Author Topic: v2.2.0 Changes Discussion Thread  (Read 62452 times)

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Offline Pedroig

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Re: v2.2.0 Changes Discussion Thread
« Reply #375 on: March 28, 2023, 06:24:47 PM »
I agree with the above posts that Decoy Missile is a confusing name for ship decoys. Flare or chaff is probably a more straightforward name for its purpose.

Those both do very different things though, neither of which is being described.  Signal Decoy or Ship Decoy would both work.

The Nixie is close to what is being described, but it is a towed device, Tactical Air Launched Decoys are probably the closest, so perhaps just Tactical Decoy would work.
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Offline Droll

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Re: v2.2.0 Changes Discussion Thread
« Reply #376 on: March 28, 2023, 06:29:05 PM »
I agree with the above posts that Decoy Missile is a confusing name for ship decoys. Flare or chaff is probably a more straightforward name for its purpose.

Those both do very different things though, neither of which is being described.  Signal Decoy or Ship Decoy would both work.

The Nixie is close to what is being described, but it is a towed device, Tactical Air Launched Decoys are probably the closest, so perhaps just Tactical Decoy would work.

Active electronic countermeasure could be another generic term that is descriptive and generic at the same time. It at the very least conveys that the component has a relationship with the E-War techlines.
 

Offline Bremen

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Re: v2.2.0 Changes Discussion Thread
« Reply #377 on: March 28, 2023, 08:25:47 PM »
I agree with the above posts that Decoy Missile is a confusing name for ship decoys. Flare or chaff is probably a more straightforward name for its purpose.

Those both do very different things though, neither of which is being described.  Signal Decoy or Ship Decoy would both work.

The Nixie is close to what is being described, but it is a towed device, Tactical Air Launched Decoys are probably the closest, so perhaps just Tactical Decoy would work.

What's being described is kind of like a flare, really. Or at least I'm visualizing it as a device you chuck out into space that blasts out a huge signature to try to make it look like the ship for a few seconds and then burns out. A bit more complex than just being hot to attract heatseekers, sure, but the same general principle.

In the Starfleet Battles boardgame similar countermeasures were called Wild Weasels, but that's apparently different to the real world Wild Weasel.
« Last Edit: March 28, 2023, 08:28:41 PM by Bremen »
 
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Offline Snoman314

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Re: v2.2.0 Changes Discussion Thread
« Reply #378 on: March 29, 2023, 02:13:13 AM »
Size and Cost has to be high in order to avoid making ASMs economically non-viable. The decoy will significantly reduce the effectiveness of mass missile strikes, but I didn't want it to be a general tactic that made missile warfare much less effective overall, especially given one of the objectives of the current update is to improve missile warfare. That said, I might reduce it a little depending on playtest and there is scope to reduce launcher size without changing decoy missile size.

Yeah OK, I see your point. So they're less like a chaff launcher, and more of a sophisticated, expensive decoy device for use in specific circumstances (large waves of missiles). I think I can get with that. The threshold mechanic to activate them makes more sense to me now. I'd still like the ability to upgrade them over time, but I guess the ECM tech will cover that.

I am somewhat worried. Other changes to missiles were made to make larger missiles viable, now these decoys makes them less viable.
I hope hope that all the changes together will lead to more balanced decision making on missile usage and will not just make them obsolete again.

As Steve just made me understand, these decoys will penalise massed strikes of small missiles more than repeated waves of larger, more capable missiles, rather than penalising all missiles equally. So I think it's fine.
 

Offline Snoman314

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Re: v2.2.0 Changes Discussion Thread
« Reply #379 on: March 29, 2023, 02:18:17 AM »
I agree with the above posts that Decoy Missile is a confusing name for ship decoys. Flare or chaff is probably a more straightforward name for its purpose.

Those both do very different things though, neither of which is being described.  Signal Decoy or Ship Decoy would both work.

The Nixie is close to what is being described, but it is a towed device, Tactical Air Launched Decoys are probably the closest, so perhaps just Tactical Decoy would work.

What's being described is kind of like a flare, really. Or at least I'm visualizing it as a device you chuck out into space that blasts out a huge signature to try to make it look like the ship for a few seconds and then burns out. A bit more complex than just being hot to attract heatseekers, sure, but the same general principle.

In the Starfleet Battles boardgame similar countermeasures were called Wild Weasels, but that's apparently different to the real world Wild Weasel.

My vote would be to just have a generic descriptive name, even if it ends up a bit long: Anti-missile defense decoy.
 

Offline QuakeIV

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Re: v2.2.0 Changes Discussion Thread
« Reply #380 on: March 29, 2023, 02:26:58 AM »
I think missile decoy is better because to my understanding it doesn't actually do anything against any other kind of weapon system, unlike other kinds of decoys.
 

