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[DISCUSSION] Electronic warfare. |
Kenny_Naboo
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Pitch Black
Joined: January 11, 2010
Posts: 3823
From: LobsterTown
|  Posted: 2010-07-30 22:33
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On 2010-07-30 05:42, Gejaheline wrote:
It's an interesting paradox, and well-spotted. Fortunately, I already planned for this 
Okay, so we've got our scout with all his ECMs on, and he's attacking our sensors. He's going to be harder to target because he's taking out our radar.
But wait. ECM involves transmitting, and if you transmit you can be detected. So what we can do is turn off our radar and just listen out for where all the noise is coming from, triangulate it (because we have more than one detector), and get a lock.
Just have to hope that they don't get close enough to start hacking into your systems or whiting out your sensors completely.
In-game, the sensor rating assumes some kind of ability to pick up enemy emissions, which in this case is ECM. Now, the ECM is actively trying to stop you from doing exactly this thing, but in the process is making the job easier. There will be a few situations this can cause:
First off, where the jammer is too far away. The ECM ship will be seeable from a longer way away, and your sensors won't suffer very much and you'll be able to fight normally. This is when the jammer should be switched off.
Second, where the jammer is moderately close. They'll be stopping you from fighting quite so effectively, but since their signature is way up you'll know who's doing the jamming and can try and kill them.
Thirdly, where they're right in your face. This is where there is the potential to totally blind you, because their jamming effect is greater than the rise in signature.
It's like the difference between, say, being caught by a flash bulb, where you're blinded but you saw where it came from, and being caught by a flashbang, where your vision just completely whites out and all you know is that it was out there SOMEWHERE.
Sound good?
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Alternatively you could work on the firing solution thing you were talking about.
Maybe you can have 2 levels of targeting, Track mode and Lock mode.
Track mode is where you can put him in the recticle but have no lock. And you need a lock to fire anything. Missiles are especially affected by this. This would mean that, you can no longer blind fire missiles.
Lock mode speaks for itself. You've locked on, and you can fire.
Now this might affect manual firing. U might code it such that manual targetting only enables you to fire your cannons and beams, but not missiles.
As an addition to this, you could also make Track mode lose the target recticle intermittently when under heavy ECM activity. A bonus would be to rez the F2 tactical and cause enemy targets to blink in and out arbitrarily too.
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Cory_O
Grand Admiral
Joined: July 15, 2010
Posts: 104
| Posted: 2010-07-31 01:38
I wasnt trying to dissagree with you i was just pointing out mainly that i think they should stack. I have read all of your posts, i guess in my long windedness i got a little side tracked.... Be warned.. Im about to do it again XD... not as much this time though
Here is my prospect for allowing non kluth ships to reduce their signature without unbalancing the game. Put simply ... RAM, radar absorbant material. Lets say you could add a new armor type that both ugto and icc could use (and i gues kluth if they wanted to but it wouldnt be that useful for them as they ahve cloak). It would be called ... idk something stealthy mc stealth stealth or w/e, name doesnt matter. This armor would lower your signature by a certain percentage or a certain set in stone number whichever would be more balanced, But basicly it lowers your signature at the cost of armor strength. So you can chose between stealth or strength. If you want to get real detailed you could put in the description tht it is made of plates of RAM and copper wire mesh (it stops... pretty much everything from geting through frequency wise) and some kind of confangled new material called... pyrex TM (lolololol just an example yes i know what pyrex is) that prevents heat transfer as well. I think this would/could be a balanced way to make a ship have the ability to lower its sig without "shutting down" we could also say that it refits the ship with exhaust coolers that lower the temperature of the exhaust if you want ...or not. I think that would be pretty cool and would allow people to actually move and be a little more stealthy but at a price, it is weak armor (weaker than standard armor by a certain percentage i would guess).
As for the navy guy part... No i am a military guy, i love everything military. I dont really know what being American has to do with it...I.. Nvm must remember RoC...
Interestingly enough i was originally getting on here to correct my self, I was reading about new aircraft and radar tech and we (America) have recently developed a new type of jammer that will jam enemy frequencies by detecting what is in the air and not jam our frequencies... Doesnt really contradict what i said before but still, its interesting.
As for the part about Scanners not stacking i can understand how that would be a bad thing if they stacked up close thats why said it should only stack if there was distance between them... And wouldnt scanners searching for cloaked kluth be in search mode anyway??? This brings up another point though or a question rather... If you do decide to make them not stack (which is completly fine) Than i have a question. How close, if at all, will a sensory ship have to be to a kluth before it can overwhelm its cloak? Because if it just cant overwhelm their cloak which is the impression i am getting then no one is going to use them anyway and will instead just stick together and .. basicly do what they do now.
