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Post by nonwonderdog on Oct 4, 2016 2:19:54 GMT
So I've been having lots of fun with nuclear weapons. First I made a 1/2 kiloton hand grenade:  Then I popped it on the front of a 105 mm rocket:  Then I shoved the rockets in a 120 mm cannon (is there anything that isn't better in boron?):  And I put that cannon on a drone:  These things are hilarious fun, and when they work they completely obsolete the Hellfire drones. They cost about the same, weigh about the same, have about the same delta-V, and have orders of magnitude more destructive power. But there are issues. The fire control computer just doesn't understand that the projectiles are (1) powered, and (2) guided. All it knows is that they're fired at 1.13 km/s, and it underestimates the effective range by at least 2-3x. They're actually pretty terrible unless someone in the engagement has long-range weapons and there's time for the drones to fire from beyond max range (at which point they murder everything). Maybe even worse, they won't fire unless they have a ballistic solution straight out of the barrel, even though the projectiles could probably get a decent hit percentage on over-the-shoulder shots. This seriously limits effectiveness in high closing-rate engagements. I also think there's also some kind of culling going on if it thinks the projectiles don't have enough velocity to reach the target, but the algorithm ignores projectile delta-v? Or something? If the drones are moving away from the target I start to get lots of missiles disabling themselves halfway to the target with half their delta-v remaining, and I can't really understand why. Is there anything that can be done to help smart guns like this? It would help a lot to work out some kind of effective range bonus based on projectile acceleration and delta-v, or maybe just put an engagement range slider on guns that fire powered projectiles. Allowing off-axis shots for guided projectiles would be lots of fun as well. I want to mount a dozen of these things on a destroyer and re-enact scenes from Macross.  |
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Post by millesmissiles on Oct 4, 2016 2:30:18 GMT
I'm personally a fan of the idea of engagement ranges starting at a set range- 250 km or something of that sort. After all, our spaceships are approaching them this whole time- we're only handed the controls at what is essentially point blank. This would make ammo much more relevant. You're *technically* able to start firing your railgun batteries at 200 km, but those 10,000 rounds will go quick...
A change like this might make lasers stupidly powerful, though. Then again, this is supposed to be realistic space combat: combat can technically start at any range. Weapons in space don't really have "ranges" per se, but beyond a certain point accuracy and travel time make you seriously unlikely to hit anything.
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erin
Junior Member
Smash Mouth Plays From The Depths Of Hell As You Traverse A Deep, Rat-Infested Cave
Posts: 57 
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Post by erin on Oct 4, 2016 2:40:16 GMT
It might be useful to let players specify desired combat ranges per-ship, or per-weapon, or something along those lines. Perhaps defining range in multiples of the default suggested range.
Unfortunately I don't have input specifically relevant to the OP, but that does look like great fun.
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acatalepsy
Junior Member
Not Currently In Space
Posts: 97 
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Post by acatalepsy on Oct 4, 2016 2:55:04 GMT
It might be useful to let players specify desired combat ranges per-ship, or per-weapon, or something along those lines. Perhaps defining range in multiples of the default suggested range. I think that the "boundary conditions" of combat and interception are a very interesting problem, especially when dealing with ship orientation. For example, if I'm accelerating towards a ship, and it's accelerating away from me, it's exposing its fairly vulnerable rear to my very-long-range lasers to penetrate with ease. |
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Post by Dhan on Oct 4, 2016 3:04:49 GMT
It might be useful to let players specify desired combat ranges per-ship, or per-weapon, or something along those lines. Perhaps defining range in multiples of the default suggested range. I think that the "boundary conditions" of combat and interception are a very interesting problem, especially when dealing with ship orientation. For example, if I'm accelerating towards a ship, and it's accelerating away from me, it's exposing its fairly vulnerable rear to my very-long-range lasers to penetrate with ease. Well when it comes time for combat, I would imagine that the ship moving away would just point retrograde and face the incoming enemy. The only time this wouldn't be the case is if thrusting away from the target at those close distances is a necessary maneuver. But I honestly can't think of any time this would be the case. If you wanted to prolong the time to intercept or whatever the case may be, you'd still have plenty of time to do any of the required burns beforehand. |
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acatalepsy
Junior Member
Not Currently In Space
Posts: 97
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Post by acatalepsy on Oct 4, 2016 3:16:01 GMT
Well when it comes time for combat, I would imagine that the ship moving away would just point retrograde and face the incoming enemy. The only time this wouldn't be the case is if thrusting away from the target at those close distances is a necessary maneuver. But I honestly can't think of any time this would be the case. If you wanted to prolong the time to intercept or whatever the case may be, you'd still have plenty of time to do any of the required burns beforehand. Yeah, but given the ranges a sufficiently nasty set of lasers can have, I think this is easier to make a problem than you might realize. If your ship points its engine my way when I'm within a thousand kilometers, this could easily end very badly for you. It puts some severe constraints on your ability to set closing velocity for the battle; even if you have superior acceleration, I can increase the closing velocity as much as I want (to the limit of dV, of course) or I can snipe your engines, then increase the closing velocity as much as I want. Or you can maybe do some off axis maneuvers, but that cuts into your dV and acceleration. Point is, there's no good hard and fast rule when to transition to "battle mode". |
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Post by nonwonderdog on Oct 4, 2016 3:17:44 GMT
You might start to run into issues if the engagement ranges are made too long, though. The ranges we have now are essentially zero-g arenas. If you allow 250 km engagements orbital mechanics start to play a much bigger factor. At some distance it doesn't matter how much delta-v your missiles have; they're not going to reach the target via lead pursuit.
