Should Sensors Get Tech Information?

[sloanjh]

Drat!  My first response to this got eaten by a "this board is unavailable screen" (which was very weird), and of course I had forgotten to save the text before hitting "submit".  Trying to reproduce....
...
John

Only in the fact I commited some updates to the board at the same time you clicked submit :-)

John

[Sotak246]

Just my quick two cents..I like the like option 1, perferably using firecontrol sensors, not active.  I do like your option 2 but the osmosis gives me pause.  In some cases like your example it would be great, but in others it would conflict with some of the setups I have been using.  In some cases I want the lesser power to stay where it is or advance on my schedule.  Maybe a toggle on the loading screen such as the one for jumpgates at all jumppoints.

Mark

[Erik L]

Drat!  My first response to this got eaten by a "this board is unavailable screen" (which was very weird), and of course I had forgotten to save the text before hitting "submit".  Trying to reproduce....
...
John

Only in the fact I commited some updates to the board at the same time you clicked submit :-)

John

Odd, the updates I did didn't take me more than 30 minutes at the outside.

[sloanjh]

Only in the fact I commited some updates to the board at the same time you clicked submit :-)

John

Odd, the updates I did didn't take me more than 30 minutes at the outside.

It's possible that I tried a few times over the space of 1/2 hour, then went away and didn't come back for a few hours, hence the perception of it being down for a few hours.

John

[SteveAlt (OP)]

Just my quick two cents..I like the like option 1, perferably using firecontrol sensors, not active.  I do like your option 2 but the osmosis gives me pause.  In some cases like your example it would be great, but in others it would conflict with some of the setups I have been using.  In some cases I want the lesser power to stay where it is or advance on my schedule.  Maybe a toggle on the loading screen such as the one for jumpgates at all jumppoints.

If I do add osmosis at some point, I will make it an option

Steve

[SteveAlt (OP)]

Now that I think of it, two thoughts on osmosis:

1)  Let's say I plant a 10million pop colony on a planet with 2billion NPR primatives (no tech, no pre-TNT industry) or even pre-TNT industrial primatives.  Do you really want them to jump straight up to 2 TL below my TL?  In other words, is the proposed osmosis mechanism too fast?

My immediate reaction is that the jump from pre-TNT to post-TNT shouldn't be that easy. I can think of two game mechanics options to slow osmosis down a little. The first is a percentage chance each increment to gain any eligible technology by osmosis, rather than making it automatic, and that jumping to TNT should be a very small percentage. The second is that an Empire can only gain a one new tech through osmosis for a given period - say 3 months - because it takes time to absorb the tech. In this latter case, the 'time to next osmosis' for a pre-TNT could be set to maybe 2 years so they would only gain TNT after that time.

2)  Should trade between Empires cause osmosis of tech?

I have been considering this myself. I think it would be possible, although a lot less likely than for pops on the same planet. Perhaps the military status would also have to be friendly for it to happen.

Steve

[SteveAlt (OP)]

1)  This assumes that the only way to attack someone at long range is with an missile that's actively guided.  What about heat seekers?  Presumably I could put a passive (e.g. thermal) or even active head on a missile, and use that for terminal guidance after navigating the missile to the vicinity of a passive contact - this is essentially the way that submarines attack targets now with torpedoes (with wire-guided torpedoes getting real-time course correction from the sub's passive suite).  In fact, if we carry the sub analogy further, active sensors are usually used defensively (by the escorts) in order to create a sanitized region around high value targets errr I mean assets.  As someone posted, having an air traffic control radar turned on is not a hostile act, it's a way of ensure you know everything that's going on in your airspace.

When I do the EW review, most likely for v4.2, I am probably going to introduce thermal fire-control so you can lock up a passive thermal contact and guide missiles into the attack. The disadvantage being that without active sensors, you won't actually know what you are firing at .

2)  How about this for a twist: it seems like the underlying problem here is that the location of  a passive contact is much less well known than that of an active contact, which in turn are much less well know than a target being illuminated by fire control, but that Aurora is displaying the exact location of the contact to the player in all three cases.  This leads to the exploit of plopping a waypoint down right next to the target, then only "lighting it up" for the final approach.  So why not solve the problem by introducing uncertainty  into the position being reported to the player?  Basically, each sensor type (passive/active/fire control) would have an uncertainty level, expressed as a percent of the distance to the target.  For example passive uncertainties might be ~10%, active might be ~0.1%, and fire control might be zero.  When the location of the contact is reported to the player, it's shifted by a random vector somewhere within the uncertainty circle.  For simplicity, the direction and fraction of the distance from the center of the circle could be calculated once when the contact is first acquired, then just rescaled by the best (uncertainty level)*distance of all the sensors that "see" the contact at the end of a particular timestep.