I also realize that having radar be extra uber super realistic would just be a pain in the butt. However even now we have radar systems equipped on aircraft that can actively track multiple targets (in the double digits).
Regardless of what any of us may think about this system that Geja has proposed, I am sure it will be extrensivly changed during testing in beta if it makes it that far, and none of us can predict the convoluted monster that will come out of that to meet balancing issues.
Edit: P.S. I do think this new system Geja has suggested would be pretty awesome.
[ This Message was edited by: Cory_O on 2010-07-31 01:40 ]
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Forger of Destiny
Chief Marshal
We Kick Arse
Joined: October 10, 2009
Posts: 826
| Posted: 2010-07-31 05:13
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I wasnt trying to dissagree with you i was just pointing out mainly that i think they should stack. I have read all of your posts, i guess in my long windedness i got a little side tracked.... Be warned.. Im about to do it again XD... not as much this time though
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Giving time to digest text is good.
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Here is my prospect for allowing non kluth ships to reduce their signature without unbalancing the game. Put simply ... RAM, radar absorbant material.
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Good idea, it should be 30~40% weaker than standard armor of same level, has effectiveness levelling and decreases 0.75 signature per armor plate, on destroyers, which translates to reduction of 6 signature at the cost of having armor strength equal to a stock UGTO frigate.
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As for the part about Scanners not stacking (and whatever is written hereafter)
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Scanners stack. Just that your friends won't necessarily need them if you already have, and only one ship in a fleet should have lots of scanners so that others can be guided.
On a side note, all the devices mentioned by Geja stack, in an area of effect style, with reduction on basis of numbers. Only exception is ECCM (or EPS) which is a personal device.
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Gejaheline
Fleet Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 19, 2005
Posts: 1127
From: UGTO MUNIN HQ, Mars
| Posted: 2010-07-31 21:20
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On 2010-07-31 01:38, Cory_O wrote:
Here is my prospect for allowing non kluth ships to reduce their signature without unbalancing the game. Put simply ... RAM, radar absorbant material... basicly it lowers your signature at the cost of armor strength.
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The problem here is that being radar-stealthy is basically pointless when applied to a space warship. They have nuclear and/or fusion reactors which operate at hundreds-to-thousands of degrees, will be firing hugely energetic weapons, and will have a huge plume of nuclear fire emerging from their back end. You're basically already spotted, and the only thing stopping the enemy from locking on to you is your electronic warfare systems which, as I mentioned earlier, would be standard issue on all warships, with extra powerful systems being represented by having ewar gadget slots.
That having been said, I could fairly easily see some kind of stealth armour fitting in fairly well with the game's general vibe, particularly for UGTO and their lots-of-armour-choice ethos.
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...recently developed a new type of jammer that will jam enemy frequencies by detecting what is in the air and not jam our frequencies...
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I'm pretty sure that's been around for quite a long time by now, and pretty much all combat aircraft have such systems provided they come from the era of the radar-guided missile. It's also what I've been basing all of my assumptions on.
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As for the part about Scanners not stacking i can understand how that would be a bad thing if they stacked up close thats why said it should only stack if there was distance between them...
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As I mentioned earlier; the issue here is that synchronising radar systems causes interference and typically requires a lot of communication between radar stations as well as a pretty precise knowledge of relative locations, which would be difficult when the network is mounted on spaceships performing combat manoeuvres.
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And wouldnt scanners searching for cloaked kluth be in search mode anyway???
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No. They already know that the cloaked ship is there, but they can't get a firing solution due to interference. It's made doubly hard by the fact that the cloaked ship is nigh-invisible, rendering the usual methods of optical targeting far less useful.
There is a bit of a logic hole here in that in-game you WOULDN'T know that a cloaked ship was there, but hey, it's not perfect.
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How close, if at all, will a sensory ship have to be to a kluth before it can overwhelm its cloak?
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For a ship of equal size, with no extra jammers/sensors/whatever, I'd say about the length of a ship away. This would obviously change if the ships were of different size.
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I also realize that having radar be extra uber super realistic would just be a pain in the butt. However even now we have radar systems equipped on aircraft that can actively track multiple targets (in the double digits).
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Strictly speaking, modern phased array radar systems can acquire a lock on several hundred targets at the same time. Except that it's cheating in that a high-powered computer is actually directing the radar to lock onto a single target at any one time, changing targets a few hundred times per second.
