Missile interception mechanics

[bean (OP)]

I'll go ahead and put my reply in a new thread:

Well with interception you want to be faster than the target, but not faster to the point that you cant maneuver to account for them.

That doesn't apply in Aurora.  (Is it opposite week or something?  Usually I'm the one getting told that.)  Things can turn instantly, and speed does not interfere with the ability to maneuver. 

Further, unlike ships, missiles have a single burn engine that cant be reignited. They can't stop abruptly like a ship can. Trans newtonian materials or not.

If you're doing an intercept, you don't need to reignite.  It might well be possible to cut speed at the last moment to make the actual intercept easier.  (This is actually a good explanation for why missiles that miss don't reengage.  IRL, that's usually not possible because they're going too fast away from the target, and might well have lost lock.  Aurora seekers are not notably directional, and they don't have momentum.)

If only the hame accounted for interception speed and angle.

Why does angle matter?  If I'm the interceptor and I'm faster than my target, then I can easily set up the end-game engagement in the last half-second or so however I like.  Fly past the target, then chase it down from behind.  Or whatever engagement is best.

It might be interesting to look at making missiles with agility bonuses slightly harder to hit, on the assumption that they're using their maneuvering systems to execute dodges at a level that isn't apparent on-screen.  The bonus shouldn't be as high as the to-hit bonus, but it would raise the utility of agility in ASMs.

[linkxsc]

If things can turn instantly. Than why is there a maneuver rating? The missile can turn and thrust instantaneously. Should never have a problem hitting anything.

[bean (OP)]

If things can turn instantly. Than why is there a maneuver rating? The missile can turn and thrust instantaneously. Should never have a problem hitting anything.

Interesting question.  I'm not 100% sure, although I would point out that our observations are rather granular, and we might be working on different timescales.  We know that the minimum turning time is somewhere under a quarter-second (assuming that any effects less than 5% are ignored), but that doesn't mean that turning would have no effect on a contest being fought in the last .1 seconds.

[linkxsc]

Aha but if turning is a limited thing. Then a missile intercepting another one too quicly would then need that maneuver rating to squeeze in the necessary turn.

Meanwhile a missile going 2x as fast would have literally half the time to make that turn to intercept.

[83athom]

If things can turn instantly. Than why is there a maneuver rating? The missile can turn and thrust instantaneously. Should never have a problem hitting anything.

The maneuver rating is how much it can instantly turn away and back without losing its forward movement (like shunting, snap rolls, etc). An object with both a vectoring main engine plus additional side mounted (and facing) sub-engines and maneuver a lot better than an object with just a vectoring engine.

[bean (OP)]

Aha but if turning is a limited thing. Then a missile intercepting another one too quicly would then need that maneuver rating to squeeze in the necessary turn.

Meanwhile a missile going 2x as fast would have literally half the time to make that turn to intercept.

Maybe.  But I'd assume that the target is also making some effort to dodge, and a target dealing with a faster missile has only half the time to dodge, too.  (Assuming that the dodging is somehow triggered, as opposed to being continuous, but if we go there, we're going to wind up ankle-deep in complicated math very, very fast.)  For that matter, I've already pointed out that it might well be possible to shut down part of the engine during the intercept to get you to the optimum speed. 

[QuakeIV]

I don't think its really reasonable to assume that the missile wouldn't be able to react in time to the enemies maneuvering, given the tech present in this game.  Its computers would be far too fast for that, and unless it takes one microsecond too long for its maneuvering jets to sputter to life or whatever, that probably wouldn't be too much of an issue either.  (though honestly, that may be where effective evasion comes from)

[Haji]

I didn't really read the majority of this topic, mainly because I saw quite a bit of it dedicated to whether or not missile interception mechanics are realistic. For me this simply does not matter.

On the maneuvering itself I'm fine with how it is. While many would disagree with it, missiles don't feel overpowered to me and for the most part the current mechanics are fine with me. However it gave me an idea - what I'd like to see is not to make missiles less accurate, but I'd rather see a way for a ship to be more elusive. To give it some component, maybe an engine characteristic, that would allow the vessel to better avoid incoming fire, missile and laser alike. It would give new design and gameplay opportunities while also making agility better for anti-ship missiles, albeit indirectly.

