Steve –
This situation occurred in version 3.11, but I assume it would happen in 4.0b as well.
I had a situation occur recently that illustrated an interesting “loophole” in Aurora’s anti-missile engagement programming. The situation was as follows:
A large missile salvo consisting of 1,140 missiles was detected by planetary (thermal) sensors while still 38 million kilometers (mkm) away from the planet. The planetary anti-missile missile launchers were set to 5v1, and to engage at 3 or 4 mkm’s. Immediately after detecting the incoming missile wave the planetary launchers began launching AMM’s in large numbers, in spite of the fact that the incoming missile wave was far beyond their supposed engagement range. After several launches the defenders had hundreds of AMM’s in space and I was thoroughly confused. There was no way that the defenders should be launching at missiles at 38 mkm’s. I was ready to write up an error report on the situation and post it, when I realized what was really going on.
The real reason that the launchers were launching was that they were targeting the four enemy drones orbiting their planet at 3 mkm’s. The drones were well within the specified engagement range, so the launchers were launching their missiles against them. That was fine and the seeming problem was solved. As usual I just didn’t understand Aurora’s logic. However, having realized that, I also realized that there was still a problem. During the time period that it took to figure this out, the defenders had launched approximately 450 AMM’s against a grand total of four drones. Obviously that was far in excess of 5v1. What was really going on was that Aurora was launching because there were targets within engagement range (the drones), but it was calculating the number of AMM’s to launch based on the TOTAL number of targets DETECTED, rather than within engagement range. Using that logic, the defenders would have launched 5500 AMM”s, or at least they would have tried to, right up to the point where the drones were destroyed and the launchers would have stopped launching because there were no more targets within engagement range (which is what exactly happened).
Now, this was not a disaster because I was using version 3.11, and was forced to design my AMM’s with a quarter MSP of endurance, giving them hours of endurance, meaning that they were still in space when the attack missile wave came into range. In 4.0b, where people can design AMM’s with reasonable amounts of fuel appropriate to their mission, AMM’s usually have total flight times of minutes or less. Having this happen in 4.0b would be a problem, leading to the squandering of AMM’s and the possible dilution of defenses.
Kurt