v1.13.0 Changes Discussion Thread

[nuclearslurpee]

All this missile talk might be better off in its own thread.

You would think so, but within ten posts that thread would be a discussion about ground forces or something. It's really quite impressive how these things go.

[QuakeIV]

By the way, made the aforementioned test executable (compiled for windows and linux)

Also included source code (should all be attached to this post)

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Will missile retargeting be fixed in v1.13?

What is the bug?

As it stands self-guided missile salvos that hit their target simultaneously will not avoid overkill like they used to in VB6. My understanding is that when a bunch of self-guided missiles destroy a target, any missiles that are still around should re-target another ship within their detection radius - this does not happen for any salvos that hit their target at the same time.

Re-targeting only works if the salvos are staggered where they arrive one-after-the-other. Thanks to how gauss PD works, this makes the main feature of self-guidance very bad against anything that has PD. This kind of makes self-guided incredibly weak compared to standard missiles, especially thanks to the changes to onboard sensor size.

That is working as intended. If missiles A and B arrive simultaneously, then B would not know if A had destroyed the target ship and therefore could not change behaviour on that basis.

[Droll]

Will missile retargeting be fixed in v1.13?

What is the bug?

As it stands self-guided missile salvos that hit their target simultaneously will not avoid overkill like they used to in VB6. My understanding is that when a bunch of self-guided missiles destroy a target, any missiles that are still around should re-target another ship within their detection radius - this does not happen for any salvos that hit their target at the same time.

Re-targeting only works if the salvos are staggered where they arrive one-after-the-other. Thanks to how gauss PD works, this makes the main feature of self-guidance very bad against anything that has PD. This kind of makes self-guided incredibly weak compared to standard missiles, especially thanks to the changes to onboard sensor size.

That is working as intended. If missiles A and B arrive simultaneously, then B would not know if A had destroyed the target ship and therefore could not change behaviour on that basis.

Very well, that by itself is fine, but you do also understand that this makes naval mines largely useless correct? Because if I put 30 mines in one spot, the most they can do is destroy one ship according to this.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Very well, that by itself is fine, but you do also understand that this makes naval mines largely useless correct? Because if I put 30 mines in one spot, the most they can do is destroy one ship according to this.

Mines don't really work at all anyway so not sure it matters all that much. Mines if implemented could use a similar method as the "fire at will" command to semi randomly target something.

In general mines don't work all that well to begin with as you only need one ship to trigger a whole minefield.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Very well, that by itself is fine, but you do also understand that this makes naval mines largely useless correct? Because if I put 30 mines in one spot, the most they can do is destroy one ship according to this.

Maybe don't put all the mines in the same spot

If you stagger the location of the mines, that will also stagger their arrival at the target. For example, if you have missiles that are 20,000 km/s, set up one set of mines at 99,000 km and a second at 101,000 km (and a third at 201,000, etc.). Or setup mines at max distance but in two or more directions, so that ships moving away from the jump point will be hit by one and then the other. Or set up mines in concentric circles.

I could also perhaps add some form of random targeting if a second stage missile is launched without a parent fire control.

[serger]

I could also perhaps add some form of random targeting if a second stage missile is launched without a parent fire control.

This, please, yeah!!!

[Droll]

Very well, that by itself is fine, but you do also understand that this makes naval mines largely useless correct? Because if I put 30 mines in one spot, the most they can do is destroy one ship according to this.

Maybe don't put all the mines in the same spot

If you stagger the location of the mines, that will also stagger their arrival at the target. For example, if you have missiles that are 20,000 km/s, set up one set of mines at 99,000 km and a second at 101,000 km (and a third at 201,000, etc.). Or setup mines at max distance but in two or more directions, so that ships moving away from the jump point will be hit by one and then the other. Or set up mines in concentric circles.

I could also perhaps add some form of random targeting if a second stage missile is launched without a parent fire control.

The random targeting would be amazing.

As for staggering mines, that makes sense but again becomes super weak against any sort of PD.

[serger]

Aside of drastic lowering of PD breakthrough chances, staggering mine fields would be inevitably very micro-heavy.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Some form of random targeting of second stage missiles or mines would be great.

I would like to be able to fire a missile at a point in space and then have the missile deploy a second stage that randomly target something in range.

[Tikigod]

Aside of drastic lowering of PD breakthrough chances, staggering mine fields would be inevitably very micro-heavy.

Couldn't you just have your 'mines' be their own 2 stage and stagger the placement?

[serger]

Couldn't you just have your 'mines' be their own 2 stage and stagger the placement?

Sorry, I cannot understand what is your question/suggestion.
I can stagger the placement, yes, but it's rather heavy micromanagement.

[Demetrious]

Really the most unrealistic part of Aurora's missile damage model is that it damages a discrete section of the armor instead of being spread across the entire armor belt with some gradient based on an assumed distance from the explosion center. In this sense the damage model appears to represent a direct impact of ~kT warheads rather than nearby detonation of ~MT warheads, though I'd more readily just attribute this to handwaving to fit the game mechanics.

It is game-play based rather than realistic. Also to restrict damage to a single ship.

Here are the nuclear detonation rules for Newtonian Aurora, which does spread the damage over half the armour belt.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=4329.msg43459#msg43459

Given the severe limitations on range for thermonuclear warheads detonating in vacuum, the standard armor/damage model does make some sense. A symmetric release of high-power x-rays is still very damaging, but with no atmosphere to be converted into a big blastwave you have to get the warhead to within tens of meters of the target to do real damage.

