Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => Advanced Tactical Command Academy => Topic started by: Michael Sandy on March 18, 2017, 11:54:28 PM
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So I have a theory that people are defending the wrong side of the jump points, and why.
I think there are a lot more advantages to a fleet that is preventing a fleet from approaching a jump point than in trying to prevent a fleet from transiting it.
Okay, the setup is that you have several sensor equipped ships and buoys on the enemy side of the jump point, and a bunch of jump couriers. Expendable jump couriers, as I will get into later.
You have carriers or LAC tenders on the friendly side of the jump point, quite close to it, but completely safe from missile attack until the enemy actually gets control of the jump point. Normally, fighters and LACs have to worry about closing through an enemy missile barrage to get close enough to fire. But in forward jump point defense, they can let the enemy close to half the fighter missile range, send the carriers through, launch, and the attackers have nowhere to run.
Assuming the missiles launched by the fighters can find their target without the fighters having to remain in system.
A forward jump point defense should either bleed the attacker, or cause them to waste massive volleys of missiles where the defender simply withdraws through the jump point. This buys the defender strategic time, as the attacker has to bring up more missiles. If the defender is concerned about the attacker having missiles/mines launched on the jump point after they briefly withdraw, then send in sacrificial scouts to ensure those mines/missiles are wasted.
So why is it that most stories of jump point defense assume they are attacking the enemy after transit? I think it is a holdover from Starfire expectations. You simply could not transit away causing the enemy to waste lots of missiles in Starfire. The time scale is also completely different. In Aurora, you could transit in, transit out a couple of times, and the missiles would still be in flight.
Among the requirements of a true forward jump point defense is sensors that can provide 2 minute warning of incoming missiles. Something that gives the option of allowing a warning to be sent, the point defense ships brought in, and their weapons coming on line to prevent the sensor ships from being taken out by long ranged conventionally launched missiles.
Because you can't really afford to have a significant portion of your fleet stationed forward, the maintenance costs would be awful. You have a mobile fleet base just on the home side of the jump point, which is a bit of a strategic risk, of course, but far less than trying to stop a jump point transit at the jump point.
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Assuming the missiles launched by the fighters can find their target without the fighters having to remain in system.
Unless missiles have internal sensors, the fire control that launched them has to maintain a lock on the target until they impact. So jumping the fighters out would result in the missiles losing lock and self destructing. Even if the missiles do have internal sensors, they'll just fly to the last known position of the enemy and then look for targets, so they'd probably need to have quite potent (and large) sensors.
The rest of your point is valid, but IMHO less so for fighters than for warship mounted missiles. Having your missile warships on the forward side of the jump point makes some sense, since as you point out they're virtually immune to enemy missiles; worst case is they have to jump back and lose any missiles currently in flight. Hell, even if they never launch any missiles, just keeping them there can make your opponent waste ammo before they retreat (especially if we're assuming a battle vs the AI, since I'm pretty sure it would just empty all its magazines).
OTOH, when you're defending the back side of the jump point you get to fire your missiles against blind ships (assuming you're willing to sacrifice range and mount a close in defense), which can be quite devastating as PD is really quite potent in Aurora.
Beam warships are, for obvious reasons, far more effective when on the back side of the jump point.
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I suppose I should distinguish between long term defensive operations and short term ones.
When the deployment is expected to be less than 1/3 of the deployment time of the ships in question, sure, deploy them all forward. But otherwise maintenance issues are a big thing.
Basically, a forward defense allows a slower fleet with shorter ranged weapons to nonetheless choose the range of engagement.
So what if the attackers have 400 million km ranged missiles? Either they fire a lot of them at once, in which case the scout force just ducks back across the jump point, or they fire in dribs and drabs and they just get shot down by point defense.
You could have fighters with 20+ size 1 box launchers, 20-30 million km range, normally they would have no chance of getting in range, but they could launch right in the energy beam point defense envelope. Again, you couldn't normally get those slow point defense ships within 20 million km of the enemy fleet.
