Potential ECM/ECCM Changes

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Below is a post from nuclearslurpee, which I am going to use as the basis for this thread.
 

This is relevant to the ongoing missile rebalance discussion, but I don't want to pull that thread too far off-topic so I'm putting this here as it is a shorter suggestion:

Suggestion for ECM/ECCM rework:

Currently, ECM/ECCM work as a +/- modifier to hit chance. That is,

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Hit% = base_hit% + 10 * (ECM - ECCM)This has a lot of problems, mostly when low base hit% is involved such as for reduced-size Gauss cannons or point defense scenarios, where even 1-2 levels of ECM have an outsize impact of completely negating fire.

I propose the simple rework of:

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Hit% = base_hit% / (1 + ECM - ECCM)(with appropriate bounding of ECM - ECCM). This means that ECM will never render a low-accuracy weapon useless, and makes electronic warfare investment most important for near-peer conflicts (i.e., pushing ECM research against an opponent when you already outmatch their ECCM capabilities handily will provide minimal benefits, rather than providing an unbeatable advantage as currently).

My physical basis for this is the idea of countermeasures as creating a decoy target. If we imagine, for the sake of gross oversimplicity, ECM 1 = one decoy, then incoming fire being split evenly between the decoy and real target gives a 50% effective accuracy reduction. The proposed rework is a reckless extrapolation of this concept.

As usual I am not married to any numbers here. For example, maybe something like

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Hit% = C * base_hit% / (C + ECM - ECCM)is preferable where C could be 2 or 3, etc. This means the effect of a single level of ECM is only a 33% or 25% (respectively) reduction in effective hit rate. We could also start throwing powers and roots around but I prefer to keep things simple if possible.

This is in addition to the current ECM effect against fire control ranges which I think is a good mechanic as it is and does not need to be changed.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I've considered a much wider rework of EW, but for now I intend to just update ECM/ECCM. With the addition of various impending missile changes, I don't want to change too much at once.

I was already leaning toward the general principle of the proposal above, which is that ECM should be a percentage modification to chance to hit (CTH), rather than an absolute reduction. I also like the principle of taking the difference between ECM and ECCM levels (let's call this EW Advantage or EWA) and using that as a single modifier. So ECM 3 vs ECCM 1 would be an EWA of 2.The question is the size of the modifier.

If we use the first option above, which is effectively CTH / (1 + EWA), then an EWA of 1 would be a 50% reduction and an EWA of 2 would be a 67% reduction. That seems too high.

The second proposal above is a more graduated change, using a new modifier called C. The proposed formula is (C * CTH) / (C + EWA).

If C = 2, then EWA 1 reduces the CTH by 33% and EWA 2 reduces CTH by 50%. However EWA 5 only reduces by 71% which doesn't seem enough.
If C = 3, then EWA 1 reduces the CTH by 25% and EWA 2 reduces CTH by 40%. EWA 5 reduces by 63%.

The above options assume that higher EWA has diminishing returns, so that each added point of EWA has a smaller impact on the chance to hit than the previous one.

A different approach is taking the concept of EWA and using a linear percentage reduction - 20% for example - rather the current linear absolute reduction. This is simple to understand and avoids the problem of a low chance to hit missing automatically with a relatively low EWA, although it does mean that an EWA of 5 is an automatic miss, which doesn't seem unreasonable; consider the Earth - Minbari war. This could be considered a nerf to ECM as it would have significantly less impact on current low CTH situations, although it would have more of an impact for high CTH to hit scenarios.

At the moment, the linear approach is my preferred option, although I am open to being convinced otherwise.

[bean]

Excited that this is finally getting some attention here, and not just by me.

My first thought is that I don't really like the way that you see ECM rendered completely useless by equal-leveled ECCM.  It seems like there should be a difference between a case where the attacking ship has ECCM 10 and the target has ECM 10, and the case where the same ship is shooting at a target with no ECM.  Obviously, having ECCM should be an advantage, but "I can completely ignore his jamming" seems like the sort of thing you get from significantly better tech, not equal tech. 

After thinking this over for quite a while, the best way I can come up with to implement this is to have ECM increase the apparent range and speed for to-hit calculations.  The exact formula can be fine-tuned, but the best I can come up with right now is a range/speed multiplier of something like 1.25+0.15*EWA*Abs(EWA), which gives 1.25 at EWA 0, 1.1 at EWA -1, 1.4 at EWA 1 and 1.85 at EWA 2.  (Obviously, you'd need to cap it to make sure that EWAs below -2 don't screw things up).  This has some neat tactical features, because bigger/faster FCs become ECCM features in their own right (accurate) and you can blunt some of the effects by closing to shorter range (also accurate IRL).

