v2.2.0 Changes Discussion Thread

[Black]

Just when I was hoping to play a new version!! Lol.

Yeah it is like, I can start a new game, there is plenty of time before new version, but then how can I play without all these new shiny things.

[Destragon]

Given the nature of these changes (there are no compact versions yet), I will probably replace the ubiquitous ECM component from missiles (ECCM will remain) with a new line of decoys with ECM tech built in - probably 0.25 MSP for the controller and maybe 0.5 MSP to 1 MSP each for the decoys. Rather than track these independently, the mechanics will assume they are deployed at an appropriate time. When the missile is attacked by PD or AMM, the chance of hitting the actual missile will 1 / (1 + Decoys). If a decoy is hit, it will noted as such in the combat log and removed for future checks. If the attacking missile or fire control has ECCM greater than the ECM of the decoys, the number of decoys used in the calculation will be reduced by 1 for each point of difference.

So would these decoys be loaded on the missile/ship and all be simultaneously spent on the first shot that is incoming (all decoys being discarded no matter if they have been hit or not), or would the surviving decoys be essentially loaded back into the missile/ship after that shot has impacted, so that the surviving decoys would be used again for the next time a shot is incoming?

[Droll]

I think the ship decoys affecting large swarms disproportionately might finally resolve the whole AMM spam issue that people kept talking about.

It also means that large missiles have a way to actually hit high ECM ships by just bolting on more decoys.


I do see that we have the same problem when it comes to overpowering ECM though. It seems (I could have misunderstood) that if you have a 5 level ECM advantage over the enemy that you will become virtually immune to getting hit. I think that massive ECM advantage should be a big deal, but maybe not literally impossible to hit levels of big deal.

[Destragon]

I do see that we have the same problem when it comes to overpowering ECM though. It seems (I could have misunderstood) that if you have a 5 level ECM advantage over the enemy that you will become virtually immune to getting hit. I think that massive ECM advantage should be a big deal, but maybe not literally impossible to hit levels of big deal.

At least you will now need two separate ECM technologies both at 5 level advantage (one for beam weapons and one for missiles) in order to become impenetrable though. The research difference between the two civs would probably have to be quite big for that to happen.

[Warer]

I do see that we have the same problem when it comes to overpowering ECM though. It seems (I could have misunderstood) that if you have a 5 level ECM advantage over the enemy that you will become virtually immune to getting hit. I think that massive ECM advantage should be a big deal, but maybe not literally impossible to hit levels of big deal.

At least you will now need two separate ECM technologies both at 5 level advantage (one for beam weapons and one for missiles) in order to become impenetrable though. The research difference between the two civs would probably have to be quite big for that to happen.

Its a matter of preference but I really like when an overwhelming tech advantage is well overwhelming. In a fight between 100-gun man-of-war and a near future railgun, laser and particle beam equiped 5foot thick super-composite armor belt equipped battleship I would hope the later would be essentially unbeatable.

[Zed 6]

What if one of the cannonballs from the Man of War scores a direct hit and into the thermal exhaust port of the future Battleship?

"Don"t be too proud of this technological terror you"ve constructed"

[Snoman314]

Read my post just above yours

OK, I've read it. It reads to me like an always-on stealth boost, with no EM emissions.

If that's correct, I'd have to say I'd prefer it had EM emissions, but I can see how it would lead to cheesing the AI.

Yes, decoys will vanish when the missile does. Ship decoy may be a very large missile that follows the parent ship, as that is easiest with current mechanics, or maybe a new onboard system with a fixed number of reloads.

In terms of decoy mechanics, every shot in the same increment will be resolved with all the decoys in play. I will track which decoy is hit by which shot and then remove any decoys with at least one hit at the end of the phase. If the parent ship or missile is destroyed, all associated decoys will be lost.

OK, so missile decoys last to the end of that phase, distracting PD from other missiles in the salvo even if the decoy-launching missile is destroyed. But if the salvo continues on to be shot at again, then in the next phase targeting the salvo the decoys will be gone. That's a good middle ground I think.


Will the decoys have a variable, or a fixed size? For missile decoys I'd be happy to gloss over it and accept a fixed size, but decoys that work for a fighter probably shouldn't be just as effective as for a superdreadnought.

I didn't see mention of ECCM for missiles in the ECCM update. Unless I missed something? Does this mean missile ECCM keeps the old mechanics, or missile ECCM is removed?

[Iceranger]

I didn't see mention of ECCM for missiles in the ECCM update. Unless I missed something? Does this mean missile ECCM keeps the old mechanics, or missile ECCM is removed?

