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Post by apophys on Feb 12, 2017 21:47:25 GMT
So why don't we just hold fire until the enemy has expended all deltaV? Acceleration may be limited, but engagement times are much more limited. Using my Gladiator's example, waiting would take at least 6 minutes, assuming the dodging AI doesn't screw up before then. Very high velocity shots are more or less a one or two hit kill, so saturation fire would be super effective. Your example of firing point defense in expectation of missiles would actually be reasonable if your ammo stores exceed your enemy ship's expected lifespan.
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Post by omnipotentvoid on Feb 12, 2017 22:33:21 GMT
So why don't we just hold fire until the enemy has expended all deltaV? Acceleration may be limited, but engagement times are much more limited. Using my Gladiator's example, waiting would take at least 6 minutes, assuming the dodging AI doesn't screw up before then. Very high velocity shots are more or less a one or two hit kill, so saturation fire would be super effective. Your example of firing point defense in expectation of missiles would actually be reasonable if your ammo stores exceed your enemy ship's expected lifespan. True, but inefficient, which will probably be a problem if a ship has to engage multiple times without resupply. Also, this is assuming current in game engagement ranges. Considering the available tech you might be able to push ranges insanely far. If you said screw practicality, cost, weight, damage and refire time, you might be able to achieve decent accuracy at half an AU against super capital ships or perhaps large stations provided they don't accelerate what so ever. On a more realistic scale: if your orbiting the same body (that is not a gas giant) as a capital ship with powerful primary KE weapons, it can probably hit you. Thus your options are break orbit (which is only an option if your objective is not connected to the body you're orbiting) or to begin dodging. If dodging weren't part of the current accuracy calculation, ranges for large railguns would be in the tens if not hundreds of Mm for capital ship engagements. If you design weapons around accuracy and killing power instead of instead of rate of fire, you should have a reasonable chance to hit ships thousands of Mm away. At those ranges even encounters at relative velocities in the range of tens of Km/s will take hours. No ship can dodge the entire time it is in range of KE weapons.
Actually, I just realized this: the current way the game functions, it doesn't give any indications of the maximum effective range achievable by KE weapons. Because it makes the assumption that ships will always dodge shots, the game is geared for weapons that can achieve area saturation. Thus the only effective KE weapons that can be made in the game are area saturation guns, that are very ineffective at very long range. This in turn limits the engagement ranges seen in the game to those of long range lasers. Engagement time is dependent on velocity and distance, meaning that it is limited by the limited engagement range. And finally: the reason dodging is necessary is because engagement time short. Or in other words: the assumption that ships are always dodging (and the resulting need for area saturation weapons) are the reason that continues dodging is even viable in the first place. Throw that assumption out the window and ranges quickly grow to the point were continues dodging is not particularly viable, at least for capital ships. Further more, it highlights the need to add sensory equipment to the simulation, as how far away you can spot projectiles or detect the enemy firing become as important to dodging as your acceleration.
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Post by apophys on Feb 12, 2017 23:22:50 GMT
At extreme range, your acceleration requirement is far lower, and MPDs suffice. You can theoretically dodge for days on MPD thrust. Btw, I fully support the extension of ranges, for the benefit of both 200 km/s guns as well as lasers (for which 1 Mm is woefully inadequate as a maximum). Capital-launched missiles are the real loser in such a case, with terribly slow transit times through an enormous kinetic killzone (and very low dodging ability). Missiles on an MPD drone bus may survive. Then again, kinetic point defense is starting to look pretty good, so maybe not.
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Post by newageofpower on Feb 13, 2017 0:49:01 GMT
So why don't we just hold fire until the enemy has expended all deltaV? Thrusting under the assumption the enemy is firing is like a modern destroyer noticing theres an enemy ship in the area that could fire missiles and then firing its point defense weapons under the assumption that missiles are incoming. Thrusting without confirmation may be theoretical solution to the problem of avoiding guns that cannot adequately saturate an area. However, since acceleration is a limited resource for a spaceship during combat, it's tactical suicide. Because our current weapons are so destructive that if you don't dodge, you're dead. If you hold fire and I'm not holding fire, you lose and I win. Assuming similar weapons capability, of course.