The tactical and strategic options for the defender in a forward defense are quite significant, and unlike the guard the door defense, they get to see the attacker coming.
I am sure that defenses made by a lower tech defender would be crackable, given time and research, but their odds of getting unopposed kills or simply coming out ahead on cost of a missile exchange are a lot higher with the option to withdraw. And they still have the option of a jump point defense. They could selectively target the incoming jump leaders, reducing the ability of the attacker to even transit.
Another defensive option:
Fighters with really long ranged missiles, sufficient that they expect to be untargetable at launch. Normally the issue is that such fighters are not going to be able to get multiple strikes that way, or carry enough missiles to kill an equal cost fleet. But they would be able to redock with their carriers after a trip of minutes, not hours, and reload to launch another large strike. And the carriers for such a role could be virtual barges, with nothing but hangars, fuel and ammunition.
You could have fighters that are almost nothing but missile launcher +fire control, virtually no engine, and they could still expect multiple strikes.
Another defense option would be to deploy very fast beam fighters once the attackers are within about 1 minute missile flight from the jump point. Such fighters might be rather short ranged, and normally not be capable of running down a fleet, not without exposing their carriers. If the attackers have 400 million km missile range, you couldn't have fighter barge carriers launch from a mere 400 million km and expect to be safe.
But launched with a jump point to withdraw behind? A crap ton of small fast fighters that are less than 10 minutes fighter flight from their targets?
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Probably one of the most important counters to a forward jump point defense would be stealthed ships to clear the sensor platforms. If the defense has active sensors up, the ships jumping in can make use of its anti-missile warnings. If their sensor platforms get cleared out, they have to probe so that missiles that are lurking just kill the sacrificial probes. But that takes time. And if the stealthed ships are already close, they can take a toll on the defenders' ships.
A forward jump point defense seems to be one of the very few ways a technologically inferior empire could inflict a decisive defeat on a technologically superior attacker. Which I find to be quite intriguing from an RP perspective. I could see two races at a stalemate, where they both control a jump point into a nexus, but can not dislodge the other race from its access to the nexus.
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Unless missiles have internal sensors, the fire control that launched them has to maintain a lock on the target until they impact.
That isn't actually the case. All that is required is that the target is within active sensor range, a ship can launch and run off so the target is out of fire control range and the missile will still hit. The active sensor can that 'sees' the target can be on a completely different ship.
I've not checked it with ships jumping back through jump points, but I've checked it with fighters launching and then landing in a hangar and their missiles still hit.
This may be some sort of bug, and I can see why you may want to RP it that the launching ship has to maintain target lock, but that is how the game works at present.
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So I have a theory that people are defending the wrong side of the jump points, and why.
You are both right and wrong. The situation you described would indeed bleed the attacker nicely for no danger to the defender, that is correct. The thing is: why would anyone fight under the circumstances?
Let's start with the attacker. If such a scenario would result in significant loses, I have to ask, why should I attack at all? Unless the attacking fleet is designed from the ground up on the assumption the enemy will not be able to threaten it with missiles, they obviously should have point defences. If those point defences cannot reasonably degrade the attack you described, the attacker shouldn't be attacking at all since he obviously doesn't have enough forces. If he can defend against such a strategy reasonably well, then the entire defending tactic simply fails.
Now let's go to the defender. Let's say you have enough forces to significantly harm the attacking fleet with such a tactic. Unless the force is designed in such a way it cannot take return fire, than my question is: why isn't the defender simply attacking? He has enough firepower to take on the opponent in deep space so that would imply he has superior forces, so the logical thing would be to attack.
