Missiles: Do they ever miss???

[nerfman]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[nerfman]

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

Actually, if that is what he means, then the technical term is solid angle, which is basically the two dimensional angular area that something occupies, kind of like the envelope of different angles that you can point and still hit. When something is real close, there are a lot of different angles you can point and still hit, but as it gets farther, you have to steady your aim because the image is smaller.

That will change like the difference in square distances. But two points here:

1) When talking about jamming - the energy it takes to detect or jam a target is more important which is why being CLOSER makes missiles easier to jam.

2) So what if the missiles sees the ship as "bigger." Real missiles don't do damage by pointing at ships like a gun. You are right in that missiles would have an easier time pointing at a target if they were closer, but who cares. Missiles do damage by getting close to a ship and then exploding. Most missiles today don't even point at the target while they fly. They point to where its going to be. They need sensors to tell them what the targets velocity and momentum are so they can predict where to meet the target. The sensors they use to do this are what is jammed.

And missiles wouldn't be anything different if this were enacted. They would be missiles. To me, the defining point is range and the ability to be outran or shot down. Based on current EW practices in the real world, it simply seems odd that a race w/ superior EW capability not be given an advatage in a missile duel.

I would like to see it modable thats all. With so much else that is modable, it is just surprising that such is not.

[jc173]

quote:

---

Originally posted by nerfman:
"2) So what if the missiles sees the ship as "bigger." Real missiles don't do damage by pointing at ships like a gun. You are right in that missiles would have an easier time pointing at a target if they were closer, but who cares. Missiles do damage by getting close to a ship and then exploding. Most missiles today don't even point at the target while they fly. They point to where its going to be. They need sensors to tell them what the targets velocity and momentum are so they can predict where to meet the target. The sensors they use to do this are what is jammed.

---

When Traveller updated to the New Era they changed the typical missiles from being armed with Nuke or HE warheads to warheads with nuclear pumped X-Ray laser warheads. They gave a pretty convincing explanation for the change, granted I'm not a physics expert. Part of the reason was that as a missile got closer to a ship it became a lot easier for PD and energy weapons to achieve a hard kill on the missile. So maybe a missile doesn't have to achieve the same proximity with that sort of warhead? Just a thought.