The way fire control would work (assuming that you're not micromanaging with a waypoint) would be that Aurora would know the (uncertainty level)*distance for a particular target, and automatically illuminate it when the missiles got to that distance (or the player could choose an illumination distance or illuminate by hand for the whole flight).  If there's a seeker head on the missile, then it could just be fired at a waypoint with instructions to turn on the seeker when it gets there.

I would prefer not to get involved in that level of complexity. If the contact jumped around a central point, a player could work out the central point with some effort. If the contact was off by a certain distance and direction that scaled with range to target, they could also work it out, although both would require micromanagement. As with real life, most search radars (active sensor) can locate a target fairly accurately but don't have the ability to simumltaneously illuminate several targets for missiles, although there are exceptions.

Steve

[Drusus]

Since I am weighing in late on this I will just keep my comments to a summary rather than responding to the upthread posts:

1.   I keep finding the fact that I need to turn on active sensors to find out even “Who” is out there a little disturbing.  EM and Thermal signatures should be different enough to at least get the racial profile.

2.   I would agree that if active sensors can provide information it would have to be FC.  A search radar simply does not generally have the resolution to really give you any information other than “object, X big”.

3.   The idea of getting some passive targeting will be nice.

4.   Knowing a FC system has locked on should be detectable by at least the Task Group.  If an Owl Screech lights somebody up you normally get enough scatter/leakage to know it.  Admittedly Aurora ships are further apart, but they systems should be that much more sensitive too.

I will admit that my service experience and historical/fiction readings have always made me a large proponent of operating under a strict EMCON guideline and picketing systems ala Weber’s “Bugs”.  I can remember many times that if we did not have a bird up we were ID’g the opposing forces purely off of their emissions.  Radar might have a contact but if you wanted to know what it was then you would rely on the EW to tell you it had a Surface X,  Conical Scan Y, and Raster Z.   Correspondingly that would get you down to 1 or 2 classes of ship and you could then use intel to pin down the exact ship.  As a matter of fact many radar emission signatures vary enough ship to ship that you can literally tell “Hull X” from pure passives if you have the base intel.

The fact that Aurora makes me go active to get any decent data has made it so that I have considered a throwaway penetration ship so that I can make the detection and then blow the ship up (if needed) so that I can conceal true bearing to fleets or WPs.  Unfortunately I have not had enough time to get deep in a game to possibly need it.

[Drusus]

SteveAlt wrote:

The way fire control would work (assuming that you're not micromanaging with a waypoint) would be that Aurora would know the (uncertainty level)*distance for a particular target, and automatically illuminate it when the missiles got to that distance (or the player could choose an illumination distance or illuminate by hand for the whole flight). If there's a seeker head on the missile, then it could just be fired at a waypoint with instructions to turn on the seeker when it gets there.
I would prefer not to get involved in that level of complexity. If the contact jumped around a central point, a player could work out the central point with some effort. If the contact was off by a certain distance and direction that scaled with range to target, they could also work it out, although both would require micromanagement. As with real life, most search radars (active sensor) can locate a target fairly accurately but don't have the ability to simumltaneously illuminate several targets for missiles, although there are exceptions.

I can see firing at a waypoint being messy.  

However the big exception that I see to that is something like the SPY-X systems.  Where the missles recieve initial and mid-Course corrections from the search radar and the FC only lights up the target for terminal guidance when you need the absolute resolution.

That would probably be a bear to model though.

[Steve Walmsley]

I can see firing at a waypoint being messy.  

However the big exception that I see to that is something like the SPY-X systems.  Where the missles recieve initial and mid-Course corrections from the search radar and the FC only lights up the target for terminal guidance when you need the absolute resolution.

That would probably be a bear to model though.

You can do this in v4.0. Use the fire control to target a waypoint and fire at that. Issue mid-course corrections if necessary by creating new waypoints and re-assigning the fire control. Finally, illuminate the target when the misiles are getting close.

