Author Topic: New sensor model and small fighters. Problem?  (Read 4797 times)

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Iranon

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Re: New sensor model and small fighters. Problem?
« Reply #15 on: February 21, 2018, 05:50:51 AM »
@ alex_brunius:
ECM can be somewhat negated by overengineered fire controls (sensors are a harder limit than FCs because they are larger fo the same range)... but they can force a guessing game and will generally force measures costlier than themselves so still a win.
Cloaking device would work reliably, especially coupled with a cloaked sensor craft specifically made to detect small fighters instead of small scouts.
So fair points on both.

Cloaks especially face the same problem as building the destroyer like an oversized fighter though: heavy specialisation and considerable expense (both tech and build cost). I stated possible solutions to a hard reliance on small fighters myself; cheaper ones too albeit with less room for error.
The main point is having to jump through hoops and getting things exactly right to counter something basic.

In the current version, I've had tiny fighters trying to use their small footprint engaged successfully because the AI invested into surprisingly large and powerful AMM sensors. Craft designed to outrun and outrange beam threats came under fire because the target matched one of these, had superior E(C)CM, the enemy had missiles in reserve when I thought that phase of the battle was over, or simple because they didn't execute their orders flawlessly. The "nearly tactically invincible" things aren't economically appealing (e.g. "throw enough size-1 missiles at any problem until the problem blows up" or "oversized sensors + stealth + long-ranged missiles including decoy systems").
Most things have various incidental soft counters that can realistically crop up even when the opponent isn't playing optimally or using extremely tight designs. I think this is different.

@ Jorgen_CAB:
A size-1 sensor would seem quite small. If we have a 1.8HS sensor on the sensor variants, we can fit a matching fire control and a size 8 box launcher on the offensive variants, 180t on my example design (will need slightly more fuel in C# to maintain reasonable performance and enough endurance to not need a carrier, but definitely below 200t). This is actually slightly on the large side for what I had in mind; if it was possible to build non-missile engines <1HS I'd go considerably smaller.

*

Admittedly, all this assumes sensor range will remain relevant.
With the changes to missile fuel consumption, this will probably require multistage missiles for any acceptable performance... another aspect where the new system will likely require much more thorough knowledge of the mechanics to come up with something in any way functional.
But that's probably something for a different doomsaying thread :)
 

Offline Tuna-Fish

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Re: New sensor model and small fighters. Problem?
« Reply #16 on: February 21, 2018, 07:16:07 AM »
One part of the puzzle I've not seen much thinking about is that by making small sensors better, the new system makes active missile sensors *much* better.

One aspect of this is that the best answer to fighters might not even be catching them on your actives, but using heat-seeking missiles, fired (roughly) in the direction of their sensor contact.

Another is that very small sensor buoys are much better than they used to be.  Maybe combat in c# will involve firing off a lot of missile-contained sensor buoys to blanket the area they might be coming from?.
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: New sensor model and small fighters. Problem?
« Reply #17 on: February 21, 2018, 11:52:08 AM »
@Iranon

Not sure why you are hung up on the size of sensors (I was talking about fire-controls)... the only thing I said was that you need a sensor eight times larger and that it is possible, the sizes was clearly just examples. I also clearly said this type of ship would not be meant to target long range bombers directly.

In my opinion a larger bomber that carry more missiles per tonage is much more efficient than a smaller fighter for the purpose of long range engagements.

The precise range and engagement ranges will be moot because it will still be about which side find the others first that will have the major advantage.

There is no point in sending in fighters with large resolution fire-controlls before you localize those ships. That will be hard with a good anti-fighter screen of smallish sensor crafts/ships.

This could be the role of a Destroyer to support. They would not be deployed as one solution but as part of a combined force.

One size 8 missile on a 180t scout is a pretty small threat in general to a decent anti-missile screen, especially if the opponent knows the threat vector and you send missile with a slow second stage very large missile.
A larger bomber will be able to mount more missiles. And if you neutralize the opponents scout forces, even temporarily you can fire outside the threat range relatively easily and will not need to use a second stage missile.

When I mention you can have long range anti-fighter missiles I don't mean against long range bombers but rather to engage medium to short range fighters who most be much closer to engage your scout screen.

As I said, these destroyers would need to use AMM and interceptors to defend against long range bombers... I think this is a good balance and give you choices to work with and use more tactics than you did before.

I would allways station a few interceptors on each destroyers in addition to a few sensor scouts. Carriers would have a wide mix of fighters but would carry the fleets main bomber wings.

You also need to consider that some strategies are not allowed in RP even if they are technically viable. For example would I never allow for longer deployment small fighter craft in anything but very small numbers because it is unrealistic form a human perspective and I mostly play human campaigns. It should be extremely rare to find military ships with more the 12 month deployments, humans simply don't function that well when confined to small spaces with limited social interactions, the smaller the crew the worse it is.
« Last Edit: February 21, 2018, 12:31:49 PM by Jorgen_CAB »
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: New sensor model and small fighters. Problem?
« Reply #18 on: February 21, 2018, 11:58:42 AM »
One part of the puzzle I've not seen much thinking about is that by making small sensors better, the new system makes active missile sensors *much* better.

