Electronic Warfare

[TMaekler (OP)]

Howdy,

US forces do use electronic warfare planes to minimize enemy radar functions etc. As far as I see it there are "only" passive systems in Aurora to help hiding from enemy detection; but nothing which could be put on a special ship to perform this action for other ships. Or am I missing something? If not, would it be an idea to deepen gameplay? Having some kind of "E2 Hawkeye" jamming enemy MFCs so their rockets cannot come through... .

[TheDeadlyShoe]

There's only passive modifier systems, ECM for ships and ECCM for fire controls.

[Rich.h]

There is a sort of active EW system in Aurora if you look at how the HPM works. Since it damages electronic systems only a quick heavy or small and long assault on a ship using HPM can render them totally blind in all aspects of detection. However you have to use it all as one big EW suite, making the most use you can out of all the passive parts to avoid detection to get close enough to allow your active HPM to engage them. I have a habit of keeping a squadron of 10 HPM fighters that operate on slightly weaker drives than usual but also with the maximum possible thermal reductions and best ECM, it lets them get in range of their own HPM weapons before most enemy vessels can target them back. This results in the enemy getting of a single round of fire before the squadron decimates all their sensors and leaves the ship wide open to moving on with a boarding vessel.

[Iranon]

Active Jamming would be interesting.
I'd imagine it to degrade sensors and/or fire control for enemy ships in a given radius: You need to get somewhat close, but unlike existing ECM it can protect your other ships.
I'd also expect it to have a high EM signature - you can spot the source, but can you shoot it?

[TMaekler (OP)]

Problem is that any active jamming system would be powerfull at close range, not at long range. So missiles could still be fired from far away. An active jamming system would probably reduce hitting percentage at the target - however, I think the actual system does work in that way, right? The only "advantage" would be to have separate ships which would allow protection for several ships - not for oneself.

A different solution would be to use "jamming ships" in front of the main battle fleet. There they would have to be targeted first to get missiles through. The MaxRange of such jamming tech should not be too large. But they would be able to reduce effectiveness of super long missiles.