Missiles: Do they ever miss???

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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've alway wanted to see missile and seekers moddable. I think they are pretty much all alike in most
respects. I thnk a few things should be changed.
They should be affected by ECM
They should have unlimited range
You should be able to change the damage that a missile can take before it is destroyed. As it is now I
think you can only change the damage rating of the component.
They should have a limited amount of shots per combat round
If some or all of these could be added I think I would use missiles. As it is now they are useless after
the first 50-100 turns because they are to easy to counter with PD.

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-ECM -> NO GO

-Unlimited range -> somebody said you can do this by giving them a "21st" damage number. The missiles then go forever.

-"Seeker Damage Resist" It's right there in the file!!! People have been making toughened missiles for ages. You just can't do it with a mount!

-Limited shots --> Just make them smaller, and reload of 30. Then you can put 5 of your 10kT missiles on and fire them whenever you want. You get 5 shots in 50kT.

Everything except the ECM thing has already been done!

[Marty Ward]

ECM was designed specifically to counter electronic/electrical devices. It should definately effect seekers. Maybe seekers could be given an ECCM ability that changed as the level increased. I don't like sure things.
I don't know if adding the extra number to range works, I have read that it does and doesn't work in the forum.
Extending the reload time is not the same as limiting the shots. Extending the reload time is just how many evenly spaced times a combat it can fire. I was thinking of fast reloading, limited shot missile system. 5 shots with a reload time of 1 for example.
Forgot that both the seeker and component damage can be changed.

[This message has been edited by Marty Ward (edited 01 May 2001).]

[Trachmyr]

Actually you can make "Anti-Missile ECM's"...

Make a new PD weapon that only works at range 1, has no "firing animation" and an "electronic scrambling" sound, make it smaller than normal PD BUT make it only good vs. Seekers and lower it's weapon modifier, but give it enough damage to kill any seeker. This will give you a missile jammer that can affect one missile per turn, lower accuraccy means that the ECM will miss (how often depends on bonus).

Problems: Only works vs. 1 missile per "Jammer", and targeting sensors improve your "jamming" chance.

[DirectorTsaarx]

Star Fleet Battles had a means for jamming missile tracking systems; the "mod" below could be a way to emulate the effects, but may affect game balance. SFB also had a setup closer to SE3 in that a missile (well, drone was the SFB term, but I'll use missile to avoid confusion) had to be launched within a certain range, but the missile could continue following the ship for a much longer range (as long as the missile stayed within X distance of the ship).

[Will]

I don't think that the ECM as it is now in the game should affect seekers. As I imagine it now, ECM is basically a component that jams a ships scanners (like having a ground base jam the frequency used by enemy radar, making it fairly useless, and forcing fire by eye). The the analogy of a machine gun seems to be a favorite for having ECM affect seekers instead of direct-fire; my rebuttal is that this would be a machine gun firing at a moving target miles away, assisted by a tracking system.

Another thing is that missile jammers (at least currently) don't work that well, and have to work on one missile at a time. That said, the suggestion of Trachmyr is a realistic way to have "Anti-Missile ECM". Since all of you seem so hooked on realism (tell me, how realistic is it for people from a tiny world to move to a huge world, and NOT be crushed? or how one can make a RingWorld with only 20000kT of material? It's not realistic, could possibly be explained in terms of future technology if you streched it... the game isn't supposed to be real), how realistic is it for this missile jammer to effect 100 missiles the same as 1?

For all your complaints, there is a mod to be made to get around it. So quit complaining about how game coding should be changed, and mod the game to how you want it, or have someone else do it. Aaron's busy enough, and I don't think he's about to quit his day job (he does have a day job, if you all have forgotten).

[Aussie Gamer]

Well Will, That is an advanced tech for a Ring world, if you read the discription of the rind and Sphere worlds it says that they are the base structure for the worlds and the generator drags materials from in the system to make the world.

With direct fire you lead the shoots on to the target <machine gun>. True about the distance and thats why they are efected by ECM.

Quote-

As I imagine it now, ECM is basically a component that jams a ships scanners (like having a ground base jam the frequency used by enemy radar, making it fairly useless, and forcing fire by eye).

End Quote-

How do you think that the seeker is finding it's target?? Most likely either infra-red or by radar. Thus "jamming" by an ECM pod would effect it as well. If you know the missile type you can do a wide area burst to throw off all incominf missiles.

These chat area are for the discussion about the game and for players to view their opinions, if a lot of players like the idea then the author of the idea could send it off to MM for his consideration.

Your disapproval of the idea is noted, but it looks like more dislike the idea of 100% accuracy for missiles than find the idea OK.

I will be sending my opinion to MM asking him to change the coding if possible.

[nerfman]

Will:

"Another thing is that missile jammers (at least currently) don't work that well, and have to work on one missile at a time."

What missile jammer is that? Saying current ECM technology can only jam on missile at a time is pretty much dead wrong.

Seekers will home in four basic ways:
Passive Homing - Seeker listens for energy, like an IR signature and then follows it unitl it hits. These are best jammed w/ decoys like chaff or even turning your radar off/kicking freqs (if it is an ARM seeker).
Active Homing - each seeker has its own mini radar and finds the target by using it. Good except that if all the missiles are tuned to the same freq, their radars jam each other and they go splash. This can limit the number of missiles you can fire due to possible freq bandwidth limitations. These can be tough to jam for the same reason since you will need to radiate on different bands simultaniously.
Semi-Active Homing - A third party "paints" the target w/ energy like CW radar waves or laser and the seeker chases the energy reflected off the target. Hard to jam, but since all the missiles are looking for energy the same freq there is the chance to inact one counter measure against them all. Destructive interference or having a decoy re-emit the homing freq can be efective.
Command - The seeker is basically being remote controlled like a TOW missile or wire guided torpedo. Jam up the platform that is guiding and you jam the missile.

The above are simplified a bit, but are basically how modern seeker work.

Of course these can be mixed and matched. For instance, our Aegis ships fire SM-2's that are command guidance w/ terminal semi-active homing.

Different types of guidance are sometimes easier or harder to jam. There are ECM devices that can effect more than one seeker. The SRBOC/SLQ-32 offers soft kill protection for more than one missile at a time. An EA-6B can Jam many platforms at once.

BTW if you don't like our "complaints" then post on one of the Star Trek threads or something. We are simply trying to point out a few areas were the game design could be greatly enriched. And Last unless you are like an EWC in the navy or something, don't be trying to tell me what current electronic warfare capabilities are. Hope yall enjoyed the lecture. Later

[This message has been edited by nerfman (edited 02 May 2001).]