[Nori]

snip
consider the Earth - Minbari war.

You are awesome! I was literally thinking this while reading. Minbari had a huge technological advantage from a sensor/ECM perspective and earth really felt that and got trounched left and right.
Still consider B5 to be the best space opera ever.

That being said, linear seems fine as it will form ECM/ECCM which is a realistic scenario. My only concern is that a 5 EWA will make to hit 0. I feel like it should be a exponential curve instead with higher numbers being diminishing returns Maybe a EWA of 5 is 90% reduction. Still huge, but if you otherwise had a 100% CTH at least you might stand a chance of landing a shot here and there.

[Nori]

Excited that this is finally getting some attention here, and not just by me.

My first thought is that I don't really like the way that you see ECM rendered completely useless by equal-leveled ECCM.  It seems like there should be a difference between a case where the attacking ship has ECCM 10 and the target has ECM 10, and the case where the same ship is shooting at a target with no ECM.  Obviously, having ECCM should be an advantage, but "I can completely ignore his jamming" seems like the sort of thing you get from significantly better tech, not equal tech. 

After thinking this over for quite a while, the best way I can come up with to implement this is to have ECM increase the apparent range and speed for to-hit calculations.  The exact formula can be fine-tuned, but the best I can come up with right now is a range/speed multiplier of something like 1.25+0.15*EWA*Abs(EWA), which gives 1.25 at EWA 0, 1.1 at EWA -1, 1.4 at EWA 1 and 1.85 at EWA 2.  (Obviously, you'd need to cap it to make sure that EWAs below -2 don't screw things up).  This has some neat tactical features, because bigger/faster FCs become ECCM features in their own right (accurate) and you can blunt some of the effects by closing to shorter range (also accurate IRL).

IDK, I'm back and forth on this... If a comparable tech level meets it makes sense that a high ECCM will cancel out a high ECM. That is the point of ECCM after all. That being said, the real world doesn't always follow nice rules and I do wonder if a small random element would make sense. Not sure how that would look or if it would be good for gameplay.

As far as the second part of your suggestion, can you give examples?

[bean]

This has some neat tactical features, because bigger/faster FCs become ECCM features in their own right (accurate) and you can blunt some of the effects by closing to shorter range (also accurate IRL).

As far as the second part of your suggestion, can you give examples?

I assume this is referencing the bit I left in the quote.  If so, I can't point to specific systems, just to things I've picked up over years of reading about radar.  There are a lot of features which both increase resistance to ECM and improve performance more generally.  Things like better processors to filter out background noise.  It works against jamming and waves.  Or chirping, where you vary the frequency in a pattern that lets you pull more signal out of the noise.  I talk about this in more detail in stuff I've written on radar, ECM and ECCM.

The second part is fairly simple.  Radar follows an inverse fourth law, as it has inverse squares both out and back.  Jamming is inverse square.  At some point as you get closer, the 1/r^4 is pretty much always going to outgrow the 1/r^2, and you'll "burn through" the jamming.  The effect here would be slightly different, but I like the idea that ECM would be something a bit more than just a straightforward penalty.

[nuclearslurpee]

My first thought is that I don't really like the way that you see ECM rendered completely useless by equal-leveled ECCM.  It seems like there should be a difference between a case where the attacking ship has ECCM 10 and the target has ECM 10, and the case where the same ship is shooting at a target with no ECM.  Obviously, having ECCM should be an advantage, but "I can completely ignore his jamming" seems like the sort of thing you get from significantly better tech, not equal tech. 

I agree with this part. although I don't love the suggested implementation as it feels more numerically complicated than it needs to be.

Let me try and make a "simple" suggestion based on Steve's concept of EWA: The magnitude of effect of ECM need not be the same as the magnitude of effect of ECCM. For instance, we could say that every level of ECM contributes +10 EWA, but each level of ECCM contributes -5 EWA. Alternatively, we could say each level of ECM contributes +15 and each level of ECCM contributes -10, so we can select numbers to give a balance that feels right. This leads to the following features:

• No effect if ECM and ECCM levels are zero (this should be trivial, but it's important to check).
• ECCM does not completely defeat same-level ECM.
• Massively superior ECCM can completely defeat ECM.
• At rough EWar tech parity, ECM still has some effect, which should generally improve with tech even if ECM and ECCM tech levels are even. This last part is important, I think, because we want research to feel like actual advancing in capability and not just "keeping up" to avoid a penalty.
• Depending on the exact values involved, the compact ECM modules retain some usefulness against larger ECCM modules.

