Author Topic: PD targetting selection comments  (Read 2129 times)

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Offline Paul M (OP)

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PD targetting selection comments
« on: October 13, 2019, 07:41:51 AM »
The 8th Squadron was conducting a recon-in-force in Wolf 359.  1 CL, 3 DDs and 2 DD(support) ships closed to something like 39m Km from the planet and then when the two wolver ships came out to play waited 10 min for them to have emptied their magazines and then turned away thinking the missiles may have been launched at long range and they could outrun them.   They got caught with a mixed barrage of 2x3 magics (from the 2 ships) and a super salvo from whatever is launching those.   So joy oh joy the magics have a range of 40m km more or less.

All ships were destroyed, with the Chippewa scuttling herself 10 m or so after the battle was over as they were under a new bombardment, and dead in space working to restore an engine so they limp away.  The attacks had killed their shields and the 3 pinnaces giving them sensor data...

However, one thing I did note and this probably is useful for the next version of the game.  The PD auto selection of what missiles to engage sucks badly.  What it doesn't seem to take into account is the velocity and range to the missile it is locking up.   This meant a lot of my Goshawk CMs which are speed 40k km/s were launched pointlessly.  The PD system has to look at range and inbound speed and counter missile speed.   Until I ran out of the Dart (Batch 2) which has a speed of 56k km/s this wasn't so much an issue.   But the Goshawks could intercept the magics but only if launched against them at ranges of >500K km where there was at least a chance the ranges worked out.   Basically the PD system should check "counter missile has initiative?" When yes it can launch at any separation.   If no then it has to exclude any salvo at a seperation range <=inbound_velocity*5 km and select a target that gives their counter missiles a chance to hit.  In the case of the magics the PD system should ignore any inbound salvo at a range of 250K km unless the missile loaded is a Dart.   Also I tried to manual target the PD launchers but that didn't work but that may have been because I still had them in PD mode...for manual target selection to work you need to be out of that I'm guessing.

It was somewhat irritating to see missiles blowing themselves up or launching pointlessly on salvos of magics at close range and ignoring the newly detected longer range salvos the missiles may have been able to actually intercept.  I was running at about a 20% intercept chance when the missiles had enough time to move.
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: PD targetting selection comments
« Reply #1 on: October 13, 2019, 07:34:25 PM »
I think there are other issues as well. I would also often like my AMM to prioritise targeting the largest salvos or not the closest ones. If you always target the closest ones you might eventually get overwhelmed in a way that PD can't handle them while if you distribute the AMM more evenly on incoming missiles then PD can defeat what is left.

There should be some settings for AMM in target priority as well as the thing you mentioned. Perhaps AMM always should have initiative over other missiles to remove this particular issue.

But adding a few ways to prioritise targets with AMM launcher settings would be rather great.
 

Offline chrislocke2000

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Re: PD targetting selection comments
« Reply #2 on: October 14, 2019, 02:09:50 AM »
I’ve suggested in the past giving amms a minimum engagement range as well as a max which I think would help a lot.

Paul it sounds like you are still playing your Northern Coalition? Would love to read an update on your AAR on that!
 

Offline Garfunkel

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Re: PD targetting selection comments
« Reply #3 on: October 14, 2019, 11:28:26 AM »
Yes, agreed, minimum distance for AMMs would be helpful. And agreed on update with Northern Coalition, would be sweet!
 

Offline Paul M (OP)

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Re: PD targetting selection comments
« Reply #4 on: October 14, 2019, 01:15:39 PM »
I think there are other issues too.  I have long said that there should be a check of the (CM_speed+inbound_speed)*5s and if the range is less than that between them just check for the interception as the two missiles are on converging courses it is not like it matters which one is faster.   So a 40K km/s CM fired on a 50K km/s inbound at 1K km separation (and hell this was the case in that battle...ok...5K km separation) will still intercept the missile...but the game design makes that impossible so the auto fire system has to at least not throw missiles away pointlessly.

Also why does tracking speed increase so slowly...my current best turrets have 24K km/s tracking speed but the fire control is limited to 16K km/s...and even with the next tech step only 20K km/s.  The ones currently deployed on ships are 12K km/s.   Also so far as I can see the technology that increases your tracking speed the longer you track a missile doesn't work.

More annoying is that the magic missiles are counter missiles themselves.   So they would have an initiative battle regardless.   

I also would have made the super salvos a priority.   I find it astounding that the 8th when fighting in Tau Ceti survived a massive long range bombardment by 3 wolver ships firing 3 anti-ship missiles each, around 100 salvos or more and they only lost a single DD (and that I think to the time bug where the ship got hit by several missiles before the game paused).   Yet even with the CL present they got hammered down in 25 super salvos.   Up till the first super salvo turned up I was even doing ok against the 2x3 magic salvos from the two wolver ships. But the magics seem to have a range of nearly 40m km...my Dart (batch 3) has 0.9m km and the Goshawk (Batch 2) has 2.2m km.   Also the 8th was maybe only 800K km inside the range of what I think may have been the super salvo launch platform...so part of the error was mine...for trying to finesse the battle and not "turning and burning" sooner...with 3K km/s that is what 260 s or 5 min...and yeah I had that much time...but I didn't think anything but the ships could fire on me.

I'll do my best, I have been thinking about how to do it as loads of stuff has happened including Operation Mars and November in Tau Ceti...the 8th was doing a recon-in-force as part of Operation Olympic.   The second part where the salvage ship enters Wolf 359 and salvages a bunch of wrecks should be ok...if nothing else 4 CLEs escorting the two ships will be ok...a CLE has stood off one of the wolver ships elsewhere...4 CLEs...that is a lot of DPPD turrets.

