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[DISCUSSION] Electronic warfare. |
MrSparkle
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Joined: August 13, 2001
Posts: 1912
From: mrsparkle
|  Posted: 2010-07-29 11:54
I have another EW idea inspired by locked Kluth QQ thread:
Bring back being able to target specific systems on an enemy ship, like targeting their drives if you can hit their rear, their shields, their cloak, their forward torpedoes etc. but make it only possible if you use a scanner.
Scanners then have a dual purpose, for detecting ships and buildings at a farther range, and for targeting ship systems. If you don't have a scanner you can't target systems.
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Gejaheline
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Joined: March 19, 2005
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From: UGTO MUNIN HQ, Mars
| Posted: 2010-07-29 19:34
Sparkle: I kinda replaced scanners completely, but some kind of device for targeting individual subsystems might be a pretty cool addition, particularly to smaller ships so that they can at least do SOMETHING to bigger ships.
Thank you all for putting up with my epic walls of text, and taking the time to read this.
Obviously, the main issue here is implementation; All of this is fairly major from a reprogamming perspective, so it might be a while before any of this happens (if it does). Still, we can only fly as high as our dreams allow us.
Now, I'm going to go over a few "special" bits, be they devices, ship designs, or game mechanics. I'll probably throw in some thoughts on bombing, too. This will cover both old and new, since there are some devices that aren't often thought of when we talk about ewar even now.
First off, an analysis of cloaking.
Cloaking is, perhaps, the least-changed bit, since I'm proposing that we essentially revert to a previous system, but in the context of the proposed ewar revamp it's not a lot different to other kinds of ewar.
Before, and we're talking about the old version of cloak where it reduced your signature but could be countered by using lots of ECCM, it basically behaved like very powerful ECM, except with the bonus of making you unseeable as well as untargetable. And, of course, you couldn't shoot or jump, but that's not going to change any time soon.
Now, it has some subtle advantages in comparison to the revamped ECM.
The main bit is that sensors and ECCM won't stack any more. It used to be that giant fleets of ships would all cram together and power up their ECCM, creating a giant field of no-cloak and slaughtering any hapless k'luth.
Now, you can't stack sensors. If the enemy wants to create a giant no-cloak region, they'll need to spread out lots of ships equipped with oodles of sensor boosters, which leaves each individual ship exposed and creates potential gaps in coverage for cloaked ships to sneak through, depending on the ability of the searchers to keep their sensor sufficiently tight. The more they spread out, the more gaps they leave. The more they clump together, the less area they cover.
As well as this, cloak would work like a personal, old-school ECM. Remember how I mentioned that the new ECM would make things more challenging for people trying to avoid being targeted, because non-jammed ships could spot for jammed ones? Well, the k'luth cloak doesn't have to worry about that. Everyone is going to have a hard time spotting them, because their signature is going to be way, way down.
Finally, there will be an effect on cloaking times. Currently, K'luth ships are affected rather horribly by ECCM when it comes to cloaking and uncloaking. When you're in the process of cloaking or uncloaking, you're both visible to the enemy and unable to do anything except move around. At the same time, ECCM extends the time it takes to both cloak and uncloak, because your signature has to slowly increase/decrease from/to zero to/from your current signature before it deems you fully uncloaked/cloaked (yay, complicated sentences!).
Under the new system, cloaking and decloaking will take the same period of time, based on ship class. Times will probably be slightly longer than now.
However! You won't be totally vulnerable until the moment that you become cloaked. Instead, while the cloaking time will remain the same, the period of time for which you are visible will entirely depend on the strength of the enemy's sensors. The moment your signature falls below their sensor rating, you're unseeable. This means that while it might take (say) five seconds to go from cloaked to decloaked, the dreadnaught that you're sneaking up on will only see you in the last second of decloaking, giving them a limited period of time to respond. This means that you need to plan ahead, but you won't suddently be revealed to everyone the moment you press V. Conversely, you can take five seconds to cloak, but you'll only be visible for the first second.
Oh, and pinging will no longer exist. Frankly, I think it was boring and annoying for EVERYONE.
Of course, while this is all very nice, the inverse also applies. Hey, we've got to have disadvantages, right?
Your signature is very low, but it's not zero, and if your weapons are charging or you're moving quickly, that'll raise your signature too. This means that if you cloak or decloak in an area near a powerful sensor, you'll be visible (and vulnerable) for a longer period of time. If the sensors are powerful enough, you might even be spotted even when fully cloaked.
And on the final note of cloak times, you'll still need to plan ahead so that you're in the perfect position by the time you've decloaked. Skill and practice, there.
