Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => Advanced Tactical Command Academy => Topic started by: DuraniumCowboy on August 19, 2014, 09:14:23 PM
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In one of Steve's fiction write ups, he describes launching normal (ie non active seeker) missiles at passive contacts and then waiting for the last minute to turn on active sensors and finishing the attack. Any idea if this is currently possible in 6.43, and if so, how to actually do that?
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If you're talking about the TransNewtonian Campaign, back then you could redirect missiles in flight, thus the situations where fleets would launch missiles at a waypoint, then send them all at a target in a single wave. At any rate, it isn't possible anymore.
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Actually, you can launch missiles at a waypoint, which would then go into acquisition once they arrive at the target. Any hostile ship within sight of the missiles sensors would be targeted by the missiles on board sensors.
So this is "sort of" doable, although the missiles sensors would be active on launch and radiating, they wont actually SEEK a target until they arrive at the initial way point.
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The effect is still similar since the missile sensors won't be detected by the enemy ships intill get get close.
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So this is "sort of" doable, although the missiles sensors would be active on launch and radiating, they wont actually SEEK a target until they arrive at the initial way point.
Since computers in fiction should be able to calculate an intercept path easilly I think passive engagements ( using active seeking missiles for the final strech ) should be made a feature.
Possibly also needs defensive measures like a Zig-Zag move orders slowing down practical speed/ increasing fuel usage but increasing the range needed for missiles active.
This would make it work similar too WW2 submarine combat firing torpedoes on calculated intercept trajectories.
For me this would make other Aurora features like stealth, thermal reduction engines and missile sensors useful and fun to use. Because let's be honest, their use is quite limited if you still need to reveal yourself in order to fire anything.
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Actually there is a way to get a little better solution. I am developing it in my current game, although I don't have all the tech yet.
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First off, I have a series of missiles called AMIRV's, they are size 5 active seekers with a range ~2.5M. Traditionally I have used them as mine warheads (4xAMIRVS + 4 MSP of thermal passives for a mine).
In this case, I going to build a size 24 two stage missile with 2 AMIRVS, ~2.5M ranged thermal seeker, and a relatively slow, long range initial stage. My tech is low right now, so range on this is ~23M right now. I am pretty sure I can fire these off at a waypoint, and if it gets a thermal contact, it will home on it and then pop out the AMIRV's at seperation range. If I understand correctly, when it gets to the waypoint it should just become a mine, unless it runs out of fuel. In that case, not sure if it self destructs or simply becomes a mine in place. I am calling these large missile torpedoes.
I am building destroyer raiders for a delivery vehicle. Stealthed out and packed with reduced weight size 24 launchers and macked out passives. They can lay traditional mines, or conduct hidden strikes on enemy shipping. I'll let yall know how it goes.
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I was thinking about making something similar. A stealthy spaceship that basically drops it's entire payload as a bunch of passive mines inside the calculated path of an enemy planet with a colony ;D
( or an enemy taskforce )
But the point is that it would be nice to have support inside the game to calculate at least where an intercept waypoint would be (based on enemy speed/heading and missile speed) instead of having to do the math manually or guess.