And if the defender has only enough missiles to nibble at the opponent, than what's the point? The defender is also facing ammunition constrains (although he's closer to the resupply point) so why waste a lot of ammunition for so little return? Wouldn't it be better to allow the enemy to transit and hit him when his point defences are not operable because of transit effects? Even if the attacker was lucky and the jump engines dropped him one and a half million kilometres from the jump point (which require a lot of luck and quite high level of technology) he would be able to launch one, maybe two salvoes of anti-missiles, and that's not enough. Not only that but the attacker would be scattered, unable to mass their gauss cannons and lasers, allowing missiles to strike essentially unopposed. Seems to me like a much better option.
I should also point out that while forward jump point defence with ships is difficult due to maintenance issues, it is no impossible and I have used it numerous times, for well over a decade at one point.
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Good points, Haji.
Normally, a fleet that is slower, with shorter ranged weapons, can not force the enemy to enter deep enough into its range envelope that it can pick apart the enemy before it withdraws. And said slower fleet would be unable to withdraw.
But with a forward jump point defense, say you have a defender with a lot of short ranged missiles compared to an attacker who can pick them apart in deep space with much longer ranged missiles.
If the defender can maintain sensors on the attacker, and have a small jump courier to communicate (or a jump gate), then the defender could emerge with the attackers deep within their missile range.
But you are right to ask about the strategic reasons for this deployment.
If you want to preserve access to a system, but do not wish to risk your slower fleet (or fleet which has slower components), then the defending side may not feel able to run down the enemy in deep space while simultaneously maintaining control of the jump point against a possibly genocidal enemy.
The idea is that if the attacker launches enough simultaneous missiles to get through the defender's point defense, the defenders simply jump out, then send a bait expendable ship through to eat any loitering missiles, then jump back in. If the attack spaces out their attacks, so they do not waste huge missile waves on empty space, the defender uses slow and cheap point defense ships which normally could not keep up with the fleet to degrade the attacker's missile waves.
Basically, the defenders can use all out box launcher missile waves, and the attackers can't.
As for why the attacker would still attack under those circumstances, are you asking from an RP perspective or about the limitations of the AI? Because genocidal bugs and robots might just attack because it is in their nature to attack. They can't flee from a threat they can't detect, even if they could anticipate it. Because that would involve a deeper level of understanding of their foes and it would also mean they could be BLUFFED from attacking by a deployment that resembles such a trap.
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I've not checked it with ships jumping back through jump points, but I've checked it with fighters launching and then landing in a hangar and their missiles still hit.
Ok, I had wondered about that. So 'pod launchers' are possible, where the fighters are launched, fire their box launchers, and immediately land back on their carrier to reload.
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why isn't the defender simply attacking?
What about defender having high level beam weapons but low level engines while attacker has high level engines?
Then attacking is currently bad idea because those ships can't get close enough to enemy. If defender is too scared to let the attacker jump through the JP because he can't catch him then sitting on the attacker's side of jump point and blasting anything that gets near may be the best idea.
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A forward jump point defense gives the defender options that are not available in a deep space fight, or a conventional jump point defense.
Missiles are not normally a good jump point defense weapon, because the attacker can just jump back to avoid a massive missile wave, if said missiles are launched from more than 30 seconds out, allowing the attackers to see them once their sensors stabilize. But that forces the defenders to be quite close to the jump point, and therefore unable to get out of range.
From a strategic perspective, the attackers can't tell how many defenders are hidden on the other side of the jump point, but with a forward defense, the defenders know. Again, this is not an advantage that is normally available, and an inferior tech defender needs every advantage they can get.
From an RP perspective, if the defender can blunt their attacker's first attack, cause them to waste enough missiles that they can't follow through to their objectives, that allows for a potential peace treaty before so many people have died that positions really harden. It is the classic Netherlands small nation technique. Be a tough enough pill so that the big nations know that they can't casually walk over you before you call in an ally. It succeeded for centuries with some occasional failures.
If an empire is having difficulty with (spoilers), this might allow them to engage in a way that they will be able to salvage the wrecks relatively safely as well, in order to catch up on technology. Indeed, baiting (spoilers) to a defended jump point might be a way of clearing systems of them relatively cheaply for a low tech power. The downside is, of course, you reveal which jump points lead to your empire that way, sacrificing the time you might gain while the enemy probes other jump points for tactical advantage.
