bounds detection reach per unit visibility; EntityTargets regions use MaxVisibility = +inf (Targeting/EntityTargets.cs:30); BeltTargets uses cross-sectionlight (BeltTargets.cs:190).

LockWeapon (Behaviors/LockWeapon.cs)

• Stats LockSpeed, SensorImpact, LockAngle, DirectionImpact, Decay (:12-25, :48-52). LauncherData : LockWeaponData (Behaviors/Launcher.cs:10); its CreateInstance returns LockWeapon (Launcher.cs:30-33), so launchers are LockWeapons.
• Execute (:81-110): lock resets to 0 when Entity.Target changes (:85-90). If the target is hostile and within LockAngle degrees of aim: _lock += pow(1-angle/90, DirectionImpact)*dt*LockSpeed*pow(EntityInfoGathered[target], SensorImpact) (:100-105); outside the angle _lock -= dt*Decay (:106).
• CanFire = base.CanFire && _lock > .99 && TargetRange in (MinRange, Range) (:56); IsLocked => _lock > .99 (:66); Progress shows cooldown or lock (:54). Events OnLocked/OnBeginLocking/OnLockLost declared (:44-46).
• Lock reads only the shooter's own EntityInfoGathered of the target; on master nothing in LockWeapon writes any state about the target.

What a launch changes about the launcher (master)

• InstantWeapon (LockWeapon's base) sets Entity.VisibilitySources[this] = Visibility on each fired round (InstantWeapon.cs:280) and AddHeat (:279). That raises the launcher's single Visibility scalar for every observer equally, decaying per Entity.cs:1395-1399. Same path as any gun. No launcher-specific signature, no event, no bearing/identity/class channel; observers' info on the launcher rises only through their own Sensor.Gain on that scalar.
• cut_spec cut-missile-records.r3 (eureka-state): in-flight seeker reading = Sensor.SettledInfo(Sensor.Gain(seeker.Visibility, Sensitivity, cone ? 1 : 0, distance, 1, false), 1); Locked = reading > TargetDetectionInfoThreshold; reacquires hostiles in cone every SeekerInterval (0.5). The seeker's view of a target uses the same Visibility scalar.

Lock warning (branch origin/eureka/aetheria-release-lock-warning, diff vs master)

• LockWeapon.Execute adds target.ReceivePaint(Entity.Position, Item?.Data, Lock) each tick the lock builds inside LockAngle (not on the decay branch) (LockWeapon.cs, +105).
• New readonly struct LockWarning { float2 Bearing; EquippableItemData EmitterClass; float Strength } (end of LockWeapon.cs).
• Entity: _paintInbox, _incomingLocks, IncomingLocks, internal PublishPaints(), internal ReceivePaint(pos, class, strength) with Bearing = normalize((emitterPos - Position).xz); Zone.Update calls PublishPaints for every entity before any Update (Zone.cs ~229). A warning lives one tick past the last paint. Comment: TargetedBy counts selection, which emits nothing; a warning comes only from a paint (Entity.cs near :173).
• HUD: the strongest warning by Strength drives an incoming-lock indicator placed IncomingLockIndicatorDistance toward the bearing, same curves as the outgoing indicator (Gameplay/ActionGameManager.cs, ApplyLockProgress). The warning is produced by lock accumulation, not by a launch.
• Master HUD fields reading EntityInfoGathered: ActionGameManager.cs:1277-1321.

Transient/event signatures

• No event type exists. The only transient mechanism is VisibilitySources entries that decay: weapon fire (InstantWeapon.cs:280), sensor ping (Sensor.cs:117), thruster input (Thruster.cs:132-134). Radiator and thermal radiation are continuous (Radiator.cs:121; Entity.cs:1589). Source key is the behavior object, so sources are separable internally, but only the sum is exposed (Visibility, Entity.cs:161); the other external reader is SchematicDisplay.cs:192 (own visibility label).
• Lineage doc (AetheriaEve docs/original-game-specification.md:203-227, via voidbot): "Visibility is the sum of independently decaying sources produced by thermal radiation, weapons, propulsion, explicit visibility behavior, reflector cross section, and active pings."