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Trig is your friend ;D
This is the kind of stuff sub captains used to have to do in their heads (well they had analogue computers, but they would still guesstimate it themselves to make sure all the dials were set correctly)
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It is not so much the calculations that are bothersome as the lack of computers onboard a starship capable of doing them :)
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BTW, here is my destroyer raider:
Mars class Raider 10 200 tons 170 Crew 1549.7 BP TCS 204 TH 960 EM 0
4705 km/s Armour 2-41 Shields 0-0 Sensors 88/22/0/0 Damage Control Rating 7 PPV 47.52
Maint Life 3.98 Years MSP 665 AFR 118% IFR 1.7% 1YR 67 5YR 1005 Max Repair 88 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 36 months Spare Berths 1
Magazine 504
B-E-1 160 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (6) Power 160 Fuel Use 54% Signature 160 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 1 100 000 Litres Range 35.9 billion km (88 days at full power)
A-2 CIWS-120x6 (1x6) Range 1000 km TS: 12000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
ML-24ML-2 Size 24 Missile Launcher (33% Reduction) (6) Missile Size 24 Rate of Fire 4800
A-MFC-AS-S-1 FC41-R20 (1) Range 41.3m km Resolution 20
TORP-1 (21) Speed: 10 700 km/s End: 32.5m Range: 23.3m km WH: 0 Size: 24 TH: 35/21/10
A-MDR-S-1 Active MR6-R1 (1) GPS 56 Range 6.2m km MCR 671k km Resolution 1
A-PTH-HX-1 Sensor TH8-88 (1) Sensitivity 88 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 88m km
A-PEM-M-1 Sensor EM2-22 (1) Sensitivity 22 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 22m km
Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Two raiders will probably work with a jump destroyer, which has the energy weapons to finish off wounded prey:
Specter class Jump Destroyer 10 200 tons 302 Crew 1756.6 BP TCS 204 TH 640 EM 0
3137 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 5-41 Shields 0-0 Sensors 44/44/0/0 Damage Control Rating 7 PPV 29.04
Maint Life 3.54 Years MSP 753 AFR 118% IFR 1.7% 1YR 92 5YR 1382 Max Repair 150 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 18 months Spare Berths 3
Flag Bridge
A-JEM-102-1 J10200(3-50) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 10200 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
B-E-1 160 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (4) Power 160 Fuel Use 54% Signature 160 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 1 240 000 Litres Range 40.5 billion km (149 days at full power)
2x12NUV-2 Turret (1x2) Range 96 000km TS: 16000 km/s Power 8-6 RM 3 ROF 10 4 4 4 3 2 2 1 1 1 0
10RG-1 10cm Railgun V1/C3 (6x4) Range 10 000km TS: 4000 km/s Power 3-3 RM 1 ROF 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
B-BFC-SRB-1 S00.6 24-5000 (3) Max Range: 48 000 km TS: 5000 km/s 79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
B-BFC-DPM-1 S04 48-16000 (1) Max Range: 96 000 km TS: 16000 km/s 90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
B-P8-1 Tokamak Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (3) Total Power Output 24 Armour 0 Exp 5%
A-ASR-H-1 Active MR47-R60 (1) GPS 3360 Range 47.7m km Resolution 60
A-MDR-S-1 Active MR6-R1 (1) GPS 56 Range 6.2m km MCR 671k km Resolution 1
A-PTH-H-1 Sensor TH4-44 (1) Sensitivity 44 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 44m km
A-PEM-H-1 Sensor EM4-44 (1) Sensitivity 44 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 44m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
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BTW, I haven't tested the raider yet. My last game locked up, so I started a new one. With that being said, I had some more ideas/questions about using sensors on missiles?
1. If I put a sensor on a missile and launch it at a waypoint, will the missile fly all the way to the waypoint if it gets a contact first? Or will it start tracking and intercepting as soon as it gets a contact?
2. In either case, I would assume that if I use a two stage design, as soon as the bus has contact with an enemy within the separation range, it will deploy the final stage?
3. If I use a bus without any sensors and shoot at a way point, and then go active at a later time when an enemy is within the separation range, will the second stage missiles get released?
4. I assume a missile with passive thermal will attack the strongest thermal signature it can detect.
5. I assume a missile with passive EM will attack the strongest EM source, which tends to be the strongest shields.
6. I assume that an active seeker attacks the enemy with the largest cross section in range.
7. In general, these will re-engage other targets if their primary is killed providing they can see another contact and still have range/fuel, is that correct?
8. If I launch at a way point and the missile gets there without contact, it basically stays in place and becomes a mine?
9. If a second stage with a sensor deploys and doesn't have an immediate contact, I assume the second stages self destruct?
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1,2: Missiles flies to their target/waypoint. They will not look for new targets until the original target/waypoint is lost/deleted, in which case they will continue to fly toward the last known location while in search mode.
3: Nope, but I believe 2nd stages are automatically deployed once the 1st stage reaches the waypoint.
4,5: The Thermal/EM signatures from populations and active scanners are ignored. Otherwise the strongest signature is usually targeted since that is usually seen first, but I haven't used passive missile enough to know if that is always true if multiple signatures of different strengths are detected in the same increment.
