In an awkward situation. I've got some 1000T scout frigates with self-only jump drives and box-launched sensor missiles, and I've found a very promising system with an almost-habitable planet, just needs more oxygen and a bit of anti-greenhouse and it'll be earth. I launched my sensor probes into the system and I didn't see anything, but my sensors are really short range. What's an actually reasonable sensor range early game? I might be thinking in hard sci-fi terms where you can see a fission torch burning from the kuiper belt, but my thermal sensor can hit a 1000TH target at 17 mkm which seems abysmally low.
What are some good ways to boost sensor range? I can't do much with the scouts because they're tiny, but any actual warships will have to do better than that I would think. But maybe not. I'm just not sure how I'm supposed to enter a system and determine what's going on when my sensors can't even scan one AU. Maybe that's intended, submarine warfare kind of thing, I don't know.
For now, tentatively calling it safe and setting up jump tenders to take my survey ships over and see what they can find, may also build some actual combat ships to escort them till I'm sure it's safe, the scout frigates have no actual weapons. The earthlike planet has me a little spooked.