Posted by: James Patten
« on: January 28, 2010, 09:16:38 AM »I suppose "gravitic anomalies" could be introduced which could drastically affect the active grav sensors operation, which changes for the better as your technology improves.
I have added this for the next version. It should add a degree of uncertaintly. Now I just need to figure out how to display it appropriatelyQuote from: "Steve Walmsley"Perhaps an easy mechanic to use, and for players to understand, is to divide current active sensor ranges by 10 and multiply them by the current EM tech. This would halve current starting sensor ranges but they would be about 10% better than at the moment by the time you research the 8000 RP level of EM sensors. 3x better at 120,000 RP and 7.5x better at max tech.I like this idea.
I like the suggestion in principle. I think similar suggestions have been made before and I decided against it. Not sure why I like it more now :-)QuotePerhaps an easy mechanic to use, and for players to understand, is to divide current active sensor ranges by 10 and multiply them by the current EM tech. This would halve current starting sensor ranges but they would be about 10% better than at the moment by the time you research the 8000 RP level of EM sensors. 3x better at 120,000 RP and 7.5x better at max tech.I like this idea.QuoteI agree. The trick would be finding a way to display that uncertainty. Perhaps the display of enemy active sensors could accept a user-provided parameter as the estimated EM sensitivity. Similar to the current display of thermal ranges.Or maybe you could add a slider to the sensor tab (defaulted to 10) on the F3 window that would let the user try out different enemy passive tech levels (which is exactly what you said)QuoteHowever, in many cases you 'know' what the target is based on past active contact so the lack of an ID is more irritation than suspense.
This has been my experience.QuoteAssuming we move to a passive ID model, thermal would definitely provide an ID. Perhaps EM detection of shields would also provide ID due to unique frequencies or some other technobabble. Even EM detection of active sensor emissions might be possible depending on identification of the characteristics of individual sensors. It is probably easiest to have detection based on all passive information rather than change the current active / passive split to active + some passives / other passives.
From a "realism" point of view, I would say that passive EM should only tell you the alien sensor design that you detect, and then you should need to guess as to which class it is (similarly for thermals and engines, perhaps). From a "game play" point of view, my recollection is that we tried that when you first introduced some of the fog-of-war stuff several years back, and it degenerated into a micro-management and user-interface nightmare, with Aurora generating multiple "unidentified yet" entries for the same class which had to be waded through by the player. I think that the current system is best: the identification/matching process is abstracted away as a staff function, in the same way that TMA is.
In other words, I think it's best to abstract it such that any passive contact gives you enough information for a empire/class identification, rather than trying to add nuances to different contact types (thermal/EM/active).
John
Goodaye Steve,
Naval / Professional Poker Player / Crocodile wrestling (never on a Sunday) background.
Yep, like the subsims. Have several shelves of books on sub related topics. Don't know the ones you have mentioned but I'll track them down. Thanks.
I'm enjoying your game. Killed a tree and printed out the first hundred pages of your Trans-Newtonian Campaign AAR and took it away on the family camping trip to read. Answered a lot of questions and a fun story. Pretty bleak future you've painted for poor old mother earth though.
Cheers,
Plugger
A few thoughts to add to the mix.Either you like sub sims as much as I do, or you are in the Navy but only because Aurora is a fleet game rather than a single ship or small task group game (such as Sub Command). If I was writing more of a tactical game then I would love to include many of your suggestions. I need to try and find an abstract level than provides fog of war but doesn't present the player with too much information (based on the fact there could be dozens of hostile ships), or too much micromanagement.
Ok, so it sounds like I'm the lone dissenting voice.I like the suggestion in principle. I think similar suggestions have been made before and I decided against it. Not sure why I like it more now , possibly because it fits with the idea of making enemy sensors ranges more uncertain. Perhaps an easy mechanic to use, and for players to understand, is to divide current active sensor ranges by 10 and multiply them by the current EM tech. This would halve current starting sensor ranges but they would be about 10% better than at the moment by the time you research the 8000 RP level of EM sensors. 3x better at 120,000 RP and 7.5x better at max tech. Or perhaps I change the Thermal and EM tech to match the progression of active sensor tech and use the average value of Active/EM to determine range for active sensors.