Cloak won't be as powerful, either. Don't expect to be able to sit directly underneath an enemy ship and remain undetectable unless you have a lot of ECM taking down their sensors or are in a scout and are taking on a station. Sure, you can get into ambush range, but you won't be able to have a picnic on their flight decks. And you'd better keep an eye on those sensor scouts flitting around, too.
So now cloak has some interesting advantages and disadvantages. It's no longer nigh-invulnerable, and will take some care and attention to use, but at the same time the enemy factions won't be able to create giant ECM-fields that reveal every single K'luth in the area just by having everyone push P. Instead, each K'luth ship will have to be hunted down individually, and to do that you'll need to get close to them.
Sneaking up on enemy ships and carefully avoiding patrols, before delivering a lethal zap of doom to an enemy station? That's some skill.
Hunting down a k'luth marauder, fitting sensor arrays and forming careful search patterns, making sure that no gaps are left? That's some skill.
As an aside, this might just increase the viability of smaller K'luth ships. A nimble scout will be both harder to spot and will be able to avoid enemy sensor ships more easily. Smaller K'luth ships could ambush the scouts, forcing them to turn off their big sensor arrays in order to divert energy towards defend themselves, giving the lumbering dreadnaughts an opportunity to cruise through the resulting hole and get behind an unsuspecting EAD.
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Okay, since we started with cloak, let's look at a traditional anti-k'luth weapon and see what we can do with it.
Beacons.
Beacons are odd ducks. In the past they've varied from deadly weapons to mere inconveniences, so let's ponder.
It used to be that beacons were almost literally that: Wherever they hit, be it a ship or the surface of a planet, they created a diamond marking that location.
Which was pretty cool, and I think it was under-used for bombing. At a distance it was possible that you couldn't see buildings on the surface of a planet, but you could target a beacon on the surface for bombing purposes.
This also turned beacons into deadly devices for spotting k'luth ships, however, since they stuck to the cloaked ship, which could be shot to pieces with impunity.
Okay, so let's think about this in the context of our new system. We could actually have beacons perform in a few ways.
First off: We could have the old-school beacons, that always appeared as a green diamond. This would fit in with the principle of ships always being able to detect and communicate with friendlies, but I'm not sure that would apply to a small, remote beacon that's probably fitted with relatively cheap comms systems. It's expendable, after all. Plus it's practically a death sentence for cloaked ships that get hit, which isn't entirely desirable unless they have a very short duration (which would make them less useful for bombing).
One way to balance this would be to make beacons vulnerable to weapons fire and splash damage. Weapons hitting a beaconed ship would eventually kill the beacon, requiring re-beaconing and limiting the damage impact of an individual beacon.
Okay, we might have to make things a bit more complicated.
We could have them increase the signature of the target that they hit (and only that target). This would reveal a square on a planet at a longer range, and while it wouldn't directly reveal cloaked or otherwise ECM'd ships, it would make them easier to detect. In addition, the red rings could make them easier to see, and would mean you'd have to hit cloaked ships several times to completely reveal them.
This approach strikes me as being fairly elegant, since it simply simulates adding an extra transmitter to the target (which is what a beacon is). You can counter it by either moving away from enemy sensors or by jamming those sensors.
Lastly, we could have beacons act as little sensors of their own. They would probably only be modestly powerful, and would be fairly short-ranged, but it would effectively reveal enemy ships and buildings that are near to the beacon'd victim (Particularly evil if they retreat to a secret base) but it wouldn't necessarily reveal cloaked ships (since sensors can't stack), although it would increase their visible-time when they change cloak status. Shooting lots of beacons at a single target wouldn't have any effect, unlike the above signature-raising beacon. They could also be jammed particularly easily, especially if the ship they're fitted to has jammers.
Alternatively, we could have all three! Let players choose which type of beacon they want to load into their launchers. Sensor-beacons would be most effective against human ships and for revealing several ships at once, signature-beacons would be most effective against k'luth (since they can reveal them when cloaked if you get enough of them stacked on them) and the reveal-position beacon would be the ultimate in detection, but would have a very limited life, for those situations where you absolutely MUST see the target for those precious few seconds.
I'm a genius.
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Okay, what's next...?
Ah, EWAS shuttles, AKA sensor-fighters.
These things, I think, are pretty useful, if somewhat under-used. They don't really need much work to fit them into our new scheme.
Fit them with short-range, high-powered sensors.
Versus a basic scout, they should have even more sensor power, but with a more extreme drop-off. Their appalling range would instead be offset by the fact that they're highly mobile. A carrier could set them flying around themselves to defend against ambushes, or deploy them into a fight to maintain a bit of sensor coverage. They could set them to follow an enemy ship, highlighting their position (until they got shot down, but that's a problem with attack craft in general right now).
Basically, useful little chunks of detection that you can send off to do tasks that you might not want to send your ship to do.