Other than that the only thing I would really like to see improved when it comes to missile creation is ECM and maybe armor. The sad fact is that the game heavily encourages single, enormous salvos of missiles as while it is very easy to make point defense more effective it is very hard to make missiles better at penetrating said point defense other than making them faster and more numerous. I'd love to see large missiles with relatively light warheads but huge penetration packages that could avoid most of the incoming point defense fire.

[bean (OP)]

I didn't really read the majority of this topic, mainly because I saw quite a bit of it dedicated to whether or not missile interception mechanics are realistic. For me this simply does not matter.

On the maneuvering itself I'm fine with how it is. While many would disagree with it, missiles don't feel overpowered to me and for the most part the current mechanics are fine with me. However it gave me an idea - what I'd like to see is not to make missiles less accurate, but I'd rather see a way for a ship to be more elusive. To give it some component, maybe an engine characteristic, that would allow the vessel to better avoid incoming fire, missile and laser alike. It would give new design and gameplay opportunities while also making agility better for anti-ship missiles, albeit indirectly.

Other than that the only thing I would really like to see improved when it comes to missile creation is ECM and maybe armor. The sad fact is that the game heavily encourages single, enormous salvos of missiles as while it is very easy to make point defense more effective it is very hard to make missiles better at penetrating said point defense other than making them faster and more numerous. I'd love to see large missiles with relatively light warheads but huge penetration packages that could avoid most of the incoming point defense fire.

The closest you can come to that is to make decoy missiles, size 1s that are very slightly faster than the missiles to be protected.  The PD will shoot at the decoys first, and they could easily take up quite a bit of fire, including both AMMs and beams.

I don't think its really reasonable to assume that the missile wouldn't be able to react in time to the enemies maneuvering, given the tech present in this game.  Its computers would be far too fast for that, and unless it takes one microsecond too long for its maneuvering jets to sputter to life or whatever, that probably wouldn't be too much of an issue either.  (though honestly, that may be where effective evasion comes from)

Well, you have both sides trying to outmaneuver the other.  Reaction lag is going to be a big part of who wins that.

[QuakeIV]

I guess what I'm trying to say is that isn't necessarily the case.

If an evading ship moving at 5000km/s changes direction, keeps flying for one microsecond, and then the attacking missile changes course to match the maneuver (not an unreasonable reaction time for modern computers), then the evading ship only made it five meters before the missile made a course correction.  A five meter miss isn't that big of a deal (imo) when you are firing off multi megaton nukes at large warships.

[iceball3]

Hmm,  what if the nuclear weapons ingame are concentrated short range Casaba-Howitzers? Like so:
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunconvent.php#nuclearspear
Such that the maneuver rating is more just a rating on the missile's ability to aim, by thrust or mechanism, as well as it's ability to maintain a proper distance to detonate and hit the hull.

[bean (OP)]

Hmm,  what if the nuclear weapons ingame are concentrated short range Casaba-Howitzers? Like so:
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunconvent.php#nuclearspear
Such that the maneuver rating is more just a rating on the missile's ability to aim, by thrust or mechanism, as well as it's ability to maintain a proper distance to detonate and hit the hull.

While most of Atomic Rockets is brilliant (particularly the gravity turn analysis  ) I've heard that other bomb designers were confused by Ted Taylor's comments on that.  He was quite good, but he was also rather weird after he stopped designing bombs.  That said, Aurora might allow a similar effect. 

[MarcAFK]

Interesting article somewhat related to the subject. http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.731550
General consensus is that the drone was moving too slow to effectively shoot down, I think it's more a matter of how small it was compared to the type of target that both missile systems are designed to handle. Either way someone just wasted 8 million bucks trying to shoot down a few thousand dollar drone.

[linkxsc]

^
All i can think when i read things like that.
"If i had a 1sPOV RC plane with a bbgun i could have managed it.
Course the one im building only has an airsoft gun.

(Me and a few guys are making them, mostly foam. Plan being that well split off into 2 teams and have areal dogfights with them. And since all the electronics and important bits are protected during the fairly light crashes. Just shove it in a new cheap airframe and go again.

This is after we found out what control line airplane dueling was. You know. Some of the laws they have pertaining to that stuff are stupid...)

[DaMachinator]

That's what the USN's new laser is for, shooting down small things like drones and missiles.

A CIWS or similar also works well if you can get it in range.