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Post by caiaphas on Feb 13, 2017 3:51:37 GMT
So why don't we just hold fire until the enemy has expended all deltaV? Thrusting under the assumption the enemy is firing is like a modern destroyer noticing theres an enemy ship in the area that could fire missiles and then firing its point defense weapons under the assumption that missiles are incoming. Thrusting without confirmation may be theoretical solution to the problem of avoiding guns that cannot adequately saturate an area. However, since acceleration is a limited resource for a spaceship during combat, it's tactical suicide. Because our current weapons are so destructive that if you don't dodge, you're dead. If you hold fire and I'm not holding fire, you lose and I win. Assuming similar weapons capability, of course. Also why range is king at the mo. Not much your fancy kilo-slug coilgun can do if your enemy has a sandblaster that can engage from 20% greater distance.
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Post by bdcarrillo on Feb 13, 2017 4:34:30 GMT
Technically speaking, all kinetic weapons have infinite maximum range in space.
Time of flight seems to fundamentally determine the effective chances of hitting, and the formula for that chance to hit is masked deep in the game engine. Some cursory poking around in the executable shows references to named variables for chances to hit.
Thus, my request a while ago for an engagement range slider (or similar).
I do agree that more transparency on the targeting methods would be good too.
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Post by omnipotentvoid on Feb 13, 2017 8:41:42 GMT
Technically speaking, all kinetic weapons have infinite maximum range in space. Time of flight seems to fundamentally determine the effective chances of hitting, and the formula for that chance to hit is masked deep in the game engine. Some cursory poking around in the executable shows references to named variables for chances to hit. Thus, my request a while ago for an engagement range slider (or similar). I do agree that more transparency on the targeting methods would be good too. I don't think engagement range sliders is going to cut it. We already have mechanisms for accurate movement in step sizes around that of atomic radii. In 200 years the advancement of this technology and the molecularly perfect construction tech (which is implied as far as I can tell, correct me if I'm wrong), you'd probably be able to engage enemies well outside the Jupiter system from most if not all of the moons providing Jupiter doesn't occlude the target. Depending on where the individual ships are/ are coming from, encounters at these ranges would last hours or even days. The came really only handles encounters, where ships are already orbiting the same, relatively small bodies. If you want to get ridiculous, build a gun with insane accuracy and build a scenario were a hostile fleet is trying to make orbit around a low gravity body, "engagement times" could probably be pushed out to more than a week. Artillery shots at long range should be taken in the orbital view and not in the engagement view, or else you'd be sitting around for a few hours waiting for your shots to land. Also, if you manage to disengage after dodging all that time, what happens if you get reengaged? Just send in drones one at a time with weapons that will kill the ship at long range. Having n MP thruster capable of keeping you dodging for a few days, while reserving enough deltaV to do what you came to do, plausible. Having the capability to do this 10-20 times, not so much. In addition to this, how long it takes to kill a target is related to the amount of shots it takes to hit the target and thus the the engagement range. If 1 out of 1000 shots hit on average and I reload for 30s it will take me on average about 8 and a half hours to kill the target. But if I'm able to target enemies that are, for instance, en route to Jupiter before they reach the system, I have a good chance of killing 1 or 2 ships before their deceleration burn. Lets say we need a 1 in a 100 hit chance on 1000m² (capital) ships. Additionally, lets assume that, on a 1m barrel, I can achieve a maximum divination from aim point of roughly 1 atomic radius (150pm or 1.5*10⁻¹⁰m) in the best case scenario and 1000 atomic radii in the worst case scenario. This gives us a maximum angular dispersion of about 1.5*10⁻¹⁰rad or 8.95*10⁻⁹° in the best case, or 1.5*10⁻⁷rad in the worst case scenario. Than, further assuming I can have a dispersion circle 100 times larger than my target if I only need 1 in 100 of my shots to hit, this leaves us with a required radius for the dispersion circle at range of 178.4m. This gives me an engagement range between 1.189Gm for the worst case scenario and 1.189Tm (or about 8 AU) for the best case scenario. Even at the worst case scenario, thats a 33 hour intercept with a 10Km/s relative velocity, lets say 20 for not crossing the range bubble through its center. The best case scenario sees engagement times of over 3 and a half years (?), which seems somewhat ridiculous, but hammers home my point: if a certain level of accuracy is possible, continues dodging becomes entirely inviable.