7: Yes
8: Sort of. Missiles with second stages deploy their payload at the waypoint, and missiles with warheads self destruct when the fuel counter reaches zero. Note the fuel counter is in powered flight time, not distance.
9: Nope, second stages appear to inherit the target of the primary stage, but otherwise behave as independent missiles. If they have sensors of their own they will search for a new target when necessary until running out of fuel.
Not sure why the Mars class Raider has an R1 active: that doesn't match the fire control resolution and the CIWS system doesn't require an independent active scanner. The missiles also seem a little short ranged for a ship with such a large TCS/Thermal signature.
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Yeah, understood the Mars is a bit of the hodge podge, orginally I had a small guass cannon which was what the active sensor supported, with the idea that it could finish off disabled targets without wasting ordnance, but I changed the CONOP to instead have one jump destroyer (beam armed) to support 2-3 raiders (w/out jump drives). As I mentioned, the game I had got hosed, so I am bout ten years of time in my new game from trying this out again. Thanks for helping with my questions.
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Not exactly the same thing but I use small active sensor scouts to achieve similar results. I no longer put large active sensor on ships since the mechanic in the game does not support passive engagement I have resorted to painting enemy targets with small scouts with higher resolution scanners.
Basically regular ships higher resolution sensors is 5 and 1 to spot small crafts and missiles while smaller platforms carry bigger resolution scanners. That way a destroyer group don't have to reveal themselves to fire missiles and the platform that perform the active scanning is a fast very small target that is very difficult to target at those ranged at which they paint their targets.
It turns the game into a little more fun cat and mouse game where ships are designed for many different purposes and you can't keep all ships in one place for fear of having them revealed by a scout and fired upon from somewhere outside your scanning range. Missiles also tend to be larger and with long range to take advantage of such opportunities.
A standard destroyer/frigate use one or two 250t boat-bay with one or more sensor scouts carrying a 60-120res scanners, basically a sensor fighter craft. The scouts usually are between 125-500 in size, so it is hard to pin down a good counter measure for them, which usually means that all sides also need dedicated frigate scouting platforms to deal with enemy scout crafts to picket for their destroyer/cruiser/carrier fleets.
Fleets usually ends up with a plethora of scout and anti-scout ship in sizes between 125-6000t.
I really would like to be able to target passive contacts, that would be realistic... but only with missiles that have sensors themselves could do this. Some mechanic to support this would be great.
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Just curious. With the whole firing at waypoints and trying to rely on the missiles active sensors rather than anything else. Does this mean you could possibly run a ship with no active sensors (or maybe even no missile fire control?) to accomplish that? Like, mines don't need active locks, but still need a fire control?
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You need a fire-control to fire a missile. But you can have a 0.1HS fire-control to fire at any way-point in a system, so it would essentially be as firing without a fire-control.
This whole thing is kind of dumb that we have to do these calculations in order to fire missiles with sensors. If we like to fire on an echo we should be able to do that and the game should do the trajectory calculation for us. We should also be able to build missiles with or without a datalink connection. That is, missiles that can be communicated with and changed during flight or missiles that are just fired at a point and who then use their own sensors to find a target. Although, missile without a datalink should start finding a target not only at the destination but after a certain distance travelled which you set when firing the missile.
I think this would all be pretty simple changes to the game.
If you have a passive contact and a missile with a data-link you should be able to guide it into the vicinity of that target, but that missile would need to rely on its own sensors to actually strike the target. You only use the fire-control to guide the missile and make corrections if and when the passive contact make any significant course changes.
If you know the trajectory and speed of the target when you fire a missile the game should automatically be able to create a way-point at the potential intercept point.
If you have no data-link to the missile it will go wherever you tell it to go and will use its own sensors to find a target along the way, it will activate after a certain amount of time stated by you when it is fired.
If you have a data-link you can alter the missiles target point at any time, even switching target if you like. The game should automatically respawn missile way-points if a target changes course and there is an active data-link.
The data-link should be a small component you add to the missiles just like sensors, based on your active and EM sensitivity technology. The longer the range you want to be able to communicate with the missile the bigger this component will be. When the missile is outside this range it must rely on its own sensors and move towards the last know coordinate of the target.
