Aurora PD Targeting

[Kurt (OP)]

Steve -

Based on a recent battle in the Six Powers campaign, I have a number of observations and questions about this subject.  Please note that the issues raised below are based on what I THOUGHT was going in in this battle, but I may have been wrong as to what I perceived happening.  To wit:

1.  In a situation where there are ships from multiple governments involved in a battle, how does Aurora handle selecting targets for PD weapons (both Beams and missiles)?  I ask this because I noted in a battle where there were two sides, with ships from two governments on each side, the targeting seemed...interesting.  I'm not sure exactly what I saw, but...it appeared that the laser PD weapons only engaged missiles aimed at ships of the same government.  I couldn't tell with the anti-missiles, but they definited attacked missiles of the allied government that were aimed at ships far away from the ships that launched the anti-missiles.  

2.  Beam/kinetic point defense fires seem to attack incoming missiles in a squential manner.  In other words, it appears that PD #1 attacks missile salvo #1, PD#2 attacks missile salvo #1, and so on until missile salvo #1 is destroyed, then PD#x moves on missile salvo #2.  This creates a situation where one or more ships aren't attacked by any missiles because PD stopped them, while other ships are attacked by full salvoes, because PD never got to their missiles.  Randomizing the salvoes targeted by PD would probably eliminate this as an issue.  

3.  As I noted above, it appears that beam/kinetic PD was only defending ships that were from the same race/government, leaving an ally unprotected, while it appeared that anti-missiles would attack any missiles that weren't launched by the same government/race, killing missiles from an allied government.  There really should be a way to designate other ships/races as either exempt from anti-missile fire, or as protected by beam point defense.  

I'm sure I'll think of more in a bit  

Kurt

[SteveAlt]

Steve -

Based on a recent battle in the Six Powers campaign, I have a number of observations and questions about this subject.  Please note that the issues raised below are based on what I THOUGHT was going in in this battle, but I may have been wrong as to what I perceived happening.  To wit:

1.  In a situation where there are ships from multiple governments involved in a battle, how does Aurora handle selecting targets for PD weapons (both Beams and missiles)?  I ask this because I noted in a battle where there were two sides, with ships from two governments on each side, the targeting seemed...interesting.  I'm not sure exactly what I saw, but...it appeared that the laser PD weapons only engaged missiles aimed at ships of the same government.  I couldn't tell with the anti-missiles, but they definited attacked missiles of the allied government that were aimed at ships far away from the ships that launched the anti-missiles.  

2.  Beam/kinetic point defense fires seem to attack incoming missiles in a squential manner.  In other words, it appears that PD #1 attacks missile salvo #1, PD#2 attacks missile salvo #1, and so on until missile salvo #1 is destroyed, then PD#x moves on missile salvo #2.  This creates a situation where one or more ships aren't attacked by any missiles because PD stopped them, while other ships are attacked by full salvoes, because PD never got to their missiles.  Randomizing the salvoes targeted by PD would probably eliminate this as an issue.  

3.  As I noted above, it appears that beam/kinetic PD was only defending ships that were from the same race/government, leaving an ally unprotected, while it appeared that anti-missiles would attack any missiles that weren't launched by the same government/race, killing missiles from an allied government.  There really should be a way to designate other ships/races as either exempt from anti-missile fire, or as protected by beam point defense.  

At the moment the point defence code treats all other races as hostile so if you had beams on area mode they would shoot at missiles of friendly powers too

Adding more intelligence to point defence isn't quite as simple as it sounds. If unknown missiles appear on your sensors, how would you know to which race they belonged? What happens if a hostile power fires missiles bought from a friendly power? Would your automated defences refuse to engage in that situation? The best option might be to treat any incoming missile as hostile and defend against it but a subtle opponent might simply aim his missiles at a point in space until the last moment and then pick a target.

I think the best way to handle this is some type of technobabble, along the lines of allied powers will have some type of IFF on their missiles so you won't shoot at them, and assume your PD is smart enough to know what to shoot at. As a start, I have added a Hostile / Neutral / Friendly option to the Tactical Intelligence window so you can designate other races appropriately. In that case you can engage missiles from hostile powers, defend friendly ships and ignore neutrals. I'll give it some more thought and post on the mods I have made.

