OP Wiki

Proximity probes

Probes come in two families:

  • Visibility (proximity) probes — small devices you deploy in a zone to watch an area. While powered they scan for player units around them and push reports to the characters you've registered. This is a surveillance/recon tool.
  • Mining probes — a module fitted in your robot (tiers from noob up through standard, industrial, named, elite to artifact) plus per-ore probe ammo (tile / direction / area variants for each ore). Firing it produces a scan result for that ore in the area, stored per character (see gathering → scanning).

UI locations follow the client UI overview. Mechanics below are confirmed against the server.

stateDiagram-v2
    [*] --> Deployed: placed in a zone
    Deployed --> Scanning: core above 98% (scan every 10 s, 50-tile radius)
    Deployed --> Idle: core drained
    Idle --> Scanning: refed
    Scanning --> Reporting: player contacts found<br/>(report pushed to the registration list)
    Reporting --> Scanning
    Scanning --> Destroyed: hostile action or despawn (~333 days)
    Idle --> Destroyed
    Destroyed --> [*]

Managing your probes

  • List your probes — see the probes you have.
  • Registration info — the registration state/info for a probe.
  • Set registration — bind characters to the probe's report list.
  • Set a name — give a probe a label.
  • Remove a probe's registration (in a zone) — stop it watching / clear it.

How a visibility probe works

  • It is core-powered: it only scans while its core is nearly full (above 98% of core_max); an empty probe sits idle.
  • While active it scans every 10 seconds for player robots within its detection radius (50 tiles) and pushes a report (each contact's character ID and position) to everyone on the registration list.
  • Registration is a corporation activity: you can only register members of your own corporation, and the CEO and deputy are always on the list automatically. The list has a maximum size.
  • Lifespan: a deployed probe despawns after its content-defined despawn_time (the visibility probe is set to ~333 days) or is destroyed.

Lifecycle events

The server reports probe lifecycle events as they happen:

  • created, updated, dead — a probe is deployed, reports, or is destroyed.

These arrive as pushes; you don't send them, you react to them.

Practical notes

  • Register before you read — a probe only reports to its registered characters.
  • Probes can die — hostile action or expiry can kill a probe; watch the lifecycle events.
  • Name them — with several probes in the field, labels keep you sane.
  • Recon, not combat — probes gather information; they don't fight.
 Developer notes: ProximityProbeList.cs / ProximityProbeGetRegistrationInfo.cs /
 ProximityProbeRegisterSet.cs / ProximityProbeSetName.cs; Zone/ProximityProbeRemove.cs;
 Zones/ProximityProbes/ProximityProbe.cs + ProximityProbeDeployer.cs; lifecycle
 events via ProximityProbeCreated/Update/Dead/Info commands. -->