I really believe these things should be in the game for realism sake. If you can guide a missile with an active sensor through a fire-control you can do the same with a passive contact.
There should also be active jamming options in the game, both for heat and EM interference. Not just passive ECM as we now have. You should be able to spoof on board sensors on missiles so they miss or detonate in the wrong place. Then you should be able to use ECCM on missiles to counter that etc...
The game should be more like Command: modern air naval operations that is an awesome game, much like a modern version of Harpoon. Steve should take a look at that and steal some ideas of how space battles could be like using similar techniques in Aurora. ;)
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The main problem here is that in reality you don't have 100% exact estimates on enemy speed and heading like we do in Aurora. So the passive launch of a missile without data-link can end up a significant distance off target even if the target makes zero course changes, even long enough for it to be outside the range of it's onboard sensors and miss.
Such missiles in reality would be targeted at for example real-time sattelite images or sound emissions ( passive sonar ), neither which will have very exact information on speed or course. Especially without monitoring the target for a longer period of time.
There is also the performance problems associated with having all military ships at all times during war do zig-zag manouvers to try to fool potential passive launches, like they would often in reality.
But as stated previously in the thread it would be very cool to have and a great addition to the game if possible. Another important point is to not add it as a player only feature, the AI needs to understand and be able to use it too.
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Just curious. With the whole firing at waypoints and trying to rely on the missiles active sensors rather than anything else. Does this mean you could possibly run a ship with no active sensors (or maybe even no missile fire control?) to accomplish that? Like, mines don't need active locks, but still need a fire control?
Yes. The Fire at Waypoint command allows you to fire without FC or sensor. I use this for geosurvey buoys and early warning buoys deployed by my Gravsurvey ships.
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The main problem here is that in reality you don't have 100% exact estimates on enemy speed and heading like we do in Aurora. So the passive launch of a missile without data-link can end up a significant distance off target even if the target makes zero course changes, even long enough for it to be outside the range of it's onboard sensors and miss.
Such missiles in reality would be targeted at for example real-time satellite images or sound emissions ( passive sonar ), neither which will have very exact information on speed or course. Especially without monitoring the target for a longer period of time.
There is also the performance problems associated with having all military ships at all times during war do zig-zag manouvers to try to fool potential passive launches, like they would often in reality.
But as stated previously in the thread it would be very cool to have and a great addition to the game if possible. Another important point is to not add it as a player only feature, the AI needs to understand and be able to use it too.
Yes, it would be more realistic if both passive and active as well would not be an all or nothing thing. You might need to track an enemy for a while to get a very good fix and launching missiles without data-link should always come at a risk of the on board sensors being inadequate. There need to to be a risk involved or you didn't need to use data-linked missiles very often which you should.
In my own games I rarely use the AI for anything but the Swarm and Precursors so I can easily use way-points to fire at passive contacts, I can even just park a TG (reduce speed to ridiculous low speed) in the same spot just to make it easier and just imagine that it is moving, at least if it has not detected the threat. I might also require passive contacts to be made from several ships, even better from different locations before firing missiles. Once missiles are spotted the ship will set maximum speed and move more appropriately.
I do think the mechanics surrounding launching and handling missiles could be improved in many areas.
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Another thing I would like to have is narrower search areas for combat sensors so they could be integrated into smaller platforms for a decent size. Basically the sensor would only find object in a say 20-30% cone in the same direction you are travelling (or last heading if standing still). That way you could have better active on smaller platforms to direct missiles. There should be a difference on wide area search sensors and narrower search sensors with limited view but also smaller area to actually paint a target.
Perhaps such sensors need to be integrated into a ships own Fire-control sensors and can't be shared between ships as a drawback. So it would mainly be for giving platforms their own capability to scan and shoot at targets you have already detected. These active sensors should also emit much less of an EM, perhaps ten time less the EM power of a standard sensor.
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Another thing I would like to have is narrower search areas for combat sensors so they could be integrated into smaller platforms for a decent size. Basically the sensor would only find object in a say 20-30% cone in the same direction you are travelling (or last heading if standing still). That way you could have better active on smaller platforms to direct missiles. There should be a difference on wide area search sensors and narrower search sensors with limited view but also smaller area to actually paint a target.