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What about defender having high level beam weapons but low level engines while attacker has high level engines?
Actually, that sounds like the best case for a conventional jump point defense. It is when the defender is missile based, but with inferior ranged missiles compared to the attacker that it yields the most advantage. If the defender can do box launcher missile waves, but in a conventional defense they might waste their launch against an attacker who jumps in and immediately jumps out, a forward defense flips that in their favor.
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I suppose it really is affected by the tech level. Things like sensor ranges, the relative effectiveness of point defense, whether box launchers are available. And whether the target is (spoilers) or another race.
Actually, Detros has a point. If the defenders have enough point defense to withstand long ranged fire, even AMM fire, everything but point blank, within 5-second travel time fire, then a forward defense would force the attacker to close to effectively zero range to transit past them. Unlike a conventional defense, where the defenders would expect to be at some range from the attacker (depending on tech level), but certainly not 10,000 km where they could shred them in seconds.
The conventional jump point defense, a slow beam defense fleet might just not do enough defense before the attacker got out of range. But a forward defense, as long as they can win the beam duel at any range, they have enough firepower to prevent a transit.
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The conventional jump point defense, a slow beam defense fleet might just not do enough defense before the attacker got out of range. But a forward defense, as long as they can win the beam duel at any range, they have enough firepower to prevent a transit.
Why that? Who says the attackers actually wait until they have destroyed all defenders? If you do forward defence, the attacker might go straight for the jump point and transit through. They can even fire on the defenders while doing so.
If the defenders wait behind the jp, and the attackers jump through and instantly move away, the defenders have the exact same timeframe to shoot at them, but the attackers at least can't fire back for some time.
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If the defenders wait behind the jp, and the attackers jump through and instantly move away, the defenders have the exact same timeframe to shoot at them, but the attackers at least can't fire back for some time.
You should get more opportunities to shoot when you sit around the point on the other side and enemy ships _need_ to go to you in order to jump than when you sit around the point on your side, they jump through via squadron transit, appear multiple 100k away and move away from the point in speed your ships can't match.
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For beam defense, the difference is how fast a ship can kill another at point blank, 10,000km range vs how fast it can do so at whatever the jump distance a squadron can get from the jump point, plus how far they can go in 5 seconds.
There is also an effect on design, as a ship designed anticipating that the enemy will have to cross within 10,000 to achieve its objective is a bit different from one expecting its first and possibly only fire will be at 100,000km.
I haven't done the math, but I suspect a beam ship can kill an equal sized ship in 5 seconds at 10,000 km, possibly more than one, but it might take as much as a minute at 100,000km.
A ship designed to pursue an enemy after transit in order to stay in range has a lot more space devoted to engines than a ship that only has to be able to transit in and out of a jump point with a squadron.
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Late game, once agility tech makes point defense so much more effective, and jump engine tech makes squadrons jump further from the jump point, conventional warp point defense becomes a lot more difficult.
However, this period is also likely to see a transition to point blank missile designs, switching from long ranged missiles for fleet battles to ones that arrive at their targets in 5 seconds, or at least only allow minimal AMM engagement time. And a beam heavy forward defense fleet could get picked apart under those conditions.
Also, building slow beam ships for forward defense would work against AI, but would be suicidal against a player who could send in BOARDING PODS from 5 second flight time.
Where the main threat is long ranged missile bombardment, however, the difference between the flight time of the missiles and the time it takes to transit offers significant tactical options that do not otherwise exist for a forward jump point defense.
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For beam defense, the difference is how fast a ship can kill another at point blank, 10,000km range vs how fast it can do so at whatever the jump distance a squadron can get from the jump point, plus how far they can go in 5 seconds.