2. The novella and design notes (AetheriaLore, via voidbot; read-only)

The exact passage about forcing a target to reveal capabilities one by one was not located verbatim. Nearest passages:

• Aetheria/Brainstorming/Stories/Pirate Metagame Novella/11 Draft Movement II/Movement II Draft.md:1411-1428 (same text in 15 Revision Council/Revised Manuscript Candidate.md:4636-4663): a baited sensor officer; the ship "revealed active sensors, capture ballistics, and a surrender channel" - reveal as a chosen sequence. At :1351-1378: the crew reads the target's attention as "changes in emitted challenge, passive illumination, and local cognition allocation" and "what work it spent"; Ilya: "I am preserving uncertainty."
• 15 Revision Council/Candidate B - Chapters 4-8.md:149-176: eleven unresolved traces; "No parent classification below confidence gate"; Ilya: "It is behaving like a parent"; launched drones go "cold at first, then brightening as they spread", their sensors "woke one by one", views "entered Sable's architecture without becoming agreement".
• 12 Draft Movement III/Movement III Draft.md:179-210: "The ship opened its radiators before the enemy had finished pretending to be debris."
• Aetheria/Game Design/Heat, Stealth, and Detection.md (read in full): contact states Detected / Classified / Identified / Lost; contacts progress "through evidence, not fixed revelation timers"; every contact change needs an explanation (emission, thrust, radiator exposure, shared observation, geometry, occlusion, stale evidence); loop includes "deploy a bounded probe, or scan actively" and "the target reveals itself"; status: design lineage, no implementation established.
• Aetheria/Worldbuilding/Post-Elysium/Reference/Transponder Credentials.md:1-10: a heat trace does not identify itself; the transponder becomes readable after sensors have gathered enough.
• Aetheria/Game Design/Faction Play.md:104-115: what a faction does with radiators, thrust and pings is "the primary tell"; HUD faction identity only once gear is revealed (IsRevealed at TargetGearInfoThreshold).
• Aetheria/Brainstorming/Technology/Drone Signature Warfare Simulation Artifacts.md:327-336: metrics munition_loiter_time, munition_signature (visibility, thrust heat, sensor activity), lock_rate, active_scan_exposure.

3. Prior art

3a. LOBL/LOAL, fire-and-forget, datalink, loitering munitions

• FETCHED Wikipedia "Lock-on after launch": LOAL = seeker acquires after leaving the launcher; LOBL is a retronym; LOAL uses strapdown inertial guidance to know where to look, cued by helmet sight or onboard radar/FLIR; with a datalink the missile receives continuous target updates while its seeker is inactive; internal carriage and flight-limited range (AIM-9X range up about a third); "Most loitering munitions use LOAL"; 2003 Rafael Python-5 test: radar-cued pre-launch, high trajectory, seeker on about 5 nmi from a target 15 nmi away.
• SEARCH: MBDA Sea Venom/ANL fired LOBL or LOAL with two-way datalink and imaging seeker (operator can change aim point or abort); Spike NLOS supports both; engagement studies treat fire-and-forget vs precision and LOBL vs LOAL as separate axes; forum disagreement over whether LOAL requires a datalink.
• FETCHED Wikipedia "Loitering munition": most are operator-in-the-loop via EO sensors and datalink until a target is designated; anti-radiation types (IAI Harpy) search and attack radars autonomously with an anti-radiation seeker; Mini Harpy triple-homing (anti-radiation, EO day, EO night); early Harpy/Tacit Rainbow were placed over suspected SAM sites and struck when a battery was spotted; autonomous search may last hours, may request human approval; FPV types give the operator first-person view.
• FETCHED Wikipedia "AeroVironment Switchblade": EO/IR cameras with real-time video; operator designates, aided target tracker for moving targets; retargetable en route; wave-off until about 4 s before impact.
• FETCHED IAI Harpy page: no seeker band/loiter-pattern/radar-off detail (gap).

3b. RWR and launch/missile warning

• FETCHED Wikipedia "Radar warning receiver": measures frequency, signal shape, PRF; separates emitters by type and sorts by threat priority; several antennas give direction of arrival, drawn relative to heading; strength and waveform help estimate threat type; display distance may show estimated range or threat severity (tracking nearer centre than search); symbols show radar type or carrying vehicle; after a SARH missile is fired the RWR may detect the radar's guidance-mode change and the warning becomes more insistent.
• SEARCH (migflug, codex.uoaf F-16 notes, informal): audio tones differ for search/track/missile guidance; on some units display distance is signal strength not range; F-16 MISSILE LAUNCH indicator separate from mode lights.
• FETCHED Wikipedia "Missile approach warning system": pulse-Doppler MAW reports range and closing speed (time to impact), imprecise direction; IR MAW reports azimuth/elevation, no range, can see after burnout; UV MWS detects the burning solid motor, wide field of view, angle only, TTI estimated from signal-amplitude rise, fast response to nearby launches.
• SEARCH: submarine tube-ejection air blast radiates a detectable wavefront (patent US4313181); Cold Waters community: launch transient audible, gives launch bearing alert; enemy detects your torpedo's pings; radar mast or active sonar gives away position.
• KNOWLEDGE: RWR/ESM report bearing, emitter class and mode, not range; IR/UV launch detectors report bearing and a launch event.