Offline mike2R

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Re: v2.2.0 Changes Discussion Thread
« Reply #381 on: March 29, 2023, 03:38:31 AM »
I asked ChatGPT for some suggestions, and it had a few reasonable ones:

False signal emitter
Countermeasure decoy
Anti-missile decoy
Missile bait
Defensive countermeasure
Defensive countermeasure drone
Interceptor decoy
 
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Offline Steve Walmsley (OP)

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Re: v2.2.0 Changes Discussion Thread
« Reply #382 on: March 29, 2023, 04:42:44 AM »
I asked ChatGPT for some suggestions, and it had a few reasonable ones:

False signal emitter
Countermeasure decoy
Anti-missile decoy
Missile bait
Defensive countermeasure
Defensive countermeasure drone
Interceptor decoy

Good idea.

I quite like Anti-missile Decoy.
 

Offline Destragon

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Re: v2.2.0 Changes Discussion Thread
« Reply #383 on: March 29, 2023, 06:01:30 AM »
I think missile decoy is better because to my understanding it doesn't actually do anything against any other kind of weapon system, unlike other kinds of decoys.
"Missile Decoy" is the name currently used for the decoys that are launched by missiles, which do work against all weapon systems.
"Anti-missile Decoy" is okay for the ship-launched decoys, though I personally might just call them "flare" colloquially anyway, even if it's not perfectly accurate, cause it's short and gets the point across.
 

Offline Bremen

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Re: v2.2.0 Changes Discussion Thread
« Reply #384 on: March 29, 2023, 09:15:48 AM »
I asked ChatGPT for some suggestions, and it had a few reasonable ones:

False signal emitter
Countermeasure decoy
Anti-missile decoy
Missile bait
Defensive countermeasure
Defensive countermeasure drone
Interceptor decoy

AI taking my job hobby!  >:(

Anti-missile decoy makes sense to me.
 

Offline Elouda

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Re: v2.2.0 Changes Discussion Thread
« Reply #385 on: March 31, 2023, 07:17:56 AM »
Countermeasure Decoy, Self-Protection Decoy, Expendable Decoy would all work well in my opinion.
 

Offline Drakale

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Re: v2.2.0 Changes Discussion Thread
« Reply #386 on: March 31, 2023, 11:02:12 AM »
So, thinking about those new antimissile decoys, they basically act as an alternate ciws, with the efficiency increasing as the wave targetting the specific ship get larger.
Tactically the issue i see is like for ciws, it is hard to justify using that weight toward a personal protection rather than just add more gauss turrets that will benefit the whole fleet.

There are some cases where i will consider it like for dedicated command and sensor ships that are especially valuable, but unless they can be used to shield other ships the option seem like it has marginal value to me. If one ship could automatically launch a decoy to shield another ship in the fleet that exceed the thresold then it could open some interesting use cases.
 
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Offline GrandNord

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Re: v2.2.0 Changes Discussion Thread
« Reply #387 on: March 31, 2023, 11:46:49 AM »
From what I understood CIWS will still work by the current PD rules. So for all other types of PD we'll have to set the number of shots fired per missile (I think? Maybe per salvo?), meaning there will be chances of overkilling or under killing missiles. While CIWS will go missile by missile without wasting shots, so they should be quite efficient, and if I remember correctly they go last in the order for PD.

So the interest of CIWS is likely going to be trying to minimize missiles leaking from other PD bubbles from hitting your ships. So they do seem to have some utility and a niche, even if they probably won't be used on all ships.
 

Offline Andrew

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Re: v2.2.0 Changes Discussion Thread
« Reply #388 on: March 31, 2023, 01:48:25 PM »
A major use of Decoy's would be to counter the one large Box launcher salvo. If you are taking multiple salvo's with small numbers of leakers then a decoy is probably inefficient, if you are taking one salco which intended to kill or cripple your ships then being able to decoy half the leakers will probably turn kills into armour and shield damage, so requiring a much larger salvo to achieve the goal
 

Offline nuclearslurpee

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Re: v2.2.0 Changes Discussion Thread
« Reply #389 on: March 31, 2023, 04:36:12 PM »
A major use of Decoy's would be to counter the one large Box launcher salvo. If you are taking multiple salvo's with small numbers of leakers then a decoy is probably inefficient, if you are taking one salco which intended to kill or cripple your ships then being able to decoy half the leakers will probably turn kills into armour and shield damage, so requiring a much larger salvo to achieve the goal

To expand on this: if you have, say, nine decoys on a ship, and you face a box launcher attack, you can launch all nine decoys and avoid 90% of the missiles, basically making the box launcher attack toothless. In contrast, if the enemy is using reloadable launchers with several salvos, you would only launch one or two decoys per salvo and avoid half or 2/3 of the incoming missiles. Of course, reloadable launcher waves are smaller and thus vulnerable to regular point defense envelopes, but presumably there is a tonnage tradeoff between using decoys versus conventional PD methods, and each is better against a different kind of enemy.

I think this in turn will increase the importance of intelligence, scouting, and building a diverse fleet so you can adjust fleet composition to meet new enemies, which is a very good thing.