A nice variant would be ECM versions that you could use to jam someone's face off with.
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Okay, let's look a bit at bombing.
Note: Bother, I just realised that this section is going to be a bit pointless once the planet capture system is changed, but oh well.
Currently, electronic warfare in bombing sucks. Either it renders all of the bombs totally invisible, thus allowing them to hit the target with impunity, or they are all detected and get shot down.
This is annoying. For the planet, because it gets no chance to shoot down the bombs, or for the bomber because ALL of the bombs get shot down.
This is due to two things. Firstly, ECM is essentially all-or-nothing, and secondly because defence bases have a huge number of point-defences that can shoot down about ten bombs at once, particularly since they're run by the server and have absolutely no latency.
My solution? Take ewar out of the equation, essentially, and reduce the number of PD lasers that defence bases posess. Perhaps even just one or two fairly rapid-fire beams.
What's my logic, here? Well, one of the least stealthy objects around is a warhead falling screaming from the sky. It's not hard to spot with a huge variety of methods, and there's an entire planet watching, probably with high-powered antennas that can burn through almost any interference.
So let's take a leaf out of reality's book: MIRVs are fitted with decoys. Most modern ballistic nuclear missiles carry perhaps three warheads and thirty decoys, all fitted with equipment designed to make them look like a nice, juicy target.
Now, fitting bombs with decoy launchers might be a bit tough, so instead I propose a new bomb launcher type: The decoy launcher. Basically, these decoys do nothing but pretend that they're a bomb. They look the same, they fly the same, they might even have the same name once launched. Their advantage is that they fire in modest salvoes rather than in singletons, increasing the number of PD targets in the air and thus pressing point defences to manage to shoot down all of the incoming targets, not being able to know which ones are real and which ones aren't. This still isn't QUITE perfect; there might be a need to indroduce a percentage-based chance system based on sensor quality that gives each decoy a chance to be detected and thus neutralised, which would then allow ECM to determine how many decoys survive in order to absorb a PD shot.
Or, perhaps, we could use defensive ECM: Have a look below.
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Defensive ECM, or the art of turning missiles around to hit their launcher.
This is the ewar equivalent of point-defence. In reality, there are quite a few systems for stopping missiles from hitting you by disruping their sensors and datalinks. In DS the only way to do this is to zap them with a laser. This device aims to redress the balance a little.
Now, defensive ECM could work in a variety of ways, and I'm going to list some of options that seem most workable:
First off, some general principles. Unlike other ewar systems, this one will be specifically targeted, and will probably operate automatically in PD-mode like lasers. Unlike lasers, they won't be able to fire on non-missile targets. They will also have a recharge timer rather than operating continuously.
Right, first option: Defensive ECM destroys the missile that it targets. By scrambling its guidance or blinding it, it causes it to lose sight of its target and self-destruct. This is boring, yet quite practical. It would probably be able to operate from a longer range than laser PD, but would be limited to dedicated ships and come in more limited numbers.
Second: Defensive ECM attracts the missile to target the user of the ECM. This would allow a picket dessie, for example (a ship which should be loaded up with detection and ewar gear if I ever saw one), to attract missiles towards it which it could then destroy with its PD. This is somewhat like the "wild weasels", which were aircraft that actively encouraged enemies to shoot at it so that it could target their radar stations. This one could get away with a fairly modest fire rate, since it doesn't negate the enemy missile as much as redirect it, probably eventually killing the wild weasel.
Finally, and most amusingly: Defensive ECM changes the allegiance of the missile and causes it to target an enemy ship instead, ideally the one that launched the missile. This would probably have to have a short range and a long recharge time in order to avoid becoming a free missile barrage.
I think option two would be best, if somewhat iffy to code for. Option one is an acceptable substitute. Option three I vote as least likely, even if it would be hilarious to use a pack of them to kill a missile dread with its own missiles.
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That's about all I can think of right now. I might come up with another wall of text later once I've recharged.
[EDIT] Oh, yeah. Ship designs.
[ This Message was edited by: Gejaheline on 2010-07-29 19:35 ]
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| Posted: 2010-07-29 22:28
Stated, proven, attested.
And for defensive ECM, i'll go with option 1. 2 is little harder to code for, and 3 works best with phoenix or a heavy missile aka something that has lots of fuel.