3c. Graded contact information, transient signatures

• SEARCH: joint dictionary: identification = determining friend/hostile character of an unknown detected contact; IFF identifies friends only, non-response ambiguous. CMO Steam thread (secondary): in tutorials ground radar never classified a contact, airborne radar did. CMO manual definitions of its levels and uncertainty areas: NOT obtained.
• SEARCH (TMA literature): bearing-only gives direction only; range from observer manoeuvre or bearing history; uncertainty shown as an area of uncertainty plus course/speed uncertainty; single-ESM tracking is nonlinear without range.
• SEARCH: Steam thread app 1286220 (KNOWLEDGE: Command: Modern Operations): ships under EMCON tracked enemies by ESM alone; switching radars on let the AI ESM counter-detect and identify them as hostile; ESM contacts approximate and horizon-limited. USNI rule of thumb: emission detectable at about twice its usable range.
• SEARCH: Cold Waters labels contacts by how first detected (S1...), mast/ESM/periscope exposures convert sierras to master contacts; sonar estimate can differ from true position.
• SEARCH EVE University wiki: lock time = 40,000 mm / scan resolution * asinh(signature radius)^2; FETCHED "Lock time" page: Passive Targeter "allows target lock without alerting the ship", implying a normal lock alerts the target; what the target sees is not on the page. Directional scanner: not found.
• Nebulous: Fleet Command: wiki.hoodedhorse.com returned 403 (NOT read). SEARCH only: Modular Missiles update (Aug 2022); "Minor Missile" update (2023) mixes missile types in a salvo; ships with active comms coordinate interceptors; wiki file index lists dual-seeker and seeker-validator diagrams and a comms-jamming diagram; players: command guidance jammable so backup seeker advised, EO seekers hard to decoy. In-repo second-hand (docs/aetheria-release-map.md via question missiles-seeker-retarget): Nebulous re-selects every 0.5 s by signal strength with validators; command-guided missile that loses track cruises to last known position; HighFleet blind-fired missile locks the first fleet in its 90-degree cone.
• Children of a Dead Earth, Highfleet, Starsector sensor models: searches returned nothing usable (NOT read).

3d. Missiles and drones as one category from parts

• SEARCH (Steam workshop, community): a Space Engineers drone-carrier script uses drones as guided missiles ("ram" waypoint toward the host's current TargetVectors, then arm warheads), host commands over a channel; Whiplash141 missile script: a missile with no target flies semi-active on whatever a designator paints, then listens only to updates for its own lock. Avorion: only community reports (torpedoes/fighters prioritised by turret Defensive setting); nothing found on turret-target handoff to torpedo/fighter; developer says a weapon rework is planned. Nebulous missile builder/handoff detail: not obtained.

4. Provoking information out of a contact (addendum)

• SEARCH (Wikipedia Wild Weasel, Misawa AF article): the Wild Weasel role is to bait air-defence radars into tracking the aircraft, trace the emission to its source and hit it with anti-radiation missiles (AGM-45 Shrike); crews had no warning of SA-2 tracking; radars cycled on and off to avoid being homed on. Detailed SA-2 provocation technique not in results.
• SEARCH (NSA, CIA reading room, RAF "Listening In"): Cold War ELINT probing flights along the Soviet periphery recorded radar emissions to build an Electronic Order of Battle (location, function, parameters); results do not say flights were designed to make radars light up; "Radio Proving Flights" named, not elaborated.
• FETCHED Loitering munition page: Harpy-class loitered over suspected SAM sites and struck when a battery emitted.
• KNOWLEDGE (unverified): reconnaissance by provocation uses feints and decoys so radars, weapons or comms activate and ESM records them; ELINT reveals emitter class and mode and accumulates into order of battle over many events.
• Games: Cold Waters/CMO notes above (emission raises detectability and classification; EMCON ESM tracking; radar-on counter-detection). No source found for a game modelling "weapon class learned on fire, drive class on burn, sensor class on emission" as separate reveals; Aetheria's own IsRevealed (FireControl.cs:164-183) reveals gear by info tier, not by event.