Its not modelling this in the game that concerns me, as it is already done, but I didn't want this to become a standard way to do things because it involves a lot of micromanagement, which is something i want to avoid outside of specific situations.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

Since I am weighing in late on this I will just keep my comments to a summary rather than responding to the upthread posts:

1.   I keep finding the fact that I need to turn on active sensors to find out even “Who” is out there a little disturbing.  EM and Thermal signatures should be different enough to at least get the racial profile.

I know that in the real world you can learn a huge amount from passive sensors. In Aurora you can tell the race of a population from their emissions so I guess it wouldn't be too much of a leap to identify the specific race from their engine emissions, or their active sensor emissions. However, on the other hand I do like the uncertainty that this brings to the game and the fact that you never really know what that thermal/EM contact is unless you use active sensors. It also avoids a potential programming can of worms where players may want to simulate the engine or sensor emissions of other races. So in Aurora, much of what you would get from real world passive sensors is actually part of what you get from Aurora active sensors.

2.   I would agree that if active sensors can provide information it would have to be FC.  A search radar simply does not generally have the resolution to really give you any information other than “object, X big”.

I think there is general consensus that if tech scanning remains, it will be from fire controls rather than active sensors.

3.   The idea of getting some passive targeting will be nice.

I will add this at some point, although as I mentioned the identity of the target will remain unknown without actives.

4.   Knowing a FC system has locked on should be detectable by at least the Task Group.  If an Owl Screech lights somebody up you normally get enough scatter/leakage to know it.  Admittedly Aurora ships are further apart, but they systems should be that much more sensitive too.

I think for simplicity my preference is for fire control to be generally detectable, although I might make it a simple flag for active fire control on a unit, rather than showing the range.

I will admit that my service experience and historical/fiction readings have always made me a large proponent of operating under a strict EMCON guideline and picketing systems ala Weber’s “Bugs”.  I can remember many times that if we did not have a bird up we were ID’g the opposing forces purely off of their emissions.  Radar might have a contact but if you wanted to know what it was then you would rely on the EW to tell you it had a Surface X,  Conical Scan Y, and Raster Z.   Correspondingly that would get you down to 1 or 2 classes of ship and you could then use intel to pin down the exact ship.  As a matter of fact many radar emission signatures vary enough ship to ship that you can literally tell “Hull X” from pure passives if you have the base intel.

The fact that Aurora makes me go active to get any decent data has made it so that I have considered a throwaway penetration ship so that I can make the detection and then blow the ship up (if needed) so that I can conceal true bearing to fleets or WPs.  Unfortunately I have not had enough time to get deep in a game to possibly need it.

As I mentioned above, I accept that in reality passives can give you a lot more information that in Aurora. Its really a game design choice rather than a misapprehension on my part regarding passives vs actives.

Steve

[Doug Olchefske]

I can see both points of view on this and to be honest I would be quite happy with either in the game. I think there is general agreement that active sensors should not be able to scan for tech data and we seem to be down to two options as to the way forward.

1) Fire controls are used to scan for tech data and those fire controls emissions would be detectable. The mechanics would be generally the same as with active sensors at the moment.

2) There is no way to 'scan' for tech data. It can only be gained through espionage, salvaging wrecks, examining captured ships through the process of scrapping them - which in this case means taking them apart to see how they work, or capturing populations. I would probably change the way tech data is gained from populations so that the number of intact installations of particular types reflected the chance of gaining tech data in a related area (chance of construction rate tech based on surviving construction factories for example) with research labs having a chance of yielding any background techs possessed by the Empire originally in control of the population. This would allow data to be gained from mining colonies and sensor outposts with no actual population but would mean a planet with a large pop and minimal industry would yield little. This would fit in well with the suggestion above that bombarding would be a bad idea if you wanted tech data.

Option 2) is the easiest for me in terms of implementation and in terms of performance. It is also more realistic. Option 1) makes it easier to overcome enemies with greater technology and over time will allow lower tech races to catch up more quickly.

I would be interested to hear opinions on a straight choice between the two.

I am also considering adding an additional way to gain tech in either v4.1 or v4.2, which I'll call Osmosis. If a planet has more than one population and the smaller pop is at least 10m, the technology of the higher-tech Empire will gradually filter to the lower tech Empire. I would probably handle this by checking every time an Empire gets a new background tech. If the other Empires on the planet don't have the technology two levels below the newly researched one, they will get it through osmosis. So if the United States developed Ion Engines, then any Earth-based power without nuclear thermal engines would receive them at that point. If the USA developed 25cm lasers, then 15cm lasers would become generally available on Earth. This reflects modern life. For example, India has a relatively modern military but almost all of the background technology required for that military was invented elsewhere. The other world powers didn't explicitly hand over that technology, it just became generally available. They aren't in the same class as the USA in technology terms because the very latest US tech is kept very secret. Older US technology that is a couple of generations out of date has spread around the globe.