Perhaps such sensors need to be integrated into a ships own Fire-control sensors and can't be shared between ships as a drawback. So it would mainly be for giving platforms their own capability to scan and shoot at targets you have already detected. These active sensors should also emit much less of an EM, perhaps ten time less the EM power of a standard sensor.
Interesting suggestion. And would be cool to also have the same for the passive sensors that don't need to be omnidirectional.
For simplicity of concept I would suggest making it an extra sensor/FC option where you can select half ( sees everything forward ) or 1/4 arcs with x2 or x4 longer effective range.
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1 thing i kinda wish (and is why i made an excel doc to do all the missile math) is that when putting 1msp of sensors on a missile, you had the option for it to scale the reactor so it gave you literally 1msp of sensor/reactor.
Its proving to be an annoyance on my sub-1msp missiles to put into mines/mirvs
Just enough wh for 1 damage, a tiny bit of fuel, tiny engine, tiny maneuver, tiny active sensor. Whole thing is .4msp large, soA size 20 launcher, lobs as size 4 cruise section, to bring 40 micro missiles to the target destination. Will it br effective? Probably not. But itll be entertaining.
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1 thing i kinda wish (and is why i made an excel doc to do all the missile math) is that when putting 1msp of sensors on a missile, you had the option for it to scale the reactor so it gave you literally 1msp of sensor/reactor.
Its proving to be an annoyance on my sub-1msp missiles to put into mines/mirvs
Just enough wh for 1 damage, a tiny bit of fuel, tiny engine, tiny maneuver, tiny active sensor. Whole thing is .4msp large, soA size 20 launcher, lobs as size 4 cruise section, to bring 40 micro missiles to the target destination. Will it br effective? Probably not. But itll be entertaining.
To be honest I would not use mini/micro missiles against the AI because it can't deal with such strategies very efficiently. The AI is designed to deal with regular full size launcher ships. But other than that it depends on how fast and agile those micro missiles are. In general you don't need to abuse deficiencies in the AI, it is easy enough as it is to deal with. ;)
Against a human opponent very large MIRV missiles can be dealt with by destroying them before they release their payload, a size 20 missile can be seen and targeted at very long distances. As mines they can be more effective though, but larger payload are usually more effective especially when used as mines where the reaction time to shoot them down can be very short if any at all.
So, its hard to say how effective you missile will be without knowing their design and the opposing forces general speed and capability.
If the micro missile is relatively slow a good counter would be numerous small Gauss cannons and thick armour. Sandpapering thick armour will be very costly in resources for each damage done, or simply destroy the missile before it releases the payload with long range AMM missiles or picket escorts.
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Well it was a half serious, half ridiculious design.
Basically i lost 3 ships jumping into a system to an ai gausscannon covered 12kt ship sitting on the jump point. Agter a few attempts to push him out, resulting in over 100 missiles or assorted type being taken out by its heavy pd, i noticed that on its way to a planet to refuel was my "scout cruiser" a 18kt ship with 4 s20 launchers on it (for deploying sensor buoys around systems).
So i threw together a handful of size 20 missile designs, and had the planet crank out a few. (A size 16 asm with size4 booster. The 40 missile mirv above. And a 4x4 mirv with the same booster). The real intention was that with all of the missiles separating to the target at the same range, the micros would eat up a lot of the gauss fire, which they did. And the 4x4s promptly blapped the ship to death, which left the 16, to lollygag around a few seconds and take out another 3500t ship that i didnt know was there.
Kinda sad that it worked so well though. Ai certainly isnt ready to handle big barrages of tiny missiles, and in the future im gonna avoid using them (though the 4x4s werent so power gamey, and i could do those in a fac with box launchers)
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Yes, the mechanic does not work well with mixed salvoes of large and small missiles. The game will always concentrate on the more numerous missiles before the few which breaks the game in terms of any balance. So mixing many small missiles with few high yield large missiles should be avoided and seen as an exploit of the mechanics, at least in my opinion.
Otherwise I'm glad to hear you did well, that alien ship probably deserved what they got... ;)