5. Gaps

• sensor-stat-set cites scratchpad prior-art-sensors/findings.md (not read).
• Novella line the operator paraphrases not found verbatim; Candidate/Revised copies duplicate text.
• Nebulous wiki 403; CMO manual, Children of a Dead Earth, Highfleet, Avorion detail, EVE d-scan/target warning not obtained.
• Did not open Unity GuidedProjectile or AI code consuming IncomingLocks.
• SEARCH items are secondary summaries.

6. Identifying quiet equipment, and hull class to layout (addendum, 2026-10-11)

Gathered by imagination-aeth-quiet-gear for ruling quiet-gear-identifiable-hull-layout-known ("Identifying those quiet subsystems should still be possible, even if you need special gear to do it. Also, with enough data to infer the hull class I should know where the reactor is even if I don't have its specs."). Bounded pass, 8 searches and fetches.

6a. Dedicated scanning gear in games

• FETCHED EVE University wiki "Ship scanning": the ship scanner module reveals the target's fit and capacitor level; a single scan shows a random subset of the fitted modules (one example: three of nine), so full knowledge takes repeated scans; structures always show the full fit. Range, cycle time and target notification are not on the page.
• SEARCH (EVE University "Cargo scanning", same targeting-then-scanning process): the scanner needs a lock first; the active module draws a faint scanning beam toward the target, visible but easy to miss. Combined with section 3c (a normal lock alerts the target; the Passive Targeter exists to lock without alerting), EVE's scan is covert only in that its own effect is subtle: the lock it needs is noticed.
• SEARCH (Elite Dangerous fan wiki, Prima guide, Steam threads): the Kill Warrant Scanner is a held scan of about 10 s; the target must stay within the scanner's range the whole time or the scan is interrupted; partial data degrades gradually rather than resetting at once; the target is alerted as soon as the scan begins and may flee or deploy hardpoints. The manifest (cargo) scanner reads cargo; timing not found.
• SEARCH (Highfleet guides): composition intelligence is a strategic-map activity (radio tracking, radar, an optional ELINT/IR ship in a strike group); no in-battle equipment scanner found.
• SEARCH (Nebulous): store text only: capabilities are learned gradually, half a battle may go to determining them; detail of what each track-quality level shows was NOT obtained (wiki 403 in section 3c). Recollection, unverified: hull class shows at higher track quality and fitted components are visible on the model.
• SEARCH (Cold Waters, Steam threads): contact codes record how a contact was first found (S, E, V, R, M); class identity comes from the player matching against the unit reference; players report positive identification often only after the kill. No timed classification rule found.

6b. Real-world identification of equipment that does not emit

• SEARCH (Wikipedia "Acoustical intelligence", Center for Maritime Strategy, Marasco et al., Acoustics 2023): ACINT is a MASINT discipline; narrowband spectral lines from internal machinery, propellers and sonars identify category, type and ideally the individual hull; a 2023 proof of concept determined the running status of a subset of a known ship's systems from its radiated noise. Collection assets are few, time on station short, analysis delayed. Reading: machinery that never transmits still radiates, and specialised analysis over a dwell recovers it.
• SEARCH (MIT Lincoln Laboratory ISAR ship classification, Navy SBIR topics, Adelaide ISAR slides): inverse synthetic aperture radar, an active imaging radar, classifies ship class from superstructure shape; viewing geometry limits it (along the length is best, broadside poor); returns from rotating antennas reveal their position on the ship and their configuration. Imaging is an active act the target can detect (as any radar, section 3b).
• SEARCH (ONI recognition manuals on ibiblio, Jane's help centre and case study): class recognition rests on the overall mass of hull and superstructure; Jane's narrows an unknown ship to one class from dimensions, and a class profile then lists its weapons and systems and where they are. Variants and refits within a class: not covered by the results (gap).
• KNOWLEDGE: technical intelligence (TECHINT, exploitation) learns specifications from captured or closely examined equipment; recognition handbooks give a class's layout (mount positions, sensor masts) but a given ship's fit and condition are confirmed only by closer collection.

