If every ship can scan, then what are the ships dedicated to scanning for, like the Terrapin?
TL;DRDedicated scanning ships like the Terrapin will scan much farther and with better sensitivity, so they can detect and identify stealth ships that regular ships would only see as an unidentified blob.
They are better at it. They can see much, much further doing it. These are not the exact numbers, but they're numbers for the sake of giving numbers: if normal ships can only scan 15 kilometers, the Terrapin and other scanning ships are going to be 30, 40, 50. So they are going to be able to detect things much further away. Their sensitivity is much better. So not only can they see things further away, they can see things closer that other ships can't see. So those stealth ships, which do have the lower emissions, they stand a better chance of being able to detect them and scan them. So stealth ships might be able to be targeted by regular ships at certain ranges, but it's just going to be a blob. You're not going to know what it is. There's this dot that's moving across my screen that my ship cannot scan because it hasn't got enough of a signature to tell me, oh, it's an Eclipse. Whereas something like a Terrapin is going to go bloop: there's a ship here, it's an Eclipse, it's piloted by this person, and it's got this health.