Even the very minimal impact present in the campaign mission with the 3 asteroids was a pain. I must have crashed into that asteroid a half-dozen times before I managed to kill the enemy cleanly. The ship AI just loved to point at it and burn.
None of this is unsolvable, but it would require a much more complex, much more detailed battlescape (or at least one with orbit lines drawn on it!). And for now, I'd be awfully content with Macross Missile Madness.
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Post by boomertiro on Oct 4, 2016 3:53:25 GMT
It might be useful to let players specify desired combat ranges per-ship, or per-weapon, or something along those lines. Perhaps defining range in multiples of the default suggested range. I think that the "boundary conditions" of combat and interception are a very interesting problem, especially when dealing with ship orientation. For example, if I'm accelerating towards a ship, and it's accelerating away from me, it's exposing its fairly vulnerable rear to my very-long-range lasers to penetrate with ease. What, like... don't start all combat with both ships nose end to each other? |
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Post by Dhan on Oct 4, 2016 4:18:57 GMT
Well when it comes time for combat, I would imagine that the ship moving away would just point retrograde and face the incoming enemy. The only time this wouldn't be the case is if thrusting away from the target at those close distances is a necessary maneuver. But I honestly can't think of any time this would be the case. If you wanted to prolong the time to intercept or whatever the case may be, you'd still have plenty of time to do any of the required burns beforehand. Yeah, but given the ranges a sufficiently nasty set of lasers can have, I think this is easier to make a problem than you might realize. If your ship points its engine my way when I'm within a thousand kilometers, this could easily end very badly for you. It puts some severe constraints on your ability to set closing velocity for the battle; even if you have superior acceleration, I can increase the closing velocity as much as I want (to the limit of dV, of course) or I can snipe your engines, then increase the closing velocity as much as I want. Or you can maybe do some off axis maneuvers, but that cuts into your dV and acceleration. Point is, there's no good hard and fast rule when to transition to "battle mode". I haven't messed too much with lasers, but lets assume they can still do damage out to a thousand kilometers or more. Even then you'd still be able to burn at an angle where your engines are protected by armor. Take this ship for example, with just a few degrees off of prograde I can burn away while covering my engines unless the other ship is directly behind me, which is unlikely or even impossible (?). Although there is the possibility of messing up your orbit if you aren't careful and ships with gimbaling main engines won't have that covered back side.  |
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Post by blothorn on Oct 4, 2016 4:25:34 GMT
I think assuming away orbital mechanics in battle is a *much* smaller problem than allowing drones to "ambush" enemies at 20km. The biggest lesson I have learned thus far is that real combat would take place at much higher ranges than this game seems to anticipate. Both very close opening ranges and "let me weather this fire until I can get into range" require an enormous suspension of disbelief--I expect that IRL, people would be opening with anything that can be fired sustainably (lasers and light-ammo railguns) even past 250km.
I think I would suggest:
* Allow overriding the default range curve (particularly useful for missile "guns", or nuke/flak guns that do not require direct hits--my nuke coilguns maul drones at 50km, and have a suggested range of about 2km).
* Make the AI use "ignore range" when tactically appropriate (not under ammo pressure, not taking power from weapons more effective at that range).
* Never start battle under 50km (or even 100km; it is a compromise between realism and playability, not wanting to drag players through excessive waits when effective ranges legitimately are short). Right now, battles between missiles and ships without lasers start so close the ships do not even have time to find a preferred orientation.
* Make the AI decide more intelligently whether to increase closing speed--right now it seems to always burn to close range when outside, which means that it burns too much fuel and winds up passing too fast to effectively engage when battles start at very long range.
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