There is also an effect on design, as a ship designed anticipating that the enemy will have to cross within 10,000 to achieve its objective is a bit different from one expecting its first and possibly only fire will be at 100,000km.
I haven't done the math, but I suspect a beam ship can kill an equal sized ship in 5 seconds at 10,000 km, possibly more than one, but it might take as much as a minute at 100,000km.
A ship designed to pursue an enemy after transit in order to stay in range has a lot more space devoted to engines than a ship that only has to be able to transit in and out of a jump point with a squadron.
Huh, I'd forgotten until now, but I've actually done (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8776.0) something like this. While engaging on the far side of the jump point was essential, it only made victory "barely possible" - nowhere near "easy". The big problem is that they can jump the instant they reach the JP, so you never get that ideal point-blank shot at them. Thus if they have sufficiently extreme speed compared to your engagement range, your options are extremely limited (and if the target had been shooting back, I'd really have been in a pickle).
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That sounds like a pretty cool set of battles, DIT_grue, got any more stuff like that somewhere?
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As attacker you could time a wave of missiles to arrive to the JP together with your beam ships. Interesting choices for the defender.
Also if the attacker has enough tech advantage it might be difficult to spot fast missiles early enough that you have time to withdraw behind the JP, depending on crew training etc of course.
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Yes indeed, I mentioned that a lot of the tactical options are only available if the defender has at least 2 minute warning on missiles, which is a good deal.
Anything big enough to detect them at that range is going to be an enormous target. But if all the defenders need is warning, not targeting, maybe a huge line of buoys with resolution 1 active sensors could work. That would be a lot of magazine space, even if the buoys are cheap, and it would need to be something you could automate, because doing 100+ waypoints by hand would be ridiculous.
Also, the buoys would have to have enough reach to see a fast missile crossing its sensor reach, which would mean you need a lot of overlap.
For buoy design, you can apparently get ridiculous duration if you get a .1 msp missile drive with max fuel efficiency.
Still, if you are designing a trap for a higher tech (spoiler), and have the time to prepare and know the approximate vector the (spoiler) is going to approach the warp point, a buoy early warning net might work, while being hard to detect until the enemy got within its own AMM range. And vs (spoilers), if you can get them to waste their ammo on buoys, GREAT!
Normally, I would argue for one big sensor, as a sensor 10x as big would cover 10x the range, so 10 little sensors in a line would only cover 60 degrees of arc. But if you want your sensor ships to be able to withdraw as well from a big wave, while still have info about other incoming waves, that is a problem. If you have high confidence about the vector the AI is coming in on, a 20 degree arc might be sufficient for tactical advantage. If you are roleplaying a race that has a high sensitivity to casualties in offensive operations, especially vs (spoilers) that have ripped apart a fleet or two, might be a fun approach.
IF you can come up with a minelaying missile deployment technique that doesn't drive you bonkers. Getting a buoy that can detect missiles across a 5 second flight time might be too big to be usefully deployed, however. I would do some designs, but Aurora is currently borked, possibly because there is something wrong with my computer, or several things. 5-seconds would be enough for a warning system, as the buoy line would at least detect missiles moving past it, if there were decent overlap.
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For buoy design, you can apparently get ridiculous duration if you get a .1 msp missile drive with max fuel efficiency.
I thought buoys were indefinite if they didn't have engines now? They used to need reactors, but that got removed with the engine change. I really need to use stuff likes mines more often.
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I am just going by what I was able to do before Aurora packed up on me. Geosurvey drones include an estimate of how many survey point they can do, based on the drone's endurance, which seems to be based on having an engine. The amount of survey points they can do without an engine is zero, and it seems to be based completely on the fuel consumption time of their engine times their Geosurvey sensor points.
Given that you can get multiple years of endurance for .2 MSP (depending on your fuel efficiency tech), it seems a small cost when the sensor part of the buoy is likely to be in excess of 5 MSP.
