Missiles: Do they ever miss??? - Page 5

Aussie Gamer · #41 May 2nd, 2001, 11:58 PM

Missiles brain would not be that powerful that they would be able to have several ways of detecting an enenmy ship.
If you look at missiles of today then the set and forget missiles lock on one thing such a the heat of the engines or even the radar signal being sent out by the enemy unit.
The Exocet missile worked in one war but now a ECM device has been devoloped to stop it from hitting the ship.
Chaff is used to stop radar using missiles.
Flares are used to stop Infra-red missiles.
A modern ECM pod senses to frequency of the incoming homing missile and sends a fake signal back to send it the wrong direction.

Missiles are very venerable to the ECM of the target.

Will · #42 May 3rd, 2001, 12:49 AM

Hmmm... It seems I forgot to mention that missiles are too easy to beat now anyway, no sense weakening them any further.

As for the comment that basically said "I can complain if I want to", well, yes, you can. Just don't expect the complaining to get Aaron to go through the code and change something trivial instead of fixing any new bugs or adding features that still haven't been put in yet (Drones, for one). Especially when the game can already easily be modded to do basically the same thing that you want hard-coded.

And what I meant by "... missile jammers (at least currently) don't work that well ..." was the so-called "Star Wars" project. It doesn't work in practice.

Suicide Junkie · #43 May 3rd, 2001, 12:57 AM

quote:
Missiles brain would not be that powerful that they would be able to have several ways of detecting an enenmy ship.
If you look at missiles of today then the set and forget missiles lock on one thing such a the heat of the engines or even the radar signal being sent out by the enemy unit.
The Exocet missile worked in one war but now a ECM device has been devoloped to stop it from hitting the ship.
Chaff is used to stop radar using missiles.
Flares are used to stop Infra-red missiles.
A modern ECM pod senses to frequency of the incoming homing missile and sends a fake signal back to send it the wrong direction.
Missiles are very venerable to the ECM of the target.

Chaff, Flares are countermeasures and not ECM. That's more PD than ECM.

Like I was saying, with the 10 billion times increase in sensor power, you can easily tell the difference between the real ship and the decoys.

These are not modern day dogfights. The distances involved change everything.
Try playing a FPS with 1000 lag, and you will see what ships at range 4 are dealing with while the missile is the guy with 5 ping, and deals with none of that.
Add in the fact that as the missile approaches, the image of the target literaly grows by 10 billion times! Even if the missile has only 1% of the ship's abilities, that leaves a hundred million times more detection power.

Marty Ward · #44 May 3rd, 2001, 02:20 AM

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!

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. 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.
I am glad Aaron gave his reason for the way it is. We all have an opinion on this, and on other things we would like to see done with the game, and maybe Aaron will read the threads and decide to change it. If not, I am sure other improvements will be made to make the game even better.

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

Aussie Gamer · #45 May 3rd, 2001, 02:20 AM

ECM is a cover for all counter mesures in this game as far as would understand any way.

For all attacks there is a defence.
So pumping out a signal 10 billions times stronger so the missiles can tell the difference between a ghost ship <decoy> and the real ship means that it would actually be easier to deflect the missile using counter measures as you could flood the area with its homing frequency and deflect it off.

My use of non- electroinc counter measures was just an indiaction of the ease that missiles can be stopped from hitting their target.

No matter how it senses the target you can make a defence against itit some way.

Thus ECM or counter measures should effect missiles as well as direct fire weapons. Also Combat sensors aid in their attack as well.
You state that distance makes a difference in combat today, well then why does it make a difference in space combat over greater distances?

I also think you are greatly increasing the power required for the "radar" systems required to detect over a distance.

nerfman · #46 May 3rd, 2001, 02:53 AM

"Just don't expect the complaining to get Aaron to go through the code and change something trivial instead of fixing any new bugs or adding features that still haven't been put in yet (Drones, for one). Especially when the game can already easily be modded to do basically the same thing that you want hard-coded."

Just because you can't make the distinction and grasp the fundamentals of electronic warfeare doens't mean that game can already be modded. Using a range one PD mount with a new sound is pretty cheesy. Still, I am sure AARON is glad to have you here, as his personal St. Peter, guarding the pearly gates against us heathen
realists.

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.

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.

Once more I don't necesarily say that the current balance must be changed, but I think it should be changable.

There is a lot of people saying stuff like, "well if you jam me, then I will just loch unto your jammer." If we want to we could all just sit here naming measure and counter measure. Its much like a wrestling match where each move has a counter. Its not the counter itself that leads to victory, its the strength, speed, and endurance the wrestler uses to apply the move that determines victory. EW is much the same way except you can change out strength, etc. with factors like emitter energy, frequency agility, and control system/computer power.

Phoenix-D · #47 May 3rd, 2001, 03:01 AM

A distinction also needs to be made between making this MODDABLE and putting it into the basic SE4 set. If at all, I'd say it should just be moddable, and not used in the basic set. It isn't fair simply because in real life you probably aren't going to OUTRUN a missile, which many SE4 ships can do.

Changing it to like that would take a very fine balance, as it could make missiles useless if done incorrectly.

Phoenix-D

nerfman · #48 May 3rd, 2001, 03:37 AM

Damn that was a sweet post to get my comission with!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Modable is fine. Personally I don't like Star Trek. I don't freak about Star Trek stuff. I just don't put in my games. That is really all I would ever care for. Just give us a little more flexibility is all I am saying.

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

Suicide Junkie · #49 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 · #50 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.