In Steve's post today, he mentioned:

Code: [Select]

Only Ships can have EW systems in the above form. Missiles will gain a new system to be detailed in a future post. Active Sensors, Missile Fire Controls, Beam Fire Controls, CIWS, STO Weapons and Missiles can have ECCM.So I assume there will be changes to E-war systems on missiles in upcoming change notes.

[Droll]

I do see that we have the same problem when it comes to overpowering ECM though. It seems (I could have misunderstood) that if you have a 5 level ECM advantage over the enemy that you will become virtually immune to getting hit. I think that massive ECM advantage should be a big deal, but maybe not literally impossible to hit levels of big deal.

At least you will now need two separate ECM technologies both at 5 level advantage (one for beam weapons and one for missiles) in order to become impenetrable though. The research difference between the two civs would probably have to be quite big for that to happen.

Its a matter of preference but I really like when an overwhelming tech advantage is well overwhelming. In a fight between 100-gun man-of-war and a near future railgun, laser and particle beam equiped 5foot thick super-composite armor belt equipped battleship I would hope the later would be essentially unbeatable.

That is fair but remember that we aren't talking about getting destroyed, we are talking about getting hit at all. I wouldn't mind if there was something  like a minimum 1% modifier to hit due to EW advantage. Chances are, such a tech gap also means strong shields/armor relative to enemy weapon strength so it'd be nice to have a single fleeting sign of resistance.

[Vivalas]

Honestly this is a rather strange implementation of "jamming". I agree with some who have said there should be some sort of emissions increase for jamming, and there should probably be other mechanics involved like burnthrough defeating jamming and ghost contacts appearing in various directions and ranges while being jammed.

Generally the downside to jamming is: "they're now very aware that you're coming". Having it just be a tech that affects only hit chance places it in a different place than just pure soak (armor / shields), but it could stand out a bit more on its own. I'm rather strangely knowledgeable about EWar and jamming for various reasons, so I could throw some suggestions up perhaps.

Also what exactly does sensor jamming do? Reduce range of missile fire controls and active sensors? The description only mentions missile fire controls.


Anyway my basic suggestion is:
-Jamming doesn't affect range but rather makes sensors completely useless while affected. The result is you know the enemy is there and have a vague  idea of where they're coming from but that's it. You can't target at all. (Note the classic implementation in games of jamming affecting an "arc" is not technically the only way you can jam. Because of technicalities of how radar works, angular jamming is possible as well, where you trick a radar into thinking contacts are coming from other directions. In Aurora of course there's as much latitude as Steve desires with technicalities of active sensors, but it's an idea)
-After closing to a certain range, as dictated by a comparison between the strength of the jammer (yes they should probably be components), and the strength of the active sensors, and relative tech of sensor jamming ecm vs active sensor eccm the active sensor achieves "burnthrough" and can filter out the jamming noise.

I actually rather like the implementation of the beam / missile jamming, a simple to hit works as a good abstraction there (and they don't need to be individual components), but for the more general "sensor jamming", disabling detection and showing an "arc" instead until the burnthrough criteria are met would be an interesting way to represent the intricacies of ewar better, imo.

[nuclearslurpee]

I agree with some who have said there should be some sort of emissions increase for jamming,
[...]
Generally the downside to jamming is: "they're now very aware that you're coming".

I tend to agree. I think it would be fine if sensor jammers worked like shields, with an on/off toggle and greatly boosted EM signature when on

Anyway my basic suggestion is:

I suspect one of the major reasons for the implementation Steve has given is that it works with the existing "contacts" mechanic in Aurora - the current system does not have any way to represent "the enemy is approximately here..." and I think implementing anything like that would be a lot more work than Steve wants to do for not all that much in terms of gameplay interest (where "realistic" =/= "good gameplay"). I think the simplistic idea Steve has presented is reasonable especially if a large EM signature is emitted which would be sufficient to detect the ship generally and represent the "they're now very aware that you're coming" effect while preventing targeting.

[Snoman314]

I suspect one of the major reasons for the implementation Steve has given is that it works with the existing "contacts" mechanic in Aurora - the current system does not have any way to represent "the enemy is approximately here..." and I think implementing anything like that would be a lot more work than Steve wants to do for not all that much in terms of gameplay interest (where "realistic" =/= "good gameplay"). I think the simplistic idea Steve has presented is reasonable especially if a large EM signature is emitted which would be sufficient to detect the ship generally and represent the "they're now very aware that you're coming" effect while preventing targeting.

Agreed with what seems to be the motivation behind the design decision. I don't know what the answer to this scenario is though:

An AI fires missiles at you from maximum range, and you _then_ turn on your sensor jammer, putting your fleet outside of active sensor and MFC range of the fleet that just fired on you. Those hostile missiles now have no active contact to seek onto. The current rules have those missiles self destruct at this point. 100% anti-missile kill rate, if you can keep the range open, until their magazines are dry, then sail in close for the kill.