I did notice something hinky. Low tech missiles seem to have speeds locked to multiples of 100km/s. I had a missile design that jumped from 0 km/s to 100 km/s with a couple tweaks, and another that was 200 km/s, I haven't done much experimenting yet.
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I think the reason you see the current defense model is the combination of advantages that the defender receives conventionally vs forward.
If your opponent is higher tech, have your defenses on the other side of the jump point transfers a LOT of advantage to you. I usually layer my defenses on an important jump point, and the advantage to the defender is significant.
For example, in a previous game, I was getting roughed up by an NPR who had better engine tech, better sensor tech, and much better missiles. Bad news. He was thrashing me in open space.
I had a system that was a major jump point nexus. If he took the system, he could cut my empire into several parts and I was screwed for minerals. The solution was to build a defense force on the jump point that he HAD to get through. In open space, the NPR could dictate the terms of the engagement, he had speed, sensors, and firepower. In the case of a JP defense, I negated his missile advantage by closing the range.
I dumped a stupid amount of mines (mines are cheap) in three overlapping bands, three fighter stations (fighters are cheap) back from the JP, with sixty fighters between them, and a squadron of monitors with huge armor, and massive railgun and laser batteries (and no jump drives). Well behind that, I had two fleets of missile boats waiting for him to transit, located directly opposite of each other on both sides of the WP.
I could concentrate my force, and negate his normal advantage in range and speed. I got to dictate the engagement, not him. Since jump shock meant that I got a few impulses to take free shots, I also got to dictate what I shot at to further reduce his advantage.
Long story short, I handed the NPR his backside on that engagement.
Even with parity in tech, the advantage given to the defender in terms of concentration of force, and initial weight of fire goes a long way to dictating for the conventional.
That being said, I DO try an post forward sensors and/or mines on contested jump points. If I know I am bad guy country, I try and post pickets and sensor platforms on the forward side to gain intel on what's coming.
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The way I see it, the only benefit of staying on your side is not having your turns interrupted until things get serious.
"Stay on the far side, withdraw at the slightest hint of immediate danger" seems comparably safe, with an intelligence advantage, and possibly ways to get in a few cheap shots.
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Another advantage of forward jump point defense that I haven't seen brought up is that you ensure you always have access to both sides of the JP. It's a good idea to picket the far side of a JP while you attend to whatever you were doing in that system, i.e. scanning, invading a planet, fighting an enemy fleet. Think of it like a beachhead. You never need to worry about them taking advantage of your sensor downtime, you know the JP is safe.
In fact, if you push your sensor envelope to a few hours, you could even get a respectable minefield down on their side of the JP.
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"Expendable Jump Courier".
In a RolePLaying vision, my 2 cent.
;) Only in a Dictatorial Military Giunta u can.
Live isnt tradable luxury.
But your theory (too late post,i know) remain interesting. And "testable".
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I RP 'expendable jump couriers' as automated vessels, where the space for 'crew' is actually space for computers and maintenance robots.
And I don't mean expendable like missiles are expendable. I mean expendable like a fleet is expended to save a planet.
Consider the movie Rogue One. If the consequences of NOT getting the information are sufficiently great, then taking huge chances or even knowingly having one-way missions is logical, because the sacrifice of some saves so many lives from futile and tragic loss.
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I don't understand why are those couriers marked as expendable?
If your recon have a preliminary order to withdraw immediately after standart transit, and if you have a jump tender on a friendly side of this jump point, than there is no danger in such recon mission. Your recon will withdraw safely, before enemy fire can get it.
I used it many times against AI and human opponents, without any casualty.
Here is testing example log:
(https://img-host.org.ua/images/rec1php.png)
Terran Federation Tribal-class cruiser failed her fire attempt at OPFOR Panama-class recon during her 5-sec jump in - jump out recon mission.
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Auch! My tactics fails if an opponent have a beam weapon and autofire option. :)
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Auch! My tactics fails if an opponent have a beam weapon and autofire option. :)
Exactly..:)