Author Topic: Decoys  (Read 3613 times)

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Offline Alucard (OP)

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Decoys
« on: March 26, 2019, 04:17:44 PM »
Could we get decoys for missiles, that would generate heat/EM to confuse enemy sensors? Would this be too hard to code? Event if in flight missiles do not ever retarget, it would be nice to be able to confuse new missiles and generally enemy groups.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Decoys
« Reply #1 on: March 26, 2019, 04:25:04 PM »
Could we get decoys for missiles, that would generate heat/EM to confuse enemy sensors? Would this be too hard to code? Event if in flight missiles do not ever retarget, it would be nice to be able to confuse new missiles and generally enemy groups.

I've been planning something on these lines for years :)

I will get around to it at some point.
 
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Offline Father Tim

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Re: Decoys
« Reply #2 on: March 26, 2019, 04:58:40 PM »
Could we get decoys for missiles, that would generate heat/EM to confuse enemy sensors? Would this be too hard to code? Event if in flight missiles do not ever retarget, it would be nice to be able to confuse new missiles and generally enemy groups.

How would this be different from missiles with no warheads?  Or do you mean missiles that put out enough EM or Thermal radiation to appear to be ships?  (In which case, there would need to be a way to specify exactly the output desired, or one risks having to choose between signature 268 and signature 262 decoys, when one fields signature 264 ships.)
 

Offline Rich.h

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Re: Decoys
« Reply #3 on: March 26, 2019, 05:03:07 PM »
Just as a quick and dirty method for this. Could you implement a robotic ship component, this would function by simply applying either a reduction to the number of crew required, or function by generating crew amounts based on it's size as per fuel tanks etc (though it would then only offer numbers in stepped increments). This part allows to you have a functioning "drone" ship to use. Secondly have a tech line of components that generate both TH & EM, allow the tech line to do similar to engines do, but working by generating larger amounts of TH/EM per HS as the tech advances.

Put together you get yourself a small drone vessel you can launch to flare up like a big target, then control it with standard movement orders. Obviously these ideas are open to abuse but then there are easier ways to "cheat" if someone really wants to.
 

Offline hubgbf

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Re: Decoys
« Reply #4 on: March 27, 2019, 06:13:54 AM »
Implementing a decoy system means implementing a way to detect the true ships, with technological level and level of the crew taken into account.

It is in some way the abstract mecanism of ECM and ECCM.
Perhaps adding some uncertainty about the number of ennemy ships due to ECM, ECCM and crew level will be enough.
Note : You can roleplay that your ECM is fooling the enemy sensors with false signature and so render them unable to fire until they get nearer.

Such uncertainty means to change the detection system through : you do not detect automatically individual ships, but task group, and you need to use the new sensors, and some time, to improve fiability. Distance is also a factor.

I like the way it is represented in Honor harrington :
First you detect an hyperspace footprint when transiting form n-space, then you can detect individual wedges and their power, and you could give them a class. superdreadnought, cruiser, etc... There can be drones wich simulates, for a time, a ship.
A ship can play with its wedge to try to appear bigger or smaller, at a cost in composant life (can be implemented by increasing the chance for a composant to break, or the time from the last maintenance), etc..

But better an aurora version without this now than an aurora verison with later...
 

Offline Adseria

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Re: Decoys
« Reply #5 on: March 27, 2019, 06:46:25 AM »
Implementing a decoy system means implementing a way to detect the true ships, with technological level and level of the crew taken into account.

It is in some way the abstract mecanism of ECM and ECCM.
Perhaps adding some uncertainty about the number of ennemy ships due to ECM, ECCM and crew level will be enough.
Note : You can roleplay that your ECM is fooling the enemy sensors with false signature and so render them unable to fire until they get nearer.

Such uncertainty means to change the detection system through : you do not detect automatically individual ships, but task group, and you need to use the new sensors, and some time, to improve fiability. Distance is also a factor.

I like the way it is represented in Honor harrington :
First you detect an hyperspace footprint when transiting form n-space, then you can detect individual wedges and their power, and you could give them a class. superdreadnought, cruiser, etc... There can be drones wich simulates, for a time, a ship.
A ship can play with its wedge to try to appear bigger or smaller, at a cost in composant life (can be implemented by increasing the chance for a composant to break, or the time from the last maintenance), etc..