Right, personally I'm getting a little bit fed up with talking about how super-realistic things might or might not be, so that's going to be my last word on the matter. Anything that's not totally super-accurate or whatever you can probably assume that I'm ignoring for gameplay purposes.
Just to summarise:
Two properties: Signature and sensor strength.
Basic devices: ECM. Lowers strength of enemy sensors by an amount depending on the distance between the sensor and the ECM. Stacked effect with other ECMs being used on the same target.
ECCM/EPS. Reduces effect of ECM on the ship it's fitted to. Stacks with itself, but only on an individual ship basis. EPS will not defend allies against ECM.
Sensors. Raises sensor strength. Sensor strength does not stack with other ships, but instead any ships detected will also be highlighted for allied ships that would otherwise not be able to see them, representing datalinks and coordination between allied ships. Thus, a high-sensor ship can be used to provide information to all ships on a faction. This should not be confused with multiple sensors on a single ship stacking.
Essentially, only the highest-power sensor rating will be compared to a ship's signature at a given time. This makes deploying an ECM-proof sensor network less trivial than the current method of piling ships into a single location and spamming ECCM.
Stupidly sleepy right now due to it being Saturday (or Sunday, according to my timezone right now), so expect an article on ewar and ship design tomorrow, or possibly the day after depending on when I next have some free time.
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Marius Falix
Grand Admiral
Joined: July 05, 2010
Posts: 268
From: Luyten
| Posted: 2010-08-02 09:07
First post = great as far as im concerned.
however what about one on ones with luth? (not got time to read the whole thread sorry)
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Gejaheline
Fleet Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 19, 2005
Posts: 1127
From: UGTO MUNIN HQ, Mars
| Posted: 2010-08-02 10:53
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On 2010-08-02 09:07, Damien Farbright wrote:
(not got time to read the whole thread sorry)
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Since your reply (whilst I was typing) caused the forum software to hiccup and eat my segment on ship designs, I now do not have the time to repeat myself in response to a question that is, I believe, already answered in the thread.
Admittedly this is partially my fault for forgetting to save a backup this time.
I might be being harsh here, but I would be here all month if I let people get away with just reading the first post and then asking questions that are already answered, I'm afraid.
No time to re-write my post right now, annoyingly, but I shall do so once I get home.
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Rebellion
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From: sol
| Posted: 2010-08-04 19:15
Pure Genuis!!
You diserve a nobel prize.
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Gejaheline
Fleet Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 19, 2005
Posts: 1127
From: UGTO MUNIN HQ, Mars
| Posted: 2010-08-14 09:28
Sorry about the massive delay for this post. Maybe I'm doing it on purpose so that I can bump it later and attract more interest.
Right, ship designs.
Here, I shall mostly be covering electronics warfare loadouts in general terms, covering most ships in a sketchy fashion and the specialised ewar ships in more detail. Naturally, these are just ideas, and I'm open to suggestions.
First off, modding. I'm not sure how easy it should be to replace different ewar modules, since some of the ships below will have a lot of ewar slots and could easily do something stupidly unbalanced if they were allowed to mix and match freely. It might be the case that sensors and EPS can be exchanged and the two ECM types can be exchanged, but that still lets ships turn into their evil twins. A bit of a conundrum.
Finally, I shall mostly be covering human ships here. If I refer to something with a specifically UGTO/ICC name, you can usually assume I'm referring to its counterpart. K'luth I may have to cover later, since their cloak makes things a lot different.
I'll start with scouts, and move upward. Note that some of these specialised ships could quite feasibly have more ewar than they have guns.
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Scouts.
Scouts have both advantages and disadvantages, here. Their advantages are their speed, their relatively low signature, and their high base ewar strength. Their downsides are their limited range, power, and room for devices.
Thus, corvettes that are designed for combat will probably lack any ewar devices and instead rely on their innate strengths whilst making room for weapons. Only actual ewar ships will have ewar, possibly with the exception of missile ships, which would probably have a sensor array.
Sensor corvette.
This is the scout of the scout-class, funnily enough. It's going to sacrifice guns in favour of a sensor array and a pair of beacon launchers. The sensor array gives it good power in its immediate area, while the flexible loadout of the beacon launchers will let it tag targets and perform reconnaisance.
Its weapons will probably be simple and light; a handful of cannons, perhaps. This ship can use its mobility to keep going in a stand-up fight, but it should always be regarded as a second-line combatant, providing support for allied ships.
ECM corvette.
The evil twin of the scout-class. This ship will have an ECM system for negating enemy scouts and interfering with other ships, and possibly a beacon launcher loaded with some kind of ECM beacon.