Steve

[SteveAlt]

The first change I have made is that contacts show up on the system map in different colours depending on whether they are hostile, neutral or friendly. The contacts that can be determined as hostile, neutral or friendly are active ship and missile contacts, transponder contacts and population contacts. Apart from populations, thermal and EM contacts cannot be identified as a particular Empire so they are always hostile.

You can also give a race an abbrevation of up to 4 chars on the TacIntel window and this will be shown as part of the contact information for those contacts that qualify for the colour rating above.

Steve

[SteveAlt]

2.  Beam/kinetic point defense fires seem to attack incoming missiles in a squential manner.  In other words, it appears that PD #1 attacks missile salvo #1, PD#2 attacks missile salvo #1, and so on until missile salvo #1 is destroyed, then PD#x moves on missile salvo #2.  This creates a situation where one or more ships aren't attacked by any missiles because PD stopped them, while other ships are attacked by full salvoes, because PD never got to their missiles.  Randomizing the salvoes targeted by PD would probably eliminate this as an issue.  

I forgot to address this point. PD area mode will attack the closest target. If several salvos are equally close, the largest salvo is targeted. If a fire control in PD mode tries to fire at a salvo that has already been destroyed earlier in the same phase, it will automatically change targets. Using this method, point defence starts with the largest salvos and works through to the smallest. Randomising might result in fire controls with a lot of weapons assigned attacking small salvos. In fact, a valid tactic would then be to send a lot of small salvos and one large one to try and distract PD from the greatest threat.

The method being used is also why having several fire controls with only a few weapons assigned to each will provide a better defence than having every weapon assigned to a single fire control, which should reflect reality.

With the longer ranged defence provided by point defence missiles, you can already assign fire controls to be independent. This means they won't shoot at incoming salvos being targeted by other fire control systems until all incoming salvos are targeted.

Steve

[SteveAlt]

In v3.2, your area mode beam/kinetic point defence and missile launchers in PD mode will only engage "hostile" missiles. Hostile missiles are those belonging to a power currently identified as hostile on the Tactical Intelligence window (which is the default status for every alien race). If you set a race to friendly or neutral, only point defence in point-blank mode will engage their missiles.

Point defence set to point blank mode will protect your own ships and those of a friendly power. It will ignore missiles striking neutral or hostile targets.

To summarise
Hostile Empires: You will engage their missiles with area or missile PD modes and you won't protect their ships in PB mode
Neutral Empires: You won't engage their missiles with area or missile PD modes and you won't protect their ships in PB mode
Friendly Empires: You won't engage their missiles with area or missile PD modes and you will protect their ships in PB mode
All Empires: You will engage their missiles in PB mode.

It's possible you might protect hostile or neutral ships with area mode or PD missile if you have your fire control set to an automated mode and you are near to the ships of two hostile/neutral Empires when they start shooting at each other. In this case, either safe your weapons or set them both to neutral.

Steve

[jfelten]

The first change I have made is that contacts show up on the system map in different colours depending on whether they are hostile, neutral or friendly. The contacts that can be determined as hostile, neutral or friendly are active ship and missile contacts, transponder contacts and population contacts. Apart from populations, thermal and EM contacts cannot be identified as a particular Empire so they are always hostile.
Steve

How do I change it so civilian ships built by my race are not marked as hostile?

[Steve Walmsley]

The first change I have made is that contacts show up on the system map in different colours depending on whether they are hostile, neutral or friendly. The contacts that can be determined as hostile, neutral or friendly are active ship and missile contacts, transponder contacts and population contacts. Apart from populations, thermal and EM contacts cannot be identified as a particular Empire so they are always hostile.

How do I change it so civilian ships built by my race are not marked as hostile?

Go on to the Tactical Intelligence Window (rightmost button on the System Map) and set them as friendly. Note that only active contacts can be determined as hostile, neutral or friendly. Thermal and EM are always hostile.

Steve