Also, if option 2) was the way forward, there would be still be an element of option 1) in the future because analysing enemy active sensors would become a vital part of electronic warfare when I revise that area.

Steve

I vote for option 2. Gaining tech from scans always seemed too easy to me. As for osmosis, you may just want to gift research points instead of granting tech outright.

[rmcrowe]

ON the some races may never osmose because they live on different planets:  As long as there is trade, there will be tech leakage.

robert

[Paul M]

Just a few comments.

1.  Fire control should be detected by the unit targeted if that unit has EM sensors, regardless of the range of the sensors you can't miss you're being painted.  At the same time any other ship in the task group would be informed, "hey boys someone just hull mapped us and we have high resolution scanning, setting condition orange."

2.  Given the ranges of missiles and the speed of ships, no missile could hit anything not actively painted for the whole missile flight time.  Unless you have active (not passive as they would be useless to a missile) systems on the missile itself the missiles CEP would be huge just because frankly in a few seconds the ships move well in excess of a 1000 km.  Active sensors on the missiles would allow for way points and last moment targeting (less for detection of where but of determination by the missile of which target to hit).  I have missiles with flight times of 130 minutes against even a merchant moving at 700 km/s the sphere the ship could inhabit is huge.

3.  No modern navy leaves ships un-engaged, infact no navy has ever done that.  There are exceptions if your strike package is too small you prioritize but basicaly no one does the standard tactic in games of firing on one target till it pops and then switching.  The reason is that the crews of ships not engaged are much more effective (they are in a far less stressful situation).  You could add that the crew bonus of any unengaged ship goes up by +25% (as in add 25% to it not multiply by 1.25).  By the way that is conservative.

4.  Passive sensors in space don't yield anywhere near the detail they do on the surface.  This is due to range and the fact that in the flight time of the signal the ship moves.  So if you are a few million Kms from the target when you pick up its engines the ship could be up to a hundred thousand km away from that position.  You are always looking at the past.  This does not matter on earth since if the target is a micrometer or so away from where you think it is well its not an issue.   Once you have him you start to build a plot but you are always seeing the past.  This means for targeting purposes unless the ship never deviates from its exact course and speed you probably don't know exactly where it is.  There are exceptions (objects in orbit) but for the most part knowing where something was is not as useful as knowing where it is.  Plus without triangulation you would only really know the maximum distance it could be, distance to target requires at least a couple of measurements at different positions.  But localization for targetting purposes is just about impossible.

For purposes of the game requiring active sensors on the missile (for active terminal guidance) to use way point targetting makes the most sense.  Otherwise missile ambushes are just too easy.  If your missile doesn't have active sensors then you have to illuminate the target with your fire control the whole way.  I know you want to avoid the issues with target position from light speed sensor systems but I think you have to make a break from what is currently the use of an exploit of this.  Basically the current way point tactic exploits the game mechanics, so I think you need to add in game mechanics to keep things balanced.  Illuminating the target for the last 5 s or so would be pointless in reality, it would also be hard to do since you would not know exactly where your missiles where, nor exactly where the target was so timing it would be harsh.

I hope this makes sense.

[sloanjh]

2.  Given the ranges of missiles and the speed of ships, no missile could hit anything not actively painted for the whole missile flight time.  Unless you have active (not passive as they would be useless to a missile) systems on the missile itself the missiles CEP would be huge just because frankly in a few seconds the ships move well in excess of a 1000 km.  Active sensors on the missiles would allow for way points and last moment targeting (less for detection of where but of determination by the missile of which target to hit).  I have missiles with flight times of 130 minutes against even a merchant moving at 700 km/s the sphere the ship could inhabit is huge.

I think there's an aspect of Aurora-physics/technobabble you're not aware of - superluminal communication.  So both active sensors and datalink are instantaneous.  If you add this as a postulate, then mid-course corrections and datalinked guidance (without a sensor head on the missile) are both possible.

Note that this is a simplification assumption that Steve put into the game so that one wouldn't have to hurt one's brain with time-delayed contacts (in contrast to long range contacts in submarine warfare today, where such issues do arise).

John