I would also recommend reducing the size of ECCM components, not only because they are relatively weaker but because you usually need multiple ECCM modules to assign to multiple fire controls. Alternatively, make ECCM an element of fire control design instead of a separate component, as many have suggested in the past.

As an aside, in general I would recommend that we make sure not to worry too much about how "realistic" EWar is...it should be grounded in reasonable or realistic physics to a degree, but keeping a simpler system that makes for easier gameplay while still presenting interesting decisions and tactics is more important than exactly modeling real-world physics. Notably, while 1/r^4 falloff is realistic it is worth noting that in Aurora active sensors falloff as 1/r^2 largely for gameplay reasons, so we probably want to stick to that for both consistency and because the resulting math will probably be easier for players to grasp.

[bean]

My first thought is that I don't really like the way that you see ECM rendered completely useless by equal-leveled ECCM.  It seems like there should be a difference between a case where the attacking ship has ECCM 10 and the target has ECM 10, and the case where the same ship is shooting at a target with no ECM.  Obviously, having ECCM should be an advantage, but "I can completely ignore his jamming" seems like the sort of thing you get from significantly better tech, not equal tech. 

I agree with this part. although I don't love the suggested implementation as it feels more numerically complicated than it needs to be.

Let me try and make a "simple" suggestion based on Steve's concept of EWA: The magnitude of effect of ECM need not be the same as the magnitude of effect of ECCM. For instance, we could say that every level of ECM contributes +10 EWA, but each level of ECCM contributes -5 EWA. Alternatively, we could say each level of ECM contributes +15 and each level of ECCM contributes -10, so we can select numbers to give a balance that feels right. This leads to the following features:

• No effect if ECM and ECCM levels are zero (this should be trivial, but it's important to check).
• ECCM does not completely defeat same-level ECM.
• Massively superior ECCM can completely defeat ECM.
• At rough EWar tech parity, ECM still has some effect, which should generally improve with tech even if ECM and ECCM tech levels are even. This last part is important, I think, because we want research to feel like actual advancing in capability and not just "keeping up" to avoid a penalty.
• Depending on the exact values involved, the compact ECM modules retain some usefulness against larger ECCM modules.

I thought along similar lines, but think 15 to 10 is too much.  The gap between a level 10 ECM and a level 10 ECCM is going to be bigger than the gap between a level 3 ECM and level 0 ECCM, which seems slightly implausible.  If Steve goes that way, 12 to 10 seems like a better option.  ECCM takes most of the sting out, but it's not entirely gone. 

As an aside, in general I would recommend that we make sure not to worry too much about how "realistic" EWar is...it should be grounded in reasonable or realistic physics to a degree, but keeping a simpler system that makes for easier gameplay while still presenting interesting decisions and tactics is more important than exactly modeling real-world physics. Notably, while 1/r^4 falloff is realistic it is worth noting that in Aurora active sensors falloff as 1/r^2 largely for gameplay reasons, so we probably want to stick to that for both consistency and because the resulting math will probably be easier for players to grasp.

I didn't make that suggestion on the grounds of realism so much as notice that it produced some nice effects and figured I should point them out, and point out that they're interestingly close to how things work IRL.

[kenku]

What about making ECM and ECCM scale with range to the target, where for ECM the target is the thing trying to hit you and for ECCM the target is the enemy BFC or MFC?

In beam combat, ECM and ECCM would be equal
In missile combat, ship-based ECM > ship-based ECCM, which might incentivize missile-based ECCM.  Also, missile-based ECM > ship-based ECM, but not a ton better, so slight buff to missiles vs beam PD or missile PD

Haven't given any thought yet to what that scaling should look like. 

[Garfunkel]

Welcome to the forum kenku, please register your account so you can post normally and we don't have to approve each message.

[serger]

If we use the first option above, which is effectively CTH / (1 + EWA), then an EWA of 1 would be a 50% reduction and an EWA of 2 would be a 67% reduction. That seems too high.

1) Make ECM modules several times larger and more expencive, while retaining this good advantage effect.

or

2) Make their effect proportional to the cross-section or it's SQRT, with a mutiple modules option, so we'll have to saturate large ships with multiple ECM modules to make a significant effect or compensate a low tech with more mass ratio of ECM. (Well, thats quite complicated on the player's side, yet leads to cool wild weasel tactics.)

[Jorgen_CAB]

in regard to size I also think that instead of having different sizes of ECM/ECCM modules you would design the module for size of ship and the strength of the module... lower strength than max simply make the module smaller. This would be more consistent with other tech and modules.

I also agree that ECM modules need to be more expensive and larger than ECCM modules.