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Cory_O
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Joined: July 15, 2010
Posts: 104
| Posted: 2010-07-30 03:15
This all sounds fine to me except for a few things i cant help but to comment on. I know, I know... this isnt real life this is a video game.. BUT. In real life (which this system we are speaking of is based upon) Radar dishes arent nearly as effective by themselves, they all have little ..."helpers", in other words other little dishes that are some distance from the main one and when the main radar sends out is frequency the smaller dishes know this, and since they know the distance and angle and of the radar and how fast the frequencies travel they and when it was sent can recieve the signal to locate a target that would normally go undetected.. Basicly modern day (and i dont see why they would stop in the future) radar systems are just that, they are systems, or networks... Basicly what i am getting at here is that in real life radar stacks.. and it stacks BIG. For instance one of the best ways the US military has to counter stealthed aircraft is they use a network. Because at the moment stealthed aircraft mainly use deflection rather than absorbtion (basicly they are designed so no beam fired at them will travel back in the direction it came from) but this works in the favor of networks.... right... so basicly you need to have scanners stack, but make it so that they dont stack well if they are close together (probably very hard to code i would imagine) because they dont "stack" well when they are close together in real life... this would allow you to make it so people have to spread out as they wouldnt benifit from being close together with scanners on.
Discrepency part 2... ECM's, basicly jammers as they are called today, do stack and they do the exact opposite of what you are suggesting they do in this game. Jammers actually just fill the air with all frequencies filling the air with "noise" they work best at making themselves immune to radar guided missiles and "whiting out" anyones radar in the area but also affect everything around them within a certain vicinity (interestingly they do have a sharp fall off in rl) This is why jammers are used against anti radar missiles, because they will cause the missiles to lose track of their target and they basicly just go crazy flying randomly through the air jerking around thinking they have found their target. They also have absolutly NO effect on long ranged radar as they cant reach that far and.. well.. go shine a flash light beam at another flashlight beam .. they dont bounce off of each other, it goes the same for radar. A long ranged radar would be uneffected by a jammer that was far away, they would simply see the ship/vessel/aicraft on their radar like normal. Another interesting thing about jammers or "ECM's" is that they do indeed stack, and in real life they can actually burn out (quite litterally) radar systems in other aircraft (as in destroy them just to clarify)....
In short, ecm's and scanners do stack in real life and should in this game if we are going to base them off of their real life counterparts. We should just ignore the whole destroying radar/scanners part as it would just be irritating and wouldnt make the game anymore fun. It would just lead to people with scanners running away from people with ecm's.
Although i do think it would be pretty cool to have radar guided missiles miss more if they where entered an ecm field. This would lead to a very specialized missle class as it should be now and it is in real life. The anti radar missile (what the wild weasels (aka f4 phantoms) used in desert storm)... Now this would work fine with the way the system in real life works as you cannot have jammers near your radar or your radar is useless. So fleets (if we use the ewar like it is in real life) would have to choose between detection abilitys and the ability to be harder to target. Since there are plenty of other types of missiles (ones with "unjamable" radar) and heat guided (which would be the main method in space in reality anyway) it wouldnt protect you from all types of missiles just the antiradar. But the anti radar missiles should be the hardest hitting type. If you choose to run scanners you would still have point defence but you would open yourself up to a harder hitting variety of missile... which would also probably be what the kluth would use most as they would really only have to worry about scanners.
So in short for real this time, Scanners would give you a better heads up as to the location of your enemy and the ability to somewhat defeat cloak. Ecm's would give you missile defence to some extent and would also allow you to somewhat prevent enemies from gettting to close. Because their scanners would be useless and it would be hard to target. (similar to how it is now with ecm's) But it wouldnt actually affect your signature you could still be detected from a long ways off but up close they would have to have someone stay back with a scanner to "mark" you...
This all may be to complicated to implement into a game like this(some of this is getting into flight sim territory) as i realize after talking about it. But mainly i just wanted to point out that scanners and ecm's should stack....
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| Posted: 2010-07-30 05:09
Cory, half of what you suggested under sensor suites' functionality is already suggested by Gejaheline in the earlier walls of text. He suggested that both sensor arrays (scanners) and ECM increase your signature level, and that ECM works only at close range. It is suggested that ECM does not jam friendlies because this is a game. Or players would have to choose which frequency band to block (aka nuisance)
On the part with spaceship sensor beams getting deflected by the obstacles but received by the other sensors, I would point out that DarkSpace universe is set in 23rd century, a time with sensors much beyond our current sensor feed compilation methods. Thus, they use cool sensor beams which cant be deflected. Thus, no need for a system of sensor network. Geja also suggested that a ship can target enemies if they are within the sensor detection of an ally, so there is some network implemented here.
For the sake of playability, it was suggested that ECM and Scanners stack, but do not fully 'white out' the sensors nearby. They have an effectiveness falloff based on the numbers being used, such that even with 10 active ECM at 0 gu of a ship can not fully cripple its potential (referring to the suggested system,
Quote:
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10 ECM at point blank = 75~85% jammed (i.e. 15~25% sensor strength)
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As for the Anti-Radar missile, the variant of whose you suggest, let Geja post his remaining walls of text, once he's charged.
