Thermal Sensors

[ardem (OP)]

Can anyone tell me if thermal sensors are impacted by planets, moons or asteroids

What I mean if your in orbit around one then you more unlikely to get pick up on the sensors.

So far I have not seen this apart of the game, it seems they have no impact. It would be nice to hide craft behind asteroids and create ambushes it would then add a new element to the tactical game especially if the AI started using these tactics too.

If its not apart of the game, i add it to suggestion, if it is apart of the game does anyone have some hard facts on how muc a planet will cut down on thermal ratings when in orbit.

[Steve Walmsley]

They aren't impacted by system bodies, although it is a good idea - especially near a star.

Steve

[voknaar]

Reminds me of the Stargate television show a popular strategy to hide space ships from sensors was to be near a star on far side of a moon ect. Stars blocked sensors from being used and being seen by them in proximity. If that were to be the case in Aurora, planets should have a effect as well due to their size.

[bean]

Planets should block active sensors.  Thermals are easy to fox as is.  Just reduce speed.  (Incidentally, it would be nice to have ships cut thermal to 0 if sitting still.)
Actually, to make the game more realistic, sensors should be somewhat overhauled.   The basis behind my reasoning is here: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/spacewardetect.php#There_Ain%27t_No_Stealth_In_Space.  What I would suggest is as follows:
1. Every ship has a basic thermal that is on at all times.  It can be reduced somewhat, but it's always there, and probably about 1/4 of a normal ship's current signature.
2. When the engines are on, the signature is increased, generally to far higher levels then currently.  This produces a situation more like honorverse, but also more like real life.

[Narmio]

Planets should block active sensors.   Thermals are easy to fox as is.   Just reduce speed.   (Incidentally, it would be nice to have ships cut thermal to 0 if sitting still. )
Actually, to make the game more realistic, sensors should be somewhat overhauled.    The basis behind my reasoning is here: hxxp: www. projectrho. com/rocket/spacewardetect. php#There_Ain%27t_No_Stealth_In_Space.   What I would suggest is as follows:
1.  Every ship has a basic thermal that is on at all times.   It can be reduced somewhat, but it's always there, and probably about 1/4 of a normal ship's current signature.
2.  When the engines are on, the signature is increased, generally to far higher levels then currently.   This produces a situation more like honorverse, but also more like real life.

This idea - that ships have a thermal signature when engines are off and a huge flare in that value when they're on - seems like it would work best with Newtonian motion.   Then you get really interesting effects, like bursting your engines when far from a target and then coasting in "dark" without further acceleration to present the smallest thermal sig you can.  In the current setup, where engines are always on when you're at "max" speed and you can only reduce engine emissions by going slower, I'm not sure huge thermal sigs when engines are "on" is a good idea.  I'm not sure if proper Newtonian movement is planned for Aurora II, but if it is then I'd imagine engine thermal signatures would look a lot more like what you're proposing.  I like the idea of a minimum thermal sig for each ship regardless of speed - maybe something based on crew count?

[ardem (OP)]

Steve,

I thought about that with a Star, how it could hide the thermal, but the more I thought about it, was actually the opposite. The Star is much brighter and thermal produce it would result in a cold spot, almost like a shadow crossing across the sun.

Whereas a planet, moon etc radiates a similar about of heat to the starship which would hide it a little better.

Either way I think warships would try and hide there signature by being on the opposite side on planetary bodies, this could create ambushes in many respects if we take a leaf out of harpoon, which in many respects the warfare is modelled on, the smaller patrol craft use this method with radar and islands.

[Charlie Beeler]

This is something that goes back to fundimental decisions made when Steve was originally coding.  Yes, the various items of "geography" on the system map should create sensor shadows of various flavors.  To facilitate less complicated code it was decided to not do that. 

Consider that sensors shadows are going to be highly subjective based on where sensors are located and what impact that has on LOS.  Once LOS is introduced to detection it would also need to be added to weapons tracking and become all movement.  That's just a minimum starting impact. 

Needless to say I highly doubt that it will be added to Aurora.

