Missiles: Do they ever miss???

Suicide Junkie · #1 May 3rd, 2001, 05:38 AM

quote:
That 10 billion increase in sensor power seems odd. It may be that the sensor power increases the closer the missile get to it's target but I don't think the increase is a simple multiplication process. If it's true that no wonder missiles don't miss, that's one big *** target!

Its only the image that gets bigger. Imagine looking at the surface of the moon from here. Now fly down to the moon and go into orbit. See how much bigger the moon looks now?

quote:
No matter what the sensor or ECM device is the time a missile takes to reach its target will have as big an effect, if not more, than the tracking device on how effective ECM is.

Who cares how long it takes the missile to cruise over to where you are? Once it gets close (<1 square) is when the seeking really comes into play. The missile keeps adjusting its aim until it hits. So there is essentially zero time to target.

quote:
If it takes 4 times as long for a missile to reach it's target compared to a beam then the target has an advantage, if only in maneuver.

Of course. But once the missile catches you, it hits.

quote:
Ten billion is a bit crazy. At the most energy would fall off at something like the distance to the forth power, but that all depends of the detecting beams emission lobe. A very tight bean will not lose intensity as quick, so to say something like ten billion is really pointless.

If energy fell off at r^4, then the power increase would be 100,000,000,000,000,000,000.
Energy falls off by the distance squared. Since the missile (@ 1km) is 100,000 times closer to the target than the ship (@ range 4, 100,000kM) its sensor strength is 100,000 ^2 times as strong.
Yes, a tight beam dosen't lose energy as quick, but unless the beam is smaller than the target, you still get 10 billion times the power when you're 100,000 times as close.

quote:
There is a lot of people saying stuff like, "well if you jam me, then I will just loch unto your jammer."

I think I was the only one who said that, and you're right, it dosen't really apply.

quote:
Missiles are closer, so they do get some advantage there. Still an entire ship has a whole bank of generators, at least thousands (but not ten billion) of times more space for computers. On top of that, they have crew that can monitor the system to quickly change strategies if things seem to fail.

Yes, but not just someadvantage. The ship can't compensate for the 10 billion times greater resolution & power of the missile when its a few kilometers away from the target.
That's why we sent out the voyager space probes.

Jupiter is 600,000,000KM away at minimum.
When voyager 1 got to 700,000KM from jupiter (at closest approach), it was approximately 1000 times closer that we are.
It therefore got 1000^2 = 1 Million times the resolution from it's bity cameras than we would get from earth with the same camera.

A million friggin times, and it was just trying to fly by. The entire planet earth can't overcome the million times improvement of a bitty 722Kg spacecraft that was just flying by, most of a million kilometers away.
We'd have to have a thousand meter telescope in orbit to see what Voyager 1 saw. And better optics are not going to shrink a scope that size to reasonable proportions.

Thats why probes are used. Thats why missiles get incredible vision compared to the ships.

quote:
A distinction also needs to be made between making this MODDABLE and putting it into the basic SE4 set

I agree. The more moddability, the better.
I'm just trying to reason out the "Seekers always hit" idea.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 03 May 2001).]

Baron Munchausen · #2 May 3rd, 2001, 06:22 AM

What would really help with missiles is if they had ECM themselves. Right now, fighters are many times harder to hit than missiles. They shouldn't be. A missile is a much harder target in RL than a fighter. At least a fast missile in combat. Cruise missiles are another matter but they have their own advantages.

Anyway, if your missiles were automatically given your best ECM value (like they are in MOO II) then the AI with a 'missile strategy' wouldn't necessarily be stymied by someone packing a few PDC into their ships. As it is now, the missile using races are pretty much helpless if the encounter someone with a lot of PDC.

nerfman · #3 May 3rd, 2001, 06:41 AM

SJ - Tell me you weren't a math major because I don't even think Good Will Hunting could follow your math here. Missiles are currently suceptible to jamming. Current technology can confuse jammers. Its not that hard to understand. As a former surface qualified naval officer and physicist I can honestly say this is the way things really are right now.

Your ten billion doesn't make sense. If a ship is say 1 light minute away and a missile is say one light second (good space type distances), then the ship is 60 times farther away. It all depends on what two ranges you compare. The missiles proximity to the target helps it actually hit easier, but....