(oh wow, im nearing 100 posts, wheres mah gold forumer badge?)
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Kenny_Naboo
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From: LobsterTown
| Posted: 2010-07-30 05:11
I like what I hear so far Geja.
Signature... check.
Sensor rating ... check.
ECM, reducing enemy sensor rating values and increasing own signature... good call. Check.
OK, one more thing though. As in RL, ECM does make an enemy know where you are, because their radar screens basically get all rezzy or get filled with ghost images. But knowing is just half the battle. With ECM on, even though you know that hostiles are out and about, you still have to lock 'em up and then shoot at them.
So there's a paradox here. You are more detectable, but at the same time harder to actually target (ie lock on) due to your radars or scanners being rezzed out.
How will this be portrayed in DS?
EPS sounds reasonable in that it reduces ECM strength (or effect). But what does it do for the user's signature? Ideally it should make the user more detectable.
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Gejaheline
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Joined: March 19, 2005
Posts: 1127
From: UGTO MUNIN HQ, Mars
| Posted: 2010-07-30 05:20
[EDIT] Ninja'd. Twice. Also, I'm a she. Also, in short, between ships sensors don't stack (because they share with other people instead) and ECM does stack. Read on for explanations and stuff that are now slightly repeating what others have said.
Yeah, thinking about it, I suspect option one for defensive ECM would be the most simple-yet-practical. I was thinking maybe it could be a bit fancier than "ohlol, PD on steroids" but thinking about it there are already too many ideas for fancy complicated devices out there.
On to Cory's comments.
Okay, at least 50% of that was agreeing with me.
Point the first:
We're using spacecraft. Spacecraft won't just use radar in order to acquire the target, which means that a purely radar-based comparison doesn't strictly work. We're abstracting a tad. For example, a space warship would probably have thermal imagers and laser rangefinders fitted as standard. This means that designing your ship to be radar-stealthy will be pointless. Radar stealth relies on there being "noise" (clutter, birds, etc) of a similar size to the stealthy craft's radar signature, so that it gets lost amongst the useless radar returns. In space, there's the double issues of the ships being many times larger than a jet fighter, and there's no clutter larger than a sand grain. And don't forget the huge, undisguisable plume of fusion coming out of the back of the ship. The more you stealth-up the engines, the slower you go.
Remember, we're not talking about detection here, we're talking about being able to get a firing solution.
ECM will be far more sophisticated than today, possibly involving cyberwarfare. There will be no way to stop the enemy from knowing you're there, but you can make it as hard as possible to get a target lock, particularly since manually-operated weapons won't really be practical. Fill the enemy sensors with hundreds of returns, fool their systems into thinking you're at a different range or a different size, haxxor their fire control and replace their displays with LOLOLOL.
For brevity, whenever I say "can see" or "invisible" I'm referring to whether you get a diamond and can target the enemy or not, because I can't be bothered to type out "can get a firing solution upon" each time.
Point the second:
Okay, radar systems in reality stack. Sort-of. If you have a network of radar antennas spread out from the main antenna, all operating on the same frequency, you get a better signal from a target.
However, this only really works if you have the precise locations of the radar stations worked out, so that they can work out how far away they are from each other and in what direction. This lets them triangulate.
The problem is that warships don't stay still very much. They're constantly changing position and direction, and the amount of information that would need to be passed between them to maintain accuracy would be huge.
Another problem is that this mostly applies to radar in search mode, for spotting targets in the first place.
Which we don't need, because we already know that they're out there. What we want is attack radar, for constructing a firing solution.
For this, you want to point your beam directly at the target and hold it there.
Now, a problem with a radar system where all the antennas use the same frequency is that it can only really track one target at a time. One antenna will be a "main" antenna and all the others will support it. If you're using the same frequency on all of your ships, you're only going to be able to "lock" onto one target at any given time, allowing you to bring your guns to bear. If everyone pointed their antennas at different targets, they would all get swamped by reflections off OTHER targets, effectively jamming themselves.
Imagine a situation where all the players on one faction had to share a target, and you have a similar situation.
This is why combat aircraft and warships all have their own radar systems operating on different frequencies, even if there are dedicated radar units out there; they need to be able to focus on a target in front of them without suffering from interference by allied radar.
Extra sensor array/scanner devices effectively add to sensor strength using the principles above of adding extra antennas to increase resolution, and all ships are assumed to be carry at least a handful of sensor arrays, if only because you'd need at least two to cover all sides of the ship.