This leads to always-on being simpler to solve - game design-wise. But if it's always-on, then that's a constant annoying EM emission. So therefore no EM signature.

I don't say I like it, but the missile cheese scenario I describe above needs to be solved to unpick this chain of effects.

A solution could be simply that missiles continue to the location of the last known active contact, and _then_ self destruct. So could steering onto passive contacts (but still requiring an active sensor fix from either the launching MFC, or an onboard sensor, to actually execute an attack).

Both of these would allow time to re-acquire the contact. Personally I already wish we could fire on passive tracks for other, unrelated reasons, but whatever the solution, it's more coding for Steve to do..

[Snoman314]

Seeing as there are lots of changes to missiles flying around, here's an idea from me (inspired by the Nebulous hybrid missiles):

A component that allows some of the sensors, ECM, targeting etc to be shared between stages of multi-stage missiles. Specifically from a sub-stage to a host stage.

E.g. A 2-stage homing missile with a sensor to guide itself, that is on internal guidance during the first stage's flight, would need another, second sensor in the second stage. What about a component, say 0.5 MSP, that allows the 1st stage to home from the 2nd stage's sensor?

Probably a pain to code, but another way to create more trade-offs for larger missiles.

[Iceranger]

Agreed with what seems to be the motivation behind the design decision. I don't know what the answer to this scenario is though:

An AI fires missiles at you from maximum range, and you _then_ turn on your sensor jammer, putting your fleet outside of active sensor and MFC range of the fleet that just fired on you. Those hostile missiles now have no active contact to seek onto. The current rules have those missiles self destruct at this point. 100% anti-missile kill rate, if you can keep the range open, until their magazines are dry, then sail in close for the kill.

If the ECM module otherwise functions as the current one, it cannot be turned off.

[Vivalas]

I suspect one of the major reasons for the implementation Steve has given is that it works with the existing "contacts" mechanic in Aurora - the current system does not have any way to represent "the enemy is approximately here..." and I think implementing anything like that would be a lot more work than Steve wants to do for not all that much in terms of gameplay interest (where "realistic" =/= "good gameplay"). I think the simplistic idea Steve has presented is reasonable especially if a large EM signature is emitted which would be sufficient to detect the ship generally and represent the "they're now very aware that you're coming" effect while preventing targeting.

Agreed with what seems to be the motivation behind the design decision. I don't know what the answer to this scenario is though:

An AI fires missiles at you from maximum range, and you _then_ turn on your sensor jammer, putting your fleet outside of active sensor and MFC range of the fleet that just fired on you. Those hostile missiles now have no active contact to seek onto. The current rules have those missiles self destruct at this point. 100% anti-missile kill rate, if you can keep the range open, until their magazines are dry, then sail in close for the kill.

This leads to always-on being simpler to solve - game design-wise. But if it's always-on, then that's a constant annoying EM emission. So therefore no EM signature.

I don't say I like it, but the missile cheese scenario I describe above needs to be solved to unpick this chain of effects.

A solution could be simply that missiles continue to the location of the last known active contact, and _then_ self destruct. So could steering onto passive contacts (but still requiring an active sensor fix from either the launching MFC, or an onboard sensor, to actually execute an attack).

Both of these would allow time to re-acquire the contact. Personally I already wish we could fire on passive tracks for other, unrelated reasons, but whatever the solution, it's more coding for Steve to do..

Yeah I totally get realism ! = gameplay, just that I've always loved elegant abstractions of real world stuff in wargames. As far how deep down the E war rabbit hole Steve wants to go, that's up to him of course, I'm just spit balling. It's an incredibly advanced subject though that can be as simple as "less range" or turn into a psuedo modern-naval combat simulation on the other end of the spectrum.

As for jamming having missiles die 100% of the time, I forgot to mention the other aspect of jamming that's bad: you're blasting everything with EM radiation and making the jammer a huge target. Typically the "counters" to jamming are either burnthrough or anti radiation missiles. If you go that route I don't know if you want to make that yet another missile component or some "default" behavior of missiles, but essentially in that scenario you would have all the missiles chasing the now-massive signature of the jammer.

As I said there's a million routes to this, which is why I always love E war implementations in games, since they always tend to be different.

Maybe a combination of "last known position" for all missiles with a more complex component / missile size addition of an anti radar module that is able to track on  active jammers and active sensors even without a fire control link: they're just chasing the radiation.

Although consistency-wise this opens a rabbit hole of scenarios with passive homing missiles (think sidewinder) if anti-radar are allowed. I'm not sure what the stance on those are (heat seeking, etc.) but it's more complexity and work to do.