When the resolution stuff was put in, the technobabble associated with it was that there was some difference in the signal (e.g. pulse repetition rate) that the emitter gave out that caused the resolution differences. This difference in signal should be detectable by the target, i.e. it is reasonable that the target should know the resolution of the emitter.
At the same time, I don't like the crisp certainty of knowing exactly when the bad guy can pick you up on his actives. So how about this: Add the EM (passive) level to the design of an active sensor, with the range increasing like sqrt(sensor_rating/lowest_tech_sensor_rating). What this represents is that there are two components to an active sensor: the emitter (active strength tech) and the receiver (EM tech). Better passive tech should mean that you can build better receivers, hence the range bonus. In reality, signal should drop off like the fourth power of the distance (inverse square law each way: out and back), but that's such a steep drop that it probably wouldn't be noticable; the sqrt is a compromise between the fourth root and a linear drop. (If you wanted to be drastic, you could have the range be proportional to the passive rating - that would make it even more uncertain.)
With this suggestion, two good things happen (from my point of view):I agree. The trick would be finding a way to display that uncertainty. Perhaps the display of enemy active sensors could accept a user-provided parameter as the estimated EM sensitivity. Similar to the current display of thermal ranges.
1) The target has a feel for the gross characteristics of the active emitter, but still is fuzzy on exactly where the detection threshold is. This is my impression of the way things currently work both for radar and sonar.
2) The design choices for active emitters become richer, and there are other ways to improve actives rather than just cranking up on the active sensor research track.Also agree.
One other thing: I think that my response to this thread is in alignment with my desire to make passives able to identify ships/races (in another thread). If you look at current military signals intelligence (e.g. radar and sonar) it seems like it's all passive, rather than active. Submarines trail other ships trying to get a passive "fingerprint". Elint planes fly around just outside excercises trying to detect characteristics of active emitters. In addition, submarines can launch attacks on other ships without ever going active. Passive intelligence techniques for identifying emitting platforms are very sophisticated; I'd rather see their abstractions in Aurora move in the direction of gaining more information about the emitter, rather than less. On the other hand, a big drawback in passive techniques is range uncertainty - it would be nice if there were an easy-to-code and easy-to-represent way of putting that location uncertainty into passive contacts. At present, I think that abstraction is handled by the requirement that you need an active contact in order for its location to be "good enough" to fire at. Since we don't have another way to abstract the fuzziness, this seems a reasonable way to require people to include active sensors in their designs.In many ways, making passive identification possible would solve a lot of issues within the game, particularly with regard to interrupts for passive targets. It is something I have avoided in order to provide a little more suspense regarding the identity of a target. However, in many cases you 'know' what the target is based on past active contact so the lack of an ID is more irritation than suspense. Even if you do detect a new alien class based on its thermal signature, you will still only have limited information so I think most of the suspense would remain. As you say, requiring active sensors to target a contact reflects the abstraction of not knowing the exact location of passive contacts.
I am assuming that staff officers handle the target motion analysis for passive sensors and provide a location for the target. It's fun to handle that type of detail in a sub simulator but I think it would be more work than fun in a fleet game like Aurora.Quote from: "MoonDragon"From the realism perspective, distance should be easily detectable by passive sensors. All you need is a stereo sensor in order to triangulate the location of the active signal. So, perhaps, that may be a requirement for more info displayed? Need double sensors (or triple if you want to triangulate in 3D)? Or maybe this can be something you add to the sensor itself. Make it so that its mass can be doubled, but that gives you distance info to the detected target.
Don´t see the need for two sensors. Put sensor on outer hull, look at target, roll ship. We _are_ in space, you know
On the other hand, how large has the baseline to be, to triangulate a target, say, 100 million km away?
On the other hand, how large has the baseline to be, to triangulate a target, say, 100 million km away?
From the realism perspective, distance should be easily detectable by passive sensors. All you need is a stereo sensor in order to triangulate the location of the active signal. So, perhaps, that may be a requirement for more info displayed? Need double sensors (or triple if you want to triangulate in 3D)? Or maybe this can be something you add to the sensor itself. Make it so that its mass can be doubled, but that gives you distance info to the detected target.