This ship will probably be lighter on ewar devices (lacking a second beacon launcher), and thus can fit more guns in order to allow it to hunt and kill enemy sensor scouts, emphasising its disruptive role.
Stealth corvette.
I THINK I talked about stealth armour and stealth engines earlier, didn't I? (EDIT: Actually, I didn't; check the next post down.) Well, this ship has both. This ship is designed to be as stealthy as possible, so it as few signature-raising devices as possible. It might have but a single ECM for when it gets close to the enemy. Instead, it has a huge number of short-range, high-powered weapons such as torpedoes. Its aim is to creep as close as possible to larger enemy ships undetected, unload a devastating attack, and then turn away for another run. It's slow, fragile, and would die horribly against anything that can detect it, but larger ships won't have the sensor capability to detect it before it can fire.
That's about it for corvettes, I think. Their ewar is powerful, but short-ranged, so they'll need to get right into the thick of things to have the best effect.
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Frigates. Frigates are a bit bigger than scouts, and can carry more equipment, but conversely they're slower and have a higher signature. It's more likely that frigates will carry some ewar gear regardless of role than corvettes, albeit not much. Pure combat ships will probably still lack any ewar.
Sensor Frigate.
Like the sensor scout, this ship has the job of detecting enemy ships. Since it's less agile, this ship will probably cruise at a slightly further distance than a scout, meaning that it won't have beacons but will have sensors and EPS systems to give it a good range and some electronic resilience. While the sensor frigate generally carries more power than the scout, it doesn't have the scout's trademark beacon launchers or agility, so it can't dash in close and beacon a single target to death.
ECM Frigate.
Again like its smaller counterpart, the ECM frigate is the opposite of the sensor frigate. Instead of sensors it will have ECM, and instead of EPS it will have more guns for hunting down sensor frigates.
Minelayers, bombers, and missile frigates.
These will be "secondary" ewar ships in the sense that they're big enough to fit an ewar device without compromising on their primary mission, carrying sensors to allow them to see their target at a distance (in the case of missile frigates) or see enemy mines (in the case of minelayer frigates). Bomber frigates will probably have an ECM.
Ships like the interceptor frigate that are designed for raw combat probably won't have any ewar.
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Destroyers.
Destroyers, obviously, are the next step up from frigates, and again will have weaker base sensors but a longer range. However, they will have more room for extra ewar gear. More ships will start to have more ewar gear, even if they're not a specialist ship.
In particular, I'd like to mention the escort/picket dessie. This ship screams "electronic warfare!" Traditionally, escorts and pickets were the naval and ground-based units that formed a protective cordon around their main units, providing advance warning of approaching enemies and fending off small incursions. Thus, E/P dessies should have lots and lots of sensors and EPS, and replacing a fair chunk of their lasers with defensive ECM to swat missiles would be entirely fitting too. This would stop them from being quite such a stupidly lethal beam-boat, but that's the price for extended ewar capability. Plus there's the assault destroyer for that.
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Cruisers.
Cruisers will almost inevitably have a decent amount of ewar regardless of class, probably EPS or possibly ECM; ewar that's useful in direct combat.
They will also have a specialist ship: The EWACS cruiser.
Like the interdictor cruiser, this will be a highly specialised ship, replacing virtually all of its other devices with sensor arrays to give it an unprecedented sensor range. However, all of these sensors will take a lot of energy to run and are vulnerable to enemy ECM. The other disadvantage is signature: If it can detect an enemy ship, the enemy ship can probably detect them, making them a huge target for ships on anti-sensor duty.
This ship's ideal location is a safe distance from the battle, since it can see for a very long way and doesn't want to get close enough to enemy ECM that it gets jammed.
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Dreadnaughts and stations will both have long sensor ranges, but will only really be able to see other dreads and stations from a distance without assistance. If they want to be able to see and shoot smaller ships, they'll need to get closer (difficult) or get some help from ewar assets. They probably will have some ewar gear, but it will probably be mostly devices like EPS to prevent their low sensor values from being degraded further.
Command dreads and stations, however, will probably have significant amounts of ewar. Like the EWACS cruiser, they will have superb sensor arrays, as well as a smattering of EPS and defensive ECM. However, since they give space over to other systems as well, they probably won't be quite as good at detecting enemies than an EWACS cruiser. They'll be a lot more capable at defending themselves, however.
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Next up. K'luth ships, possibly.