But better an aurora version without this now than an aurora verison with later...

Presumably, active sensors would be able to tell that the decoy wasn't as big as a ship.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Decoys
« Reply #6 on: March 27, 2019, 07:47:01 AM »
But better an aurora version without this now than an aurora verison with later...

Yes, this won't be in v1.0
 
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Target Drone

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Re: Decoys
« Reply #7 on: March 27, 2019, 07:59:29 AM »
Quote from: Father Tim link=topic=10314. msg113362#msg113362 date=1553637520
Quote from: Alucard link=topic=10314. msg113355#msg113355 date=1553635064
Could we get decoys for missiles, that would generate heat/EM to confuse enemy sensors? Would this be too hard to code? Event if in flight missiles do not ever retarget, it would be nice to be able to confuse new missiles and generally enemy groups.

How would this be different from missiles with no warheads?  Or do you mean missiles that put out enough EM or Thermal radiation to appear to be ships?  (In which case, there would need to be a way to specify exactly the output desired, or one risks having to choose between signature 268 and signature 262 decoys, when one fields signature 264 ships. )

If C# is anything like VB aurora in terms of ship identification, it would be able to tell if two 264 signature ships were the same class or not, even if one was an identical copy of the other's design and tell individual ships of the same class apart.  Which, ok, not unrealistic, even ships of the same class can be expected to not be identical and have their own tells; they're not just a bright point of genetic IR light against the black(heck, you can get a ton of data from a pinpoint of light to fingerprint what's causing it).

KISS approach might instead to be able to select what design(if any) you want your decoy to fake, and maybe what specific ship of that design(if any) you want to fake(maybe allow some range of similar designs, like those that can be built at a shipyard without retooling to reuse a mechanic) when you launch them.  Maybe add a "launch decoy and cut engines" order or something so the other side doesn't briefly see two of the same ship on thermals before one goes cold and gives the game away.  I expect that would be the simplest to program, mostly just making the AI smart enough to handle it, tho that would be no small task in itself.

Actually I think actual KISS for just handling self-defence missile decoys and not tricking the NPR/etcs and the ilk would be to just have a decoy missile component that needs X MSP of Decoy per HS of ship - maybe a tech line for it - with a line in the missile description like "can protect ships up to X tons", size instead of thermal or EM for simplicity and most missile attacks use active sensor locks via ship fire control links anyway(and needs to be atleast fast enough to keep up) so you can't stick a thousand in your magazines and they need a large launcher with a naturally longer reload, while also needing to have ECM.  Fat decoy missiles + fire control(maybe a fixed size Decoy Controller instead), launched decoys travel in the same location with the launching ship until out of fuel or destroyed or the FCS is lost, maybe one decoy per FCS or something to limit the ability to spam them; incoming missile salvo has a base chance to attack a ship's decoys instead of the ship based on ECM/ECCM calcs, say 30-50% at equal tech(better if you're more advanced, worse if you're less), and attack the decoys like they were AMMs but maybe with increased miss chance than normal because it's a dedicated platform(using missile agility to improve decoy suitability is a thought but I think that's going agay in C#? Might have just been chatter, can't find Steve saying it was being removed at the moment but I may've missed it), missiles left to attack if all decoys are destroyed resolve their attack against the target ship as normal.    Need to add some new components and add a decoy component to missiles, decoys are just missiles that follow the launching ship, I think the only real system that would need any changes would be the missile attack resolution to slot a decoy phase in; it's probably not quite that simple shouldn't be too bad.  Assuming it was felt to add enough to gameplay, anyway; making missile decoys meaningfully distinct from ECM and AMMs. . .  well the game already has a lot of ways to defend against missiles.  I was thinking something almost like a towed torpedo decoy here, thematically/mechanically. 

Tho I suppose it could simplify a bit if focused on that concept with a spinal-like one-per-ship Towed Decoy Launcher(or something) checkbox in missile launcher design, neatly solving the issue of balancing just-add-more-decoys issue; attack check sees if the towed decoy launcher is ready and loaded with an adequate decoy for the ship size, if so it resolves the attack against the decoy, if the decoy is destroyed the decoy launcher reloads, no need to launch anything under the assumption that decoys not destroyed are simply recovered.   

