Missiles: Do they ever miss???

Suicide Junkie · #1 May 4th, 2001, 05:39 PM

What do you guys think about the missiles saturating the target square with damage? You get less damage but cover every possible position in the tactical square.
That could be why the CSM only does 75 damage with a nuclear warhead. (disables 4 components on an enemy ship)

nerfman · #2 May 4th, 2001, 06:39 PM

I looked this up Last night in regards to "false images to the side." Deceiving a sensors angular return is harder, but done in two ways:

1) Side Lobe Exploitation: A radar reciever is basically a highly tuned directional antenna. Interfernce phenomena cause "Side Lobes" to be present in both transmitting and receieving. These side lobes are areas that aren't directly "ahead" where the system can register a return as well. Their specifics (angle, "width", sensitivity) are determined by the geometry and materials of the emitter and/or reciever. By carfully timing a deception "ping," you will be able to have a radar actually think a target is in front of it while in real life the thing is down one of its side lobes, and of course, the sensor system is usually designed to make that as hard as possible to do. I do not know if it is theoretically possible to design a radar w/out any side lobes, but even some of the most advanced radars today have them. In 1000 years? Who knows?

2) Some sensors localize by moving in a pattern and locking in on the target, like a conical scan. The radar moves in a circular fashion regularly and tracks the target's movement based on the feedback. Anyway, it is possible to use deceptive false pings to make make it think you are really not exactly where you are. They will still know pretty much where you are, but the targetting solution gets a little more "fuzzy." This type of measure will be designed to defeat a certain type of scan. So if one seeker scanned in a certain way and another came up another way, you would have to decieve each one differently. Possible to do w/ one system, but a lot harder.

That is the only two methods I could find. Also remember that the missile usually doesn't fly "at" the target, its flying towards where it is going to be. Even deception that only makes the target closer or farther is useful here. If the missile thinks the target is farther away it may not get close enough to execute its terminal manuever (attack) before it realizes it and not have enough fuel to come back. On the other hand, if it thinks it is closer, it may fly past and not be able to make its terminal manuever. If it flies "past" it might hit the target, but the chances of that are slim considering the volume of space considered. This all might not make sense if you consider trying to hit something coming right at you or standing still, but when you are trying to get close enough to cause damage against a real target moving through 3d space it is possible to be decieved until it is literally too late to do anything about it.

In fairness to SJ, many missiles now incorporate "Home on Jam" capbilities which can work. Of course new countermeasure make it harder for the mssiles to know it is being jammed. So its all like a big rat race with the only real winners being the defense contractors.

SJ - didn't see your Last post.
Can you elaborate? I don't really understand what you are getting at. Thanks

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

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

Puke · #3 May 4th, 2001, 09:03 PM

in regards to 'tracking on the source of the countermeasures' (walking towards the flashlight) and the "side lobes" mentioned below, is this what is meant by "off-source jamming?" I always thought off-source ECM involved reflecting the signal off of something nearby. can anybody clarify how this stuff works? in the meantime, i will have to check out those links.

Nitram Draw · #4 May 4th, 2001, 09:43 PM

SJ,
I think stauration or area damage would be a great idea if it could be added. If missiles could have two damage Ratings, one for a near miss and one for a direct hit then they would be more dangerous. A direct hit could do tremendous damage to armor and internals.
For a nuke warhead they do not do a lot of damage as you pointed out.
Unfortunately this would require missile accuracy to be added (i'm ducking now

) along with some other changes.

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

Suicide Junkie · #5 May 5th, 2001, 12:29 AM

quote:
SJ - didn't see your Last post.
Can you elaborate? I don't really understand what you are getting at. Thanks

Well, any object in SE4 can determine any target's location down to a single combat square. (however large or small that might be).

For the nuclear warhead in the CSM & the antimatter in the Plasma missile, your attack could cover the entire square.
With the antimatter or fireball spread out over a large volume, you get less damage on average, but the sheer power of the weapon allows moderate damage to everything.

The nuclear CSM does only 75 - 200 damage or so. That's not much (a weapon & a few engines) destroyed for a close nuke strike or a splash of antimatter. But if the damage is spread out over the combat square, then the hit would be guaranteed.

quote:
SJ,
I think stauration or area damage would be a great idea if it could be added. If missiles could have two damage Ratings, one for a near miss and one for a direct hit then they would be more dangerous. A direct hit could do tremendous damage to armor and internals.

Oh, yeah. I've been a long-time proponent of adding "splash" damage types.

type 1) Misses do 1/4 damage
type 2) every object within X squares takes decreasing amounts of damage

with a type two warhead, you could hurt multiple ships at once!

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

Dracus · #6 May 5th, 2001, 01:15 AM

Just for kicks:

Maybe the missles don't home in on heat, transmissions, radio signals, or radar.
maybe they home in on the fat, lazy loudmouthed guy down in the engine room that keeps talking to everybody about how he would like to shag a waitress back planetside, that would never give him the time of day. Or maybe they home in on the uncleaned bathrooom down on deck 4.

[This message has been edited by Dracus (edited 05 May 2001).]

nerfman · #7 May 5th, 2001, 02:00 AM

Snipes, I mean engineers loud mouthed and foul? What navy are you talking about.

SJ - So you mean like area effects, like able to damage a tight group of ships?

Along those lines, a missile that worked like a FASCAM round would be cool. You would target a space and it would fly there and discharge a cloud of mines all over the area. I don't know how realsitic it is, but it would be a cool tactic for a missile heavy fleet to delay a dirct fire fleet from closing. Of course I don't think you can target empty spaces right now, so.......