The missile is closer to the target. That means it is closer to the jammer!!!!!!!! Thats right, that is one of the reasons they are susceptible, because they are much closer. The jamming signals get stronger and the ability of the ECM to quickly respond to changes in the seekers emmissions gets lower as the missile gets closer.

Phoenix-D · #4 May 3rd, 2001, 06:53 AM

He's not talking about *distance*, he's talking about image size.

OK, easy comparision. Put a quarter on the opposite side of the room. Now walk up to the quarter and hold it in front of your face. Looks a lot bigger, eh?

This is relevent because the smaller the target, the more precise the missile's sensors have to be to actually get a reading on it (assuming they are active). In one situation the missile needs to scan anywhere in a very small area, in the other it needs to scan anywhere in a much larger area.

Then again, missile from light-minutes out makes very little sense unless you have FTL sensors (which may or may not be affected by ECM the same way other types would be..) because the missile would actually have to GUESS where the target was going, since if it was using radar is would be working with a signal that was two minutes old (travel time to target + return time) if the signal even got back to the missile's sensor.

Phoenix-D

Aussie Gamer · #5 May 3rd, 2001, 07:33 AM

I think that we have agreed to disagree about certain aspects of missiles and jammers.

But it looks like it would be OK if Aaron said yes to making missile system modifiable to allow those who want to, to turn on the ECM V missiles.

I agree though about making the missiles harder to hit than fighters, < a flak gun can kill a fighter easier than a sidewinder>.

This would by the way, then allow for the ECM and sensors to play apart in the game against them.

I think that missiles:
1. Should be effected by ECM and sensors,
2. Not be effected by distance <adjust as they go>,
3. Harder to hit than small fighters, and
4. Higher tech missiles have a bonus to hit.<new components>
5. Speed should be at least 10...

This would allow a realistic combat, make it hard for point def to shoot them down, they may still miss and are still make them a powerful weapon.

[This message has been edited by Aussie Gamer (edited 03 May 2001).]

dumbluck · #6 May 3rd, 2001, 08:55 AM

Personally, I think you "reality" folks are a bit, um, shortsighted.

this is a GAME! therefore, to give more gameplay variety (read "make game more fun"), Aaron made a design decision to make missiles always hit. Otherwise, you just get a direct fire weapon that takes longer after being fired to actually cause it's damage.

_I_ think that PDC is an acceptable countermeasure for missles. It forces a player decision: "Should I guard against direct fire weapons (EMC), against missiles (PDC), or should I give up that third gun to make space for both?"

And if you want to argue "reality authenticity", then why not mention the fact that missile warheads are VASTLY underpowered in the game in comparison to real life missles. After all, if a fighter gets hit w/a missle....boom. If a capital ship gets hit with a missle, it is only seconds and a good captain away from sinking (ie destroyed).

That's right. if only one or two anti-ship missles hits a naval vessel, it has a big hole in it's side, despite all that armor and anti-missle weaponry. So why is it that if a missle hits in the game, the player says "oooooooh, look at the pretty lightshow on the shields! Oh, look, shields are still at 90%."

If you want to make missiles more "realistic", fine. Make emc work on them. Leave them targetable with PDC (which, by the way, don't always hit in real life, either). But make sure that if a missle DOES get thru all that defence, it will rock that ship to it's _core_! (ie "Captain! Missle impact on the Forward Bulkheads! Shields and armor are gone! Engines Offline! Forward Cannons Offline! Aft Cannons at 75%! Damage to the Crew Quarters!")(you get the general idea).

Ok. there's my 2 cents worth. Probably a bit overpriced, but that's life.

Atraikius · #7 May 3rd, 2001, 12:38 PM

I agree with dumbluck on this one. I think a change to the missles like that would make them a lot more interesting, except I believe that the amount of supplies used by using missiles should be GREATLY increased. From my time on a sub, I know the one I was on had four tubes "i.e. missile components", but only carried 26 reloads for all of them. Having the big cost in supplies for missiles, and the missiles causing a large amount of damage when they hit would make missile ships very dangerous in a single fight, but without additional support from either supply ships, or additional supply storage, they would have a very limited tour before they would require going back for supplies. Plus it might help reduce the boring almost exclusive use of missile early in the game.