On the other hand, there are various sensible ways to "shape" the charge to get more efficient damage out of smaller warheads; such as using the nuke to pump a directional x-ray laser (as we all remember from VB6,) and of course the "Casabah Howitzer" which used a heavy neutron reflector and tungsten to create a nuclear shaped charge working much like conventional HE charges do; using the nuclear blast to propel a heavy mass medium towards a target; converting x-rays into directed kinetic energy.

Given that even final defensive fire would probably see k-slugs engaging at tens of kilometres and lasers at 5-9, it'd behoove missile designers to favor weapon designs that bridge the "last kilometre" instantly to a degree. One could well assume that the to-hit probabilities involved for both missiles and PD fire assume such designs. The blooming shape of the missile warhead damage template reflects that even a high-speed jet of tungsten plasma is going to spread more at a few km's range than lasers or particle lances.

[Erik L]

Really the most unrealistic part of Aurora's missile damage model is that it damages a discrete section of the armor instead of being spread across the entire armor belt with some gradient based on an assumed distance from the explosion center. In this sense the damage model appears to represent a direct impact of ~kT warheads rather than nearby detonation of ~MT warheads, though I'd more readily just attribute this to handwaving to fit the game mechanics.

It is game-play based rather than realistic. Also to restrict damage to a single ship.

Here are the nuclear detonation rules for Newtonian Aurora, which does spread the damage over half the armour belt.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=4329.msg43459#msg43459

Given the severe limitations on range for thermonuclear warheads detonating in vacuum, the standard armor/damage model does make some sense. A symmetric release of high-power x-rays is still very damaging, but with no atmosphere to be converted into a big blastwave you have to get the warhead to within tens of meters of the target to do real damage.

On the other hand, there are various sensible ways to "shape" the charge to get more efficient damage out of smaller warheads; such as using the nuke to pump a directional x-ray laser (as we all remember from VB6,) and of course the "Casabah Howitzer" which used a heavy neutron reflector and tungsten to create a nuclear shaped charge working much like conventional HE charges do; using the nuclear blast to propel a heavy mass medium towards a target; converting x-rays into directed kinetic energy.

Given that even final defensive fire would probably see k-slugs engaging at tens of kilometres and lasers at 5-9, it'd behoove missile designers to favor weapon designs that bridge the "last kilometre" instantly to a degree. One could well assume that the to-hit probabilities involved for both missiles and PD fire assume such designs. The blooming shape of the missile warhead damage template reflects that even a high-speed jet of tungsten plasma is going to spread more at a few km's range than lasers or particle lances.

I read a series recently, and wish I could recall which. But the missile warheads were converted to a plasma form that did the actual damage, not the nuclear explosion.

[Demetrious]

Really the most unrealistic part of Aurora's missile damage model is that it damages a discrete section of the armor instead of being spread across the entire armor belt with some gradient based on an assumed distance from the explosion center. In this sense the damage model appears to represent a direct impact of ~kT warheads rather than nearby detonation of ~MT warheads, though I'd more readily just attribute this to handwaving to fit the game mechanics.

It is game-play based rather than realistic. Also to restrict damage to a single ship.

Here are the nuclear detonation rules for Newtonian Aurora, which does spread the damage over half the armour belt.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=4329.msg43459#msg43459

Given the severe limitations on range for thermonuclear warheads detonating in vacuum, the standard armor/damage model does make some sense. A symmetric release of high-power x-rays is still very damaging, but with no atmosphere to be converted into a big blastwave you have to get the warhead to within tens of meters of the target to do real damage.

On the other hand, there are various sensible ways to "shape" the charge to get more efficient damage out of smaller warheads; such as using the nuke to pump a directional x-ray laser (as we all remember from VB6,) and of course the "Casabah Howitzer" which used a heavy neutron reflector and tungsten to create a nuclear shaped charge working much like conventional HE charges do; using the nuclear blast to propel a heavy mass medium towards a target; converting x-rays into directed kinetic energy.

Given that even final defensive fire would probably see k-slugs engaging at tens of kilometres and lasers at 5-9, it'd behoove missile designers to favor weapon designs that bridge the "last kilometre" instantly to a degree. One could well assume that the to-hit probabilities involved for both missiles and PD fire assume such designs. The blooming shape of the missile warhead damage template reflects that even a high-speed jet of tungsten plasma is going to spread more at a few km's range than lasers or particle lances.

I read a series recently, and wish I could recall which. But the missile warheads were converted to a plasma form that did the actual damage, not the nuclear explosion.

No need to allude to fiction with this one; this technology was actually developed in real life, as part of the Orion project. Google "Casaba-Howitzer."

The scientists were very pleased with themselves; having developed a way to make the propulsion bombs for Project Orion drastically cheaper by directing all the energy at the pusher plate. About ten seconds after they finished patting themselves on the back, they realized that if one was to not engineer the resulting plasma cone to spread across as much of the pusher plate as possible, it would actually be a horrifyingly powerful weapon. Others have done the back-of-the-envelope math and found that a megaton-yield device could make a plasma jet tight and coherent enough to be dangerous out to a range of light seconds.

And that is why elements of Project Orion are still classified to this very day.