And if all of that doesn't convince you, this one shall: Game balance purposes. Stacking sensors would create the much-loathed anti-cloaking field whenever a large number of ships congregate. Do not want, because it's annoying, boring, and requires no particular skill to pull off. You're not really going to shift me on this one no matter how much one argues about realism due to that one important point.
As for ECMs stacking... Um, well, I thought I implied that this was the case? If I didn't, then I can only assume I went mad or something and managed to type something completely wrongly. Of course, sitting all of your ECM on top of a single enemy means that there'll be a ship out there that's NOT got ECM on top of it.
Point the third:
Modern ECM systems are not indiscriminate. They don't have an unlimited amount of power, and so they will typically focus on specific frequencies or small ranges of frequencies to fill with noise. In reality radars in an area will usually operate all on slightly different frequencies in order to prevent interference, which means that a jammer has to work harder to jam multiple radars at and reduces the effectiveness of the jamming.
This usually includes radar-guided missiles. If they're guided by a base station, you can jam the launcher's radar and the missiles will be blind. It's a bit trickier if they're active or semi-active, since you need to jam the missile itself (and in worst cases, the launcher's radar as well).
The exception here is that a jammer that's REALLY close to a radar station will cause bad things to happen to the radar simply due to the sheer amount of power being pumped out by the jamming system. If memory serves, military aircraft aren't allowed to have their attack radars switched on when on the ground because it will cook people that stand in front of the aircraft for too long.
Now, this would all a) be a total bastard to code, and b) wouldn't add all that much to gameplay. Presumably they came up with some kind of advanced technology that lets them jam all the enemies near by and not accidentally jam all the friendlies that get too close.
Point the third:
Jamming does not work if the radar is out of jamming range, even if the jammer is inside radar range.
Yeah, I stressed that point previously. That was one of the main selling points of this new proposed system, in fact.
Point the fourth:
Missiles versus electronic warfare.
There's a rather scary aspect of modern missile guidance which comes into play here: The ability for allied units to guide the missiles launched by another unit. It is concievable that an AWACS unit can command an aircraft to launch a missile at a target that the aircraft can't see, and then take over the guidance of the missile to hit the target. Similarly, laser-guided missiles can be launched by one unit (often a helicopter hiding behind something) and then guided to its target by another unit with a laser designator (often hovering at a safe distance).
Taking this to its logical extent, all DS warships can be assumed to be capable of guiding friendly missiles if their launcher gets jammed.
Fortunately for us, this is how it works currently, thanks to all ships and units sharing visibility of enemy units. This makes jamming the missile's sensors less useful if something else can see you.
Instead, you'll have to jam the missile's datalinks with the guiding ships; a subtly different and somewhat more difficult task, and what the defensive ECM device I mentioned above would do.
I already talked about antiradiation missiles, and how they home in on radio emissions such as jammers and radar. They would be pretty cool, but unfortunately they present difficulties in implementation since you'd need to have some kind of system that lets you target sources of jamming without also being able to shoot normal weapons at them, as well as being able to tell between blips you can shoot at and which ones you can fire ARMs at.
I think that covers everything.
I suspect that Cory's a Navy-boy; I'm thinking US. While it's all well and good to show off how knowledgeable you are about something (I do it far too often), please please please I beg of you to carefully read what you're responding to. Your post above makes it look like you've not read everything I've written (which, admittedly, would be understandable) because you've said "I disagree, it should be more like " a couple of times there.
Thank you once again for your thoughts and opinions, ladies and gentlemen. Next up: A couple of ship concepts, methinks.
[ This Message was edited by: Gejaheline on 2010-07-30 06:06 ]
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Gejaheline
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| Posted: 2010-07-30 05:42
Quote:
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On 2010-07-30 05:11, Kenny_Naboo wrote:
I like what I hear so far Geja.
Signature... check.
Sensor rating ... check.
ECM, reducing enemy sensor rating values and increasing own signature... good call. Check.
OK, one more thing though. As in RL, ECM does make an enemy know where you are, because their radar screens basically get all rezzy or get filled with ghost images. But knowing is just half the battle. With ECM on, even though you know that hostiles are out and about, you still have to lock 'em up and then shoot at them.
So there's a paradox here. You are more detectable, but at the same time harder to actually target (ie lock on) due to your radars or scanners being rezzed out.
How will this be portrayed in DS?
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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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EPS sounds reasonable in that it reduces ECM strength (or effect). But what does it do for the user's signature? Ideally it should make the user more detectable.
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I pondered this. From a realism standpoint, I'm inclined to say that it leaves signature virtually unaffected because it's primarily "passive" systems that improve resistance to jamming and it doesn't really transmit anything. My main reasoning is that it's an exclusively personal device, in that it only improves your own sensors. If you want to pass the benefit on to other ships, you'll need to fit is alongside sensor upgrades, which WILL increase signature. Not 100% sure on that bit, though.
