Author Topic: ECM/ECCM Missile Tracking Deactivation  (Read 3019 times)

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Offline Xkill (OP)

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ECM/ECCM Missile Tracking Deactivation
« on: September 08, 2017, 02:53:58 AM »
==Summary|

Make ECM have a more pronounced effect on combat by making it have a direct influence on missiles themselves instead of just fire control range. This would be done by making ECM deactivate (not destroy or change), a missile's tracking systems if it is in range.

*Occupy, distract, thin salvos, not destroy them;
*ECM range affected by ECM ship's sensor range;
*Number of missiles deactvated based on ECM rating, possibly based on a point system;
*ECCM reactivates missiles, or keeps them from being deactivated in the first place.

==Proposal|

I have been playing a lot of Starsector lately. I feel that the flare launcher system in that game is quite interesting. Maybe some of that could be transplanted to Aurora?

The idea is that ECM systems should interfere with a missile's (salvo perhaps) tracking, making it temporariy lose it's target. I specifically say "lose it's target", instead of "swerve in random arc", "blow up", "have their drives deactivated/fried", or anything very permanent. The intention is to occupy, distract, not destroy missiles.

To avoid a situation where ECM disables missiles anywhere in the system, I believe it's effects should be based on the ECM ship's sensor (fire control?) range, perhaps something like 1/10 of sensor range would be appropriate.

If a missile is attacked by ECM, it simply keeps moving forward until fuel runs out, it's intercepted or leaves ECM range. This ties down that ECM component, and so, it cannot affect any other targets in range until the current target is somehow removed.

If a missile leaves ECM range while still active then ... it ... uhh ... I don't know. Maybe it could blow up; perhaps if it still has fuel, but not enough to reach it's target then it self destructs; perhaps it could be left in the game if the ECM systems are now occupied with other targets ...

The ECM effect should keep operating indefinitely until the missile can no longer be affected or the ECM system is destroyed. Could give an accuracy bonus to beam PD, due to temporarily releasing it's effect on missiles that are far away and instead deactivate intercepting ones. Could also just blow them up once they get on an attack run, and due to not having any tracking, fail it. Regular missles already self-destruct if they miss.

I think the effect of ECCM should be simple. Just keep a number of missiles equal to the ECCM rating that are in sensor range from being deactivated. Or perhaps, reactivate already disabled missiles.

ECM systems could have a point rating, linked to the current ECM/ECCM rating. The points would represent the number of missiles that can be affected by the ECM/ECCM system. I'm not too sure on exact numbers.

ECM could be used to help an allies ships against enemy missiles perhaps? Normal PD already does it.

==Possible effects|

#Effect on ECM/ECCM tech:

Would make it a far more attractive and valuable technology, worth investing heavily in, being a very useful support component for normal PD. Perhaps even a substitute for it in fleets that depend on large numbers.

Beam heavy fleets like the Brazillians from Steve's Colonial Wars game would be able to reduce some of the clear missile superiority in the game, making beam weapons more valuable and more menacing.

#Effect on missiles:

Missiles equipped with ECCM would become a more interesting idea, perhaps even mixing warhead missiles with ECM missiles in the same salvo, making missiles in general less helpless against heavy missile PD.

Alternative type of AMM missile sporting ECCM?

Decoy missles to fool ECM systems?

#Effect on ships:

Could encourage bigger battles, with fleets more spread out to take advantage of ECM, using the formation feature more. Battle groups with smaller numbers of ships would be more vulnerable to ECM.

Missile only fleets would be dangerous propositions, for ECM could render them defenceless, possibly forcing investment in more PD, even more missiles, or ECCM. This may or may not be desirable.

#Effect on fighters:

This is complicated. Currently there is a "compact ECM" tech that allows fighters to mount ECM systems, if the missile foiling effect is kept even on these components, this can lead to a situation where someone simply fills a 40k ton carrier with ECM pods that consist of nothing but engineering and ECM, and deactivate every last missile in someone's navy, making this whole idea extremely OP.

The simplest solution is to make compact ECM have the range reducing effect only.

Perhaps compact ECM should have a reduced effect compared to full size, so, for instance, 10 fighters would be needed to occupy a single missile.

ECM on bombing fighters could be interesting to counteract enemy missile PD on the approach.

#Effect on ship design:

Could heavily affect ship design. ECM/ECCM would now be a serious consideration. ECM related component sizes would almost certainly need to be increased. I can totally envision an ECM arms race between species or powers, as a great discrepancy in ECM/ECCM capability could totally cripple someone's navy.

Navies based on large numbers of cheap ships become an interesting alternative, giving an edge to tech primitive but ECM advanced races in relation to more generally advanced races.

#Effect on [CENSORED]:

Could make them even harder and scarier, especially the dreaded [CENSORED]. [CENSORED] missile defence bases would get a bit of extra omph as well as their normal ships. I'm not sure if the [CENSORED] use ECM; pretty sure the [CENSORED] don't, but if they did with these changes (especially their [CENSORED]) they would be really, really difficult to fight with missiles, particularly if you lost a big survey ship or even an entire fleet to them.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: ECM/ECCM Missile Tracking Deactivation
« Reply #1 on: September 08, 2017, 01:13:20 PM »
There are some changes for ECM / ECCM with regard to missiles in C# Aurora.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg103096#msg103096