But at this point we're pretty far from the whole deception and trickery angle.
 

Offline CheaterEater

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Re: Decoys
« Reply #8 on: March 27, 2019, 01:48:22 PM »
I like the way it is represented in Honor harrington :
First you detect an hyperspace footprint when transiting form n-space, then you can detect individual wedges and their power, and you could give them a class. superdreadnought, cruiser, etc... There can be drones wich simulates, for a time, a ship.
A ship can play with its wedge to try to appear bigger or smaller, at a cost in composant life (can be implemented by increasing the chance for a composant to break, or the time from the last maintenance), etc..

But better an aurora version without this now than an aurora verison with later...

I started listening to the Honor Harrington series in the last few years, and it's been great linking the "feel" of the books/genre back to Aurora. All the ECM and other sensor trickery is something that would be fantastic to see in Aurora... eventually.
 

Offline Lans834

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Re: Decoys
« Reply #9 on: March 27, 2019, 03:47:08 PM »
How about for the decoys, to just set up a system similar to CIWS except it uses a launcher that launches purpose built decoy in the last seconds before the missiles hit.  Each 'decoy launcher' would have a limited supply of decoys, though a ship could have any number of the launchers.  The decoys themselves would have a chance of fooling incoming missiles to go after them instead, modified by the ships ECM (to simulate sensor interference) and each missile has a chance of being affected.  The decoys could be set to launch a set number of decoys (say 0-3) like how AMM's can be set.


Decoys themselves could either be a generic item, MSP, or even an new piece of equipment that has a tech line associated with it.  The basic premise is that the decoys are launched, has a small booster to get them away from the ship, and radiates heat and em as if they are the ship, simulating the outputs of the ship at the time of launch.  Ships equipped with the decoys and launcher would have a limited number of decoys, and could only reload either in a hanger or at maintenance facilities.
 

Offline Bremen

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Re: Decoys
« Reply #10 on: March 27, 2019, 05:46:08 PM »
I started listening to the Honor Harrington series in the last few years, and it's been great linking the "feel" of the books/genre back to Aurora. All the ECM and other sensor trickery is something that would be fantastic to see in Aurora... eventually.

They're older and the quality of the writing is not as good, but David Weber also did some books based on Starfire, the game that Aurora started out based on. I enjoy them just because it's basically like reading a quality Aurora AAR :P
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Decoys
« Reply #11 on: March 28, 2019, 05:24:25 AM »
How about for the decoys, to just set up a system similar to CIWS except it uses a launcher that launches purpose built decoy in the last seconds before the missiles hit.  Each 'decoy launcher' would have a limited supply of decoys, though a ship could have any number of the launchers.  The decoys themselves would have a chance of fooling incoming missiles to go after them instead, modified by the ships ECM (to simulate sensor interference) and each missile has a chance of being affected.  The decoys could be set to launch a set number of decoys (say 0-3) like how AMM's can be set.


Decoys themselves could either be a generic item, MSP, or even an new piece of equipment that has a tech line associated with it.  The basic premise is that the decoys are launched, has a small booster to get them away from the ship, and radiates heat and em as if they are the ship, simulating the outputs of the ship at the time of launch.  Ships equipped with the decoys and launcher would have a limited number of decoys, and could only reload either in a hanger or at maintenance facilities.

Yes, I have considered something like this in the past. Something on the lines of an AN/SLQ-25 Nixie. It would have to be large and/or expensive so a ship might only carry a very limited number - perhaps only one or two - but it would be a good defence against large missile waves. Each missile in a salvo would make a check for potential diversion, depending on the relative technology.
 
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Offline Froggiest1982

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Re: Decoys
« Reply #12 on: March 30, 2019, 02:07:56 AM »
Could we get decoys for missiles, that would generate heat/EM to confuse enemy sensors? Would this be too hard to code? Event if in flight missiles do not ever retarget, it would be nice to be able to confuse new missiles and generally enemy groups.

BlueEmu AAR, Rocks. However many consider these cheating as the AI wasn't that brilliant. Now with the refurbished one may be obsolete, but there are strategies in place already to potentially create your decoys. If the Ai learns it you just have to keep changing them.