6c. Reading for Aetheria

• Hull class to layout is how recognition works: identify the class, then the class reference says where the mounts are; it does not say what a given ship carries in them or their specifications (6b). In Aetheria the class is HullData, and its Hardpoints (type, position, shape) are that reference.
• Every game found that identifies non-emitting fit does it with a dedicated scanner that needs a lock or held range: EVE (partial, repeated scans), Elite (held 10 s, interrupted out of range, target alerted at once). The real-world analogues are either long passive dwell by specialised analysis (ACINT) or active imaging (ISAR), which reveals the imager.
• No source found where the scanned party learns nothing at all: EVE's covertness is a weak beam on top of a noticed lock; Elite alerts outright.

6d. Gaps

• EVE ship-scanner range, cycle time and whether the target is told: not obtained.
• Nebulous track-quality levels and component visibility; CMO classification rules: not obtained.
• Refit variants within a class in recognition references: not obtained.

7. Bistatic credit: what bounds an ally's share of a ping (addendum, 2026-10-11)

Question: an ally that hears another ship's ping return (cut paint-modes, ruling sensor-stat-set item 3) was credited with no range bound (Soul finding ally-credit-unbounded-by-range). What bounds it elsewhere?

7a. Bistatic and multistatic radar

• The bistatic radar equation replaces the monostatic R^4 with R_t^2 x R_r^2 (transmitter-target and target-receiver ranges), so at a fixed detection threshold R_t x R_r is constant. The detection contour is an oval of Cassini around the two sites instead of a circle; it pinches and splits into two lobes around transmitter and receiver when the baseline exceeds 2 sqrt(R_t R_r) (Willis, Bistatic Radar, via IET and MathWorks bistaticConstantSNR documentation; arXiv 1206.1355, coverage theory of bistatic radar networks).
• With R_t = R_r the product reduces to the monostatic R^2: a receiver standing at the transmitter sees exactly what the transmitter sees. That fixes the bound's constant to the illuminator's own reach, scaled by the receiver's own sensitivity if one wants it.
• Passive coherent location is the same geometry with a non-cooperative illuminator; the receiver still has to detect the echo itself above its own noise (MathWorks passive bistatic radar performance assessment).

7b. Cooperative engagement

• US Navy CEC transmits each unit's own radar measurements to the others; every unit fuses them into the same composite track with the same algorithms, weighted by each sensor's accuracy, at fire control quality, so a ship can engage a target it never detected (JHU APL Technical Digest 16-4; FAS CEC summary; Wikipedia, Cooperative Engagement Capability).
• Each contribution is still a sensor's own detection: nothing in CEC credits a unit with a return its radar did not receive. What CEC adds is remote engagement, which Aetheria's ruling shared-track-bearing-only rejects (option b).

7c. Games

• NEBULOUS: Fleet Command's store text says illuminators and fire-control radars mark targets for missiles and that terrain shadows deny them; whether tracks are shared across a fleet and whether a launcher needs its own lock was not found in any primary source (gap). Cold Waters and CMO sensor sharing: not read (gap).

7d. Reading for Aetheria

• An ally's credit for a ping return is its own detection of the echo: gate R_t x R_r < PingRange^2 (the illuminator's monostatic reach carried to the oval), credit at the equivalent range sqrt(R_t x R_r) with the ally's own sensitivity and PingBoost, and obscuration the geometric mean of the two legs. Each reduces exactly to the monostatic credit when the ally stands at the pinger.
• This is a default implied by rulings illuminator-beamforming (Self's recorded reading: "silent allies receive the return passively") and shared-track-bearing-only ("the recipient fires only on its own sensors"), not a new ruling. Folding the ally's sensitivity into the gate as well (sqrt(S_ally / S_pinger)) is the fuller physics; it is left out because Sensitivity already scales the credit, and a second use would make one stat do two jobs.

Sources: https://www.mathworks.com/help/radar/ref/bistaticconstantsnr.html ; https://www.mathworks.com/help/radar/ug/passive-bistatic-radar-performance-assessment.html ; https://arxiv.org/pdf/1206.1355 ; https://digital-library.theiet.org/content/books/ra/sbra003e ; https://www.jhuapl.edu/content/techdigest/pdf/V16-N04/16-04-APLteam.pdf ; https://man.fas.org/dod-101/sys/ship/weaps/cec.htm ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_Engagement_Capability ; https://store.steampowered.com/app/887570/NEBULOUS_Fleet_Command/