The best news in that the NCCs galacite production has finaly started to take off so they can replace the ships but still...that is the fourth time they have lost a squadron of ships in that system.  The NCN is getting just a might be ticked but the Magics are a royal pain to try and fight through.  The sheer number of them in a super salvo overwhelms most defenses.
 

Offline Garfunkel

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Re: PD targetting selection comments
« Reply #5 on: October 15, 2019, 11:58:52 AM »
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I have long said that there should be a check of the (CM_speed+inbound_speed)*5s and if the range is less than that between them just check for the interception as the two missiles are on converging courses it is not like it matters which one is faster.
This would require a complete change of game mechanics. Or at least a significant rewrite because of how Steve originally wrote the game to work. Every mobile object moves from point A to B, and only after that are others things checked. Inserting a minimum distance for AMMs is probably easier and faster.

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Also so far as I can see the technology that increases your tracking speed the longer you track a missile doesn't work.
Correct, it's broken in 7.1 but fixed for C#. This is one reason why tracking speed issues exist. But even with tracking speed issues, it isn't impossible to create impossible to penetrate PD screens by stacking cheap railguns.

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More annoying is that the magic missiles are counter missiles themselves.
Yes, intercepting AMMs is probably THE most annoying thing in Aurora combat currently. And even if they do cause only 1 point of damage per missile, NPRs/spoilers often fire thousands of them at you meaning that sandblasting eventually gets through any and every player ship. And Steve can't just have the AI not use size 1 missiles offensively, because what if they are the only weapon available to the AI in certain situations? There are solutions to counter it, especially from orbital bases, where you soak the damage by sending in cheap commercial ships that are nothing but massive engines and cargo holds - or any other high HTK cheap BP components. Remember that large engines can survive, due to how HTK and damage are calculated, extraordinary amount of punishment.

 

Offline Paul M (OP)

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Re: PD targetting selection comments
« Reply #6 on: October 16, 2019, 01:00:42 AM »
This would require a complete change of game mechanics. Or at least a significant rewrite because of how Steve originally wrote the game to work. Every mobile object moves from point A to B, and only after that are others things checked. Inserting a minimum distance for AMMs is probably easier and faster.

I agree with you here, it is easier.  I have issues with the way the game basically does the "one stat to rule them all" (in this case speed).   I've never been a fan of munchkin-isms in games.   My personal view on the situation is that the use of (inbound_speed/tracking_speed) as a modifier to PD chance to hit makes sense but after that missiles should not benefit from higher speed to hit their targets, it should be a flat chance up to a point then fall off as the closing speed exceeds the accuracy of the fuse mechanism.   Basically detonating in the "blast radius" gets harder the faster the objects are moving with respect to each other.   But much like my desire for laser damage to be based on wavelength and range on size...I don't hold my breath on this.

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Correct, it's broken in 7.1 but fixed for C#. This is one reason why tracking speed issues exist. But even with tracking speed issues, it isn't impossible to create impossible to penetrate PD screens by stacking cheap railguns.

The NCN uses lasers and frankly against a super salvo I'm dubious about lots of low hit chances.   I had 12 shots with chances ranging from 7% to 21% (if memory serves) and the number of times no missile got hit were higher than when 1+ missile did.  The time when a CLE engaged one of these wolver ships it survived without even going below 50% shield strength...the key is to have enough PD fire (in that case 12 shots on 3 inbounds) to give a reasonable average intercept chance.   Also there long range interceptions were happening.   The super salvo just requires both improvements in the Dart series, plus overall better DPPD turrets and lots of them.   Even the 9th Squadron (6 CLEs) has only 36 dual DPPD turrets.   The view is collapsing on 5 impacts on a CLE every 5 s would be acceptable (30 s to kill its shields, then 150 s to sandblast the armour belt, then 50 s or more of internals...that has to be more missiles than they have onboard).  But that requires stopping 90% of the inbounds one way or another.

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Yes, intercepting AMMs is probably THE most annoying thing in Aurora combat currently. And even if they do cause only 1 point of damage per missile, NPRs/spoilers often fire thousands of them at you meaning that sandblasting eventually gets through any and every player ship. And Steve can't just have the AI not use size 1 missiles offensively, because what if they are the only weapon available to the AI in certain situations? There are solutions to counter it, especially from orbital bases, where you soak the damage by sending in cheap commercial ships that are nothing but massive engines and cargo holds - or any other high HTK cheap BP components. Remember that large engines can survive, due to how HTK and damage are calculated, extraordinary amount of punishment.

The "soaking" the damage is a lot too gamey for me.   I am wondering if I should maybe make a armoured brick design with 12 CWIS systems (not that the NCN has developed the tech for that) and try that...   The main frustration is that anti-ship missiles are not a threat at the moment...counter missile barrages are...   Plus they fired on pinnaces at 39.2m km from the bases...that means a sensor and fire control that makes things like fighters unworkable.   And I still don't get a passive detection of the sensor itself...that is backwards...a high resolution scan should be easier to detect then a low resolution system.   But that must be one heck of a system...my current best CM systems have ranges only about a sixth what the wolvers are using.   Looking like Wolf 359 and Ross 128 are both going to take a long time more before the NCN can challenge the bases.   The only good news is that the salvage operations (part 2 of Olympic) should work and hopefully some more Wolver tech is recovered...if nothing else it gives me a better idea what they can do...but the salvage ship is inbound on Earth with 10x3-space box launcher systems and I'm currently researching them so they will be taken appart for reverse engineering purposes.