Missiles: Do they ever miss???

[Will]

Methinks nerfman is taking this stuff way to seriously (btw, not everyone here who doesn't agree with you is a Trekkie, so get over it, k? )

If anyone wants it to be moddable, fine. All you have to do is write an e-mail to Aaron with the subject "SEIV Change Request", say you would like a switch somewhere that gives missiles a chance to miss, and throw in a bit of groveling.

Then, make one of the "cheesy" fixes you can already do (add range one PDC to the current ECM component, or a new one). Play the game like that for a while, and wait to see if Aaron will implement it. And keep remembering that he's a busy man, and could possibly go days without even touching anything SE related.

Finally, remember that this is a game, and that it is something real and tangible, which means it will never be perfect. You take what you have and work with it.

[nerfman]

Sorry captain

I just argue strongly, no offense meant, and also get a little riled up when people try to BS me in an otherwise intellectual conversation. Its annoying at people who talk about Aaron this and Aaron that like they are are his mother or something. You can disagree with me and even trade barbs, that's no big. I also don't like Star Trek if you can't tell, but the panzie thing was just a poke. If I offended your any other future Star Fleet officers, please accept my humblest apologies. (Oh, and both my degrees are in physics, so you know I don't really think anything about Quantum is anything less than spectacular). Later

Sorry had to go out for a sec. Seriously, look at it from my point. I posted some pretty hefty Messages, not to sound great, but because I thought I could really contribute something. I actually looked up some stuff in some in old texts and tried to be informative, at first at least. Despite all this effort, a few people pull some agruments off the top of their head to rebuff this without even putting any effort into it. That gets me a little testy. Later

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

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

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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1) A missile seeker doesn't have the same power reserves as an entire ship with an huge power grid to draw off. A ship has a lot more energy availiable to jam incoming seekers with. Your resolsution may increase as you say, but the intensity of the jaming can still be more, and getting closer to this powerful jamming makes it worse. Just imagine trying to grab a fiends hat off his head in a dark room. Your eyes get adjusted then bam, your buddy shines a flashlight in your face from across the room in an attempt to jam you. Are you trying to tell me that as you walk closer to the light it will be easier to see your friend's hat behind it??

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You don't need to see the hat anymore. You look left, dark. You look right, dark. You look ahead, bright. Run forward and slam the 'friend'. Now throw a nuclear CSM punch and blow a big hole in the evil alien hat and it's mind-controlled host.

I'm no military physisist, and that example didn't work for me. Why can't you track a big ECM source anyways?

BTW: MM's ECM stands for "Electromagnetic coutermeasures," according to the description, which may be different from what you were thinking "ECM" stands for (electronic CM, I believe).


Heres how I accept the 100% missile hitrate in SE4:
In tactical a ship can find even a cloaked ship.
In tactical a fighter can find even a cloaked ship.
So a missile (similar to a fighter in size) can find even a cloaked ship.

So, any vehicle/missile can locate any other to within 1 square at tactical combat distances. Your beams cut through that square, but are thin and sometimes miss. The CSM fills the entire square with a nuclear fireball and thus hits. The plasma missle spreads fiery plasma & antimatter throughout the square and thus hits.

An example of this is trying to shoot DU bullets at camoed people in a valley VS napalming the valley.

To change this example into SE4,
replace DU bullets with DUC
replace camo with ECM
replace napalm with nuclear CSM
replace valley with combat square.

quote:

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2) For an active seeker, the radiation must travel both ways, so the energy disapates at something like 2 times the distance while while point jamming only travels one leg, from the ship back to the missile.

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Which provides a constant 4x bonus for ECM. Of, course, if the seeker is using passive sensors, then there's no bonus.


I am all for more moddability in SE, but I feel missiles are fine the way they are.


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

[nerfman]

You're right. I was stupid to even suggest such nonesense. Sorry to put my peice in on this discussion.

[Suicide Junkie]

Nerfman, WTF are you talking about???

I know you have a point about the missiles & ECM but I just don't get it.

Please don't give up on me. I'm just trying to tell you how I see these things.
If I've been kinda harsh, I'll pass the blame onto my boss, who has been agressive lately.

I was serious when I said I've got no military experience beyond playing videogames, and I've only taken a few physics courses in my life.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 04 May 2001).]

[Puke]

I think the Nerfman is right on the ball, technically. although i think everyone should take a deep breath before continuing the discussion. seekers, if anything like modern weapons, should probably be jamable. since most all sci-fi games are basically 1900-modern day naval combat in space, it stands to reason they should act like modern weapons.

on the other hand, it is kind of hard to predict how things will operate in the far future, and we have certainly seen several reversals in military paradigms through history.

as for Rock Paper Scisors, if ECM did affect seekers, it would make them pretty useless in the game. but who is to say the would not be useless anyway? maybe they become obsolete? but if they are being deployed, it stands to reason that those people deploying them found a way arround countermeasures.

in ww2, we were working on cat-bombs, or cat guided bombs which operated on the principal that a cat would always land on its feet and would avoid water, we thought it would be a good way to make sure our bombs hit ships in water. maybe in se4 they perfected a space-borne Version of this technology that lets seekers always hit a ship in space. (no, i did not just make that up)

[This message has been edited by Puke (edited 04 May 2001).]

[Suicide Junkie]

I see that with active ECM, the jamming will rise at the same rate as the missile's sensors, ruining the missile's tracking system.
I currently think that passive ECM like decoys and stealth would me much easier to detect close up. Thus, effective ECM for ships would be in the active forms.

Despite any ECM;
I think CSMs could get the 100% accuracy without knowing where exactly the enemy ship is, by bLasting the entire tactical square.
Meanwhile, beams cut through only a tiny fraction of the square, and so have a decent chance of missing. Incinerator & Wave motion gun beams are really thick, so they get a big to-hit bonus since they cover more of the square as they go through.