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Red October
Fleet Admiral
Joined: May 30, 2010
Posts: 165
From: Stillwater, Oklahoma
| Posted: 2010-07-30 06:48
There is one aspect I been wondering. I always though of border cruisers are Explorier type ships are designed to hunt and find hidden planets or astroid belts to be of use. Why not add a aspect to the Electronic Warfare with non-electronic warfare that is designed to hunt out hidden planets thare not within systems.
AKA Drifters. Planets ripped from their birth stars and floating aimlessly through space. You could design something like Probes that are sent floating in space to find an planets or enemy designated planets that are none on the F2 Screen. This will add a whole new tactical gameplay to the game and make Probes that are designed to boost signature and planet detection.
Also probes could be sent through wormholes to see how many enemies are on the other side as well. It is something that used in real life, I figured I could just throw that out there for Electronic Warfare as well.
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Lawman
Fleet Admiral
Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: February 28, 2003
Posts: 276
From: New Jersey
| Posted: 2010-07-30 06:55
Gonna throw this link in the Fray.
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3w.html#sensors
Good resource for devs if they want to brush up on the whole realism thing.
(just make sure they don't read the weapons section because it might make them cry, or give them ideas...)
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Gejaheline
Fleet Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 19, 2005
Posts: 1127
From: UGTO MUNIN HQ, Mars
| Posted: 2010-07-30 07:34
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On 2010-07-30 06:55, Lawman wrote:
Gonna throw this link in the Fray.
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3w.html#sensors
Good resource for devs if they want to brush up on the whole realism thing.
(just make sure they don't read the weapons section because it might make them cry, or give them ideas...)
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Too late
An impeccable site, which I have used for quite some time as my ultimate reference for everything spaceship-related.
One should note that I'm COMPLETELY ignoring certain issues like light-speed lag, because frankly that just makes everything way too complicated.
[ This Message was edited by: Gejaheline on 2010-07-30 07:38 ]
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Talien
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: May 11, 2010
Posts: 2044
From: Michigan
| Posted: 2010-07-30 11:07
One thing I thought of while reading through the latest post, are there going to be any kind of signature damping gadgets or would that be considered too much? I can see it being especially useful for jammer craft to cut down their own signature while they're actively jamming enemy sensors. Of course, the downside would be their jamming strength is lowered because they have, say, 3 jamming arrays and 2 damper arrays as opposed to 5 jammers. Makes them harder to target while running but less effective at blocking enemy sensors.
I'd also point out that this shouldn't be used to go into negative signature and work like the current ECM, just compensate for increased signature from running active scanners/jammers, and only for the ship it's mounted on.
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Gejaheline
Fleet Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 19, 2005
Posts: 1127
From: UGTO MUNIN HQ, Mars
| Posted: 2010-07-30 17:21
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On 2010-07-30 11:07, Talien wrote:
One thing I thought of while reading through the latest post, are there going to be any kind of signature damping gadgets or would that be considered too much? I can see it being especially useful for jammer craft to cut down their own signature while they're actively jamming enemy sensors. Of course, the downside would be their jamming strength is lowered because they have, say, 3 jamming arrays and 2 damper arrays as opposed to 5 jammers. Makes them harder to target while running but less effective at blocking enemy sensors.
I'd also point out that this shouldn't be used to go into negative signature and work like the current ECM, just compensate for increased signature from running active scanners/jammers, and only for the ship it's mounted on.
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1: Cloaking device.
2: Turning off unnecessary gadgets and slowing down.
Being able to fit a "damper" would reduce the value of K'luth's now-unique ability to reduce their signature.
From a realism standpoint, it also violates the laws of physics in that the more energy you pump out with your ECM/sensors, the easier you are to lock on to. You can't be both stealthy and be radiating huge amounts of energy at the same time, so reducing your signature would also reduce your ECM/sensor capabilities, which you can achieve by simply turning off all of your systems.
As a side note related to this, a ship sitting at a halt and running no systems whatsoever will probably have a much-reduced signature in comparison to a ship running at full speed, shooting weapons and using ewar, unlike currently where the difference between stopped and full throttle isn't all that much. This will help people be reasonably stealthy even if they don't have a cloaking device or any other sensor-reducing device.
Plus it would be unfair on enemy ships to be presented with a jamming ship that there is no way to counter, since it will both be jamming you and have a lower signature. There should at least be an element of risk for the jamming ship after all, rather than being able to fit a magic combination of ECMs and signature-reducers (and there would inevitably be such a combination somewhere). This is not to say that jamming ships should ALWAYS be visible, particularly if it's a scout versus a dread or station.