[ This Message was edited by: Gejaheline on 2010-08-14 09:59 ]
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Gejaheline
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From: UGTO MUNIN HQ, Mars
| Posted: 2010-08-14 09:58
Okay, so apparently I didn't talk about stealth engines. Basically, they would provide terrible energy output, would accelerate slowly, and wouldn't have a very good top speed, but they WOULD be very low on the signature-generation scale. Probably only best on smaller ships, since larger ships would have lots of other signature-generating systems like guns and big sensor arrays. Combining it with stealth armour and not using many systems would let you sneak up to enemies without them spotting you so easily, and would help ECM systems to conceal your presence.
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NoBoDx
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Joined: October 14, 2003
Posts: 784
From: Germany / NRW
| Posted: 2010-08-14 10:53
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On 2010-08-14 09:28, Gejaheline wrote:
Sorry about the massive delay for this post. Maybe I'm doing it on purpose Dreadnaughts and stations will both have long sensor ranges, but will only really be able to see other dreads and stations from a distance without assistance. If they want to be able to see and shoot smaller ships, they'll need to get closer (difficult) or get some help from ewar assets. They probably will have some ewar gear, but it will probably be mostly devices like EPS to prevent their low sensor values from being degraded further.
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dont forget about the artillery ships, small (almost none) sensor-range but huge weapon-range
they need EWACS cruiser to target to unleash their deadly bombard (im not talking about those weak missle dreads
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Gejaheline
Fleet Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 19, 2005
Posts: 1127
From: UGTO MUNIN HQ, Mars
| Posted: 2010-08-14 11:29
Those ships being non-existent and suggested by you just now. I would be grateful if you kept your ideas in your own thread.
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Rhiawhyn Zerinth
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Templar Knights
Joined: October 31, 2005
Posts: 257
From: I.C.C Deep space refueling station
| Posted: 2010-08-14 19:58
Pardon for not remembering if you have mentioned this before however, i had a somewhat interesting idea.
targeted ECM, while making everything else hard to detect, it does the exact opposite for you (and you alone) to a single ship within range. this ideally would be a dreadnought system, for this system would allmost* force a target to shoot at you, which in a dreadnought, is dare i say. a good thing. (compared to them shooting at a dessy or cruiser which usually cant take the damage a dn can) this would be the only system which actually hinders a "datalink" system. Basically, the unit reduces the range of everything but because of its massive signature generation to that target, THEY can allways see whoever is "zapping" them. they just cant see the 4+ ships that may or may not be sneaking up on them, dispite allies being able to detect them or not.
justifying this in partial real world, it is far easyer to screw with a sensor when you know where it is and can employ an ECM system which is directed, ignoring the fact that this system can pump enough power to burn out a radar dish (if they can get LOS to it anyway) it would be an interesting little device for scouts or dreadnoughts.
*allmost being, with powerfull enough sensors or enough eccm/EPS, it only shortens your range for detection instead of completly blinding you to everything other then that ship
This system is ideal for assault ships, as it forces the targets to shoot at them while they make a quick attack run (full of painfull short range weapons) allowing their friends to pound away at the targets unhinderd, or at least with a reduced risk.
[ This Message was edited by: Rhiawhyn Zerinth on 2010-08-14 20:00 ]
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Forger of Destiny
Chief Marshal
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Posts: 826
| Posted: 2010-08-15 05:45
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Targeted ECM, while making everything else hard to detect, it does the exact opposite for you (and you alone) to a single ship within range.
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This, in itself, is not possible. You use a device, you increase your detectability. Detectability is not dependent on the target the device acts on.
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They just cant see the 4+ ships that may or may not be sneaking up on them, dispite allies being able to detect them or not.
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There are little chances for a ship to have communications from allies hindered, and being able to hack the enemy's computers should be damn hard in 23rd century.
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Justifying this in partial real world, it is far easyer to screw with a sensor when you know where it is and can employ an ECM system which is directed.
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This is OP in darkspace, as in real life you need to know the sensors' exact location, and in darkspace the computer does it instantly. Had you needed to beat a puzzle minigame in order to use this device on the enemy, it might be less or no OP. (Atleast you'd do some work.)
[ This Message was edited by: Dr. Michael Paradox on 2010-08-15 05:47 ]
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NoBoDx
Grand Admiral
Joined: October 14, 2003
Posts: 784
From: Germany / NRW
| Posted: 2010-08-15 05:56
here s another idea for ecm:
let them generate false targets
the better the ecm the more false targets apear (scout-ecm eg 1 aditional target sation-size-ecm 3)
the closer you get to the generating ship the easier it is to see through that illusion
and eccm reducing false targets too
(just thought of it, and had to write it down)
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