[bean]

This idea - that ships have a thermal signature when engines are off and a huge flare in that value when they're on - seems like it would work best with Newtonian motion.   Then you get really interesting effects, like bursting your engines when far from a target and then coasting in "dark" without further acceleration to present the smallest thermal sig you can.  In the current setup, where engines are always on when you're at "max" speed and you can only reduce engine emissions by going slower, I'm not sure huge thermal sigs when engines are "on" is a good idea.  I'm not sure if proper Newtonian movement is planned for Aurora II, but if it is then I'd imagine engine thermal signatures would look a lot more like what you're proposing.  I like the idea of a minimum thermal sig for each ship regardless of speed - maybe something based on crew count?

Coasting in quiet will take about 6 months.  Look at the link.
The minimum thermal should probably be based on size, not crew.  Though there could be a tech branch to reduce it.  Also, it'd be nice to be able to stealth ships without a full cloaking field (If all you want is a 50% reduction, then it should be possible to do it with a lot smaller device.)
One thing that bothers me is the on/off duality of current sensors.  You either detect the target or you don't.  If you detect it, you know its type, range, and speed.   What if there were multiple sensor bands.  First, you just dectect something, at a range unknown.  Later, as it gets closer, you know more about it.  It would allow longer detection ranges without making it "everyone sees everyone"

[ardem (OP)]

My opinion Charlie is not to add LOS, but just when in orbit of an asteroid or planet or star there is some sensor shielding this is not hard to code at all.

I think this would be a better option then non body shielding at all.

[Charlie Beeler]

I presume you know the old saw about opinions     Yes, a lot of mine "stink" too. 

The point I was making, rather obliquely, was that this has been hashed out in detail in the past.  What is currently in the game that Steve has coded is the result.  Yes there is a lot that does not match accepted laws of physics.... as we know it today. 

I mentioned LOS since you made the statement "It would be nice to hide craft behind asteroids" in your first post which implies LOS.

Make no assumptions in how easy any coding change would be. Consider that the executable is on the order of 20mb and the database has over 200 tables.  I'll grant the simple proximity should be easier to handle than LOS, while contending that it will not be easy. 

Don't get me wrong.  I like the idea of terrain having an impact on targeting.  Steve is more likely to consider a change if you present him with a mathmatical model of the proposal.

[Narmio]

Coasting in quiet will take about 6 months.  Look at the link.
The minimum thermal should probably be based on size, not crew.

How long it takes to close with a target without burning, and therefore how feasible it is to approach "dark" is tech level dependent. Aurora has pretty high tech levels! If you can reach 1000km/s with a short burn, which is not considered at all a fast speed in Aurora's current setup, it'll only take a day to get to Mars from Earth assuming closest planetary alignment. That six months figure is making very different assumptions about tech level and acceleration than this game does. (I should note that the realistic thermal signature of rapidly accelerating to 1000km/s using rocket propulsion would be visible from an insanely great distance, but Aurora is not entirely realism-focussed in that respect)

Also, the reason I mentioned crew was that a giant freighter with no life support extended to its storage compartments would have a very different thermal signature to a passenger liner of the same size. Other than engines, life support is probably your next biggest heat source. Some kind of function involving both size and crew would make sense, but I think crew is a good approximator of how much heat a ship is going to produce with its engines offline.  

You could get a lot more complicated than that, for example, energy weapons produce crazy amounts of heat, should firing lasers increase the thermal sig of a ship? You could even introduce heat sink ship components which, when activated, would reduce your thermal sig but only until they "filled up", at which point your signature would go up higher than it was before. And so on.  Loads of stuff could be done with thermal sigs if there's a good gameplay reason to expand there.  

I do like the idea of more complicated detection and "there's something out there, but we don't know how many, how fast, and how far.  But it's putting out lots of heat."  I also think that 100 sig 100 ships flying close together should be almost as detectable as 1 sig 10,000 ship, I believe at the moment that isn't the case, making big fighterswarms really tough to spot.

[bean]

Assuming lack of stealth, the distance is constant.  If you can reach higher velocities, then you have a brighter signature, so you can be seen farther away. 

[Caplin]

Speaking personally, while I understand the desire for increased realism in this game, I don't want to see the complexity spiral out of control.  I appreciate the current system's compromise between playability and realism, and wouldn't want to have too many other factors to juggle in the already complicated area of ship design.  Now, if Steve wants to code something like this for Aurora II, which is a ground-up rewrite with more realistic aspirations, that's fine with me.  I like internal consistency here, even if that's not in agreement with the laws of physics.