One aspect of this is that the best answer to fighters might not even be catching them on your actives, but using heat-seeking missiles, fired (roughly) in the direction of their sensor contact.

Another is that very small sensor buoys are much better than they used to be.  Maybe combat in c# will involve firing off a lot of missile-contained sensor buoys to blanket the area they might be coming from?.

I definitely think that sensor buoys can become more important as will missiles with both passive and active sensors.
 

Iranon

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Re: New sensor model and small fighters. Problem?
« Reply #19 on: February 21, 2018, 03:40:58 PM »
I'm hung up on specifics because it's easy to overlook things otherwise.
If your sensor is optimised for 250t fighters and the true quarry is 180t, the sensors don't need to be 8x as large for parity... since it loses almost half its range, it needs to be 30x as large.
In this case you'd need a 54HS sensor, which isn't even possible. Even if you have scouts that can paint compact fighters without being shot down (dubious because the same concept applies in a less extreme form), Resolution-5 fire controls would have to be 18HS each. Certainly possible... but if you want a pair as you stated earlier, that's quite huge. How big is this ship going to be?

If hunting fighters alone, a cloaking device can give a larger ship the advantage without getting the size of their quarry exactly right. Obviously, this wouldn't work for escorting an unstealthed fleet.

Of course, one missile fighter is no threat, the question is how they perform for their cost. The missile fighters are aoubt 3.6x as expensive as their ordnance, quite a bit but imo still acceptable for mass production given stealth and salvo dispersion. They don't need much locistics support (30b range, 18 months deployment time; performance is going to suffer or size is going to go up in C#) beyond spotters.
If we don't increase the range, larger bombers would be considerably cheaper for a given amount of ordnance... but would lose much of what makes the fighters attractive.
« Last Edit: February 21, 2018, 03:47:29 PM by Iranon »
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: New sensor model and small fighters. Problem?
« Reply #20 on: February 22, 2018, 01:11:20 PM »
I'm hung up on specifics because it's easy to overlook things otherwise.
If your sensor is optimised for 250t fighters and the true quarry is 180t, the sensors don't need to be 8x as large for parity... since it loses almost half its range, it needs to be 30x as large.
In this case you'd need a 54HS sensor, which isn't even possible. Even if you have scouts that can paint compact fighters without being shot down (dubious because the same concept applies in a less extreme form), Resolution-5 fire controls would have to be 18HS each. Certainly possible... but if you want a pair as you stated earlier, that's quite huge. How big is this ship going to be?

If hunting fighters alone, a cloaking device can give a larger ship the advantage without getting the size of their quarry exactly right. Obviously, this wouldn't work for escorting an unstealthed fleet.

Of course, one missile fighter is no threat, the question is how they perform for their cost. The missile fighters are aoubt 3.6x as expensive as their ordnance, quite a bit but imo still acceptable for mass production given stealth and salvo dispersion. They don't need much locistics support (30b range, 18 months deployment time; performance is going to suffer or size is going to go up in C#) beyond spotters.
If we don't increase the range, larger bombers would be considerably cheaper for a given amount of ordnance... but would lose much of what makes the fighters attractive.

I specifically stated I used the examples of res 5 versus 100 because that was the example Steve uses, specifics are pointless because it all depends.

You first need to find the ships to even engage them and I also specifically stated such a ship would not be used direct against long range bombers.

I still think a larger fighter with more weapons is more efficient in general because you must first remove the opposing scout screen to get to the main ships no matter what.

Fighters don't have much in the way of defences so if they are detected and engaged they die fast, especially against interceptor or other anti-fighter crafts.

Destroyers of this kind would only use their long range anti-fighter system against medium  to short range fighters and send interceptors against long range bombers. I'm pretty sure long range anti-ship systems are limited more to the actual missile design as much as the fire-control. I don't even claim they would be a perfect counter, I don't belive in that because such a thing don't exist in first place. They would be part of a mix and they will be able to defend themselves quite well if they get into a bad spot. I could see such ships be anything from 10-20.000 tons. I would see fleets having all kinds of ships in supporting role ranging from 125-30000 tons. Carriers would be as large a ship you could make.

The problem with all fighters are that they can easily be destroyed if caught in a trap or exposed in the wrong place. I firmely believe a mix will all ways be better.

Is small sensors better... yes... is small platforms better in the scouting role... yes... are therefore large ships useless... no.
 

Offline QuakeIV

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Re: New sensor model and small fighters. Problem?
« Reply #21 on: February 22, 2018, 01:54:58 PM »
I think this could potentially be seriously amusing.  This kills large direct combat warships almost completely, but I really enjoy carrier centric warfare regardless, so if we get some actually good tools to manage large numbers of fighters and enemy vessels then this is good to go e:(as far as I am concerned anyhow).
« Last Edit: February 22, 2018, 02:02:26 PM by QuakeIV »