Basically, my aim here is to promote thought about the best use of ewar devices. Currently you can just use your ECM constantly and get the desired effect. Similarly, you could combine and ECM and a signature-reducer and basically not need to turn them off. If you can't counter the signature increase except by turning off your ewar, you need to think about when the best time is to switch it on and off.
Modern military units have the same problem, in fact: If they leave their ECM running all the time, they get hit by anti-radiation missiles. If they never turn it on or turn it on too late, they get hit by more conventional missiles instead.
Agree? Disagree? I'm speaking like this is somehow set in stone I notice, but that's more for ease of reading and writing. If you think that a signature-dampener would be necessary and you have some good reasons, I'd be more than happy to listen. Or listen to pretty much any suggestion, really, although I don't guarantee that I won't write a five-page retort.
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Talien
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: May 11, 2010
Posts: 2044
From: Michigan
| Posted: 2010-07-30 18:17
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On 2010-07-30 17:21, Gejaheline wrote:
1: Cloaking device.
2: Turning off unnecessary gadgets and slowing down.
Being able to fit a "damper" would reduce the value of K'luth's now-unique ability to reduce their signature.
From a realism standpoint, it also violates the laws of physics in that the more energy you pump out with your ECM/sensors, the easier you are to lock on to. You can't be both stealthy and be radiating huge amounts of energy at the same time, so reducing your signature would also reduce your ECM/sensor capabilities, which you can achieve by simply turning off all of your systems.
As a side note related to this, a ship sitting at a halt and running no systems whatsoever will probably have a much-reduced signature in comparison to a ship running at full speed, shooting weapons and using ewar, unlike currently where the difference between stopped and full throttle isn't all that much. This will help people be reasonably stealthy even if they don't have a cloaking device or any other sensor-reducing device.
Plus it would be unfair on enemy ships to be presented with a jamming ship that there is no way to counter, since it will both be jamming you and have a lower signature. There should at least be an element of risk for the jamming ship after all, rather than being able to fit a magic combination of ECMs and signature-reducers (and there would inevitably be such a combination somewhere). This is not to say that jamming ships should ALWAYS be visible, particularly if it's a scout versus a dread or station.
Basically, my aim here is to promote thought about the best use of ewar devices. Currently you can just use your ECM constantly and get the desired effect. Similarly, you could combine and ECM and a signature-reducer and basically not need to turn them off. If you can't counter the signature increase except by turning off your ewar, you need to think about when the best time is to switch it on and off.
Modern military units have the same problem, in fact: If they leave their ECM running all the time, they get hit by anti-radiation missiles. If they never turn it on or turn it on too late, they get hit by more conventional missiles instead.
Agree? Disagree? I'm speaking like this is somehow set in stone I notice, but that's more for ease of reading and writing. If you think that a signature-dampener would be necessary and you have some good reasons, I'd be more than happy to listen. Or listen to pretty much any suggestion, really, although I don't guarantee that I won't write a five-page retort.
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Well, I'll just say personally I'd probably never use it even if it did exist, if I'm going to be flying ECM then I want to be more effective at it rather than at less risk by swapping active scanners/jammers for signature damping equipment.
From a realism standpoint this is potentially thousands of years in the future so there's no real reason to say that kind of technology wouldn't have been developed. From a gameplay standpoint, it would be a balance of being able to do your job effectively and not painting as large of a target on yourself, I'd figure such a system would use a lot of power and wouldn't be able to run constantly. Is it a good idea? I don't know, I don't know if anyone would even use it, but I can think of possibilities where it'd be useful, especially in a decoy role. Power up ECM near enemy ships, enemy sends smaller craft with scanners/APS to hunt you down, power up signature reduction gear and lead them on a chase while your other EW ships are more free to do their job.
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Gejaheline
Fleet Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 19, 2005
Posts: 1127
From: UGTO MUNIN HQ, Mars
| Posted: 2010-07-30 21:25
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On 2010-07-30 18:17, Talien wrote:
From a realism standpoint this is potentially thousands of years in the future so there's no real reason to say that kind of technology wouldn't have been developed. |
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Not that I'm trying to bite your head off on this, but this kind of sentence is a bit of a pet peeve of mine when used in certain situations. You're right, technology might be thousands of years advanced, but the problem is one of the basic laws of physics. Unless someone discovers some new principle in the future that utterly changes our entire outlook on how the universe works, it's a pretty fundamental law that the more energy you radiate, the more easily you're seen, and you can't reduce that energy output without reducing the efficiency of whatever it is that you're radiating.
I'm still leery of this idea. People are saying "they'll be worse at their job, but not as visible", but you can achieve the exact same thing by just not activating all of your ECMs and/or sensors at the same time.
Sorry, tired now. Nap time, and then maybe something constructive.
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