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Post by Easy on Feb 13, 2017 14:41:42 GMT
I owe you a better post but please familiarize yourself with telescope resolving power. Missiles and drones, especially small ones must have small diameter telescopes, even a networked synthetic aperture telescope between multiple ships will have limited resolving power and resolution. At long distances objects will look like a single object and a dim object will not be visible next to a bright one. So when a missile is tracking a bright blur and the blur splits in two bright blurs the real ship is less obvious than you might think. Post processing, integration and even spectrum analysis will be required to get reliable answers. Good luck if your distributed network is jammed and only on-ship sensors are available. The telescope resolving power problem goes away as range decreases, but space is big and weapon range is large too. See this blogpost: childrenofadeadearth.wordpress.com/2016/07/20/sensors-and-countermeasures/
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Post by Easy on Feb 13, 2017 15:02:55 GMT
In regards to the distant sensor networks of very large, very nice and very expensive sensors, they have a minimum of 2c lightspeed delay plus processing time (milliseconds) plus network integration time (nontrivial large based on network dispersion.)
If we assume the drone/missile has excellent processing power and a good receiver network delay can be minimized towards the simple 2c lightspeed delay.
Which is to say if your sensor network is ten lightseconds from combat the network information is at least twenty seconds old. Hours or day old network information may not be useful during terminal phase.
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Post by bdcarrillo on Feb 13, 2017 15:22:46 GMT
I would suggest that allowing us to to modify kinetic weapon engagement ranges would suffice for tactical encounters.
I do have to agree with Easy on the limitations of sensor systems. That does bring up a counter-argument: with sufficient data on your target, and sufficient ammunition, there is some extreme strategic bombardment range where it is feasible to blanket enough space to achieve a hit. Sorting out those variables and figuring out that range requires a lot more information on the resolution of the in-game sensors.
The logical counter would be dodging the minimum amount required, based upon the distance that the inbound projectiles are detected. The greater that distance, the required amount of dv to dodge decreases exponentially.
IF I could magically see inbound projectiles 30 days out, ejecting the wrappers from space MREs overboard might be enough of a dv change to dodge.
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Post by Easy on Feb 13, 2017 15:31:40 GMT
I would suggest that allowing us to to modify kinetic weapon engagement ranges would suffice for tactical encounters. I do have to agree with Easy on the limitations of sensor systems. That does bring up a counter-argument: with sufficient data on your target, and sufficient ammunition, there is some extreme strategic bombardment range where it is feasible to blanket enough space to achieve a hit. Sorting out those variables and figuring out that range requires a lot more information on the resolution of the in-game sensors. The logical counter would be dodging the minimum amount required, based upon the distance that the inbound projectiles are detected. The greater that distance, the required amount of dv to dodge decreases exponentially. IF I could magically see inbound projectiles 30 days out, ejecting the wrappers from space MREs overboard might be enough of a dv change to dodge. A useful tool would be to know the % hit and choose the acceptable probability based on weapon rate of fire and ammunition concerns. With a five thousand magazine sandblaster you might accept a <1% hit probability, but for a heavier, slow firing weapon might hold fire to not waste ammunition. When targeting modules do you want to fire with the hit probability to only include that module or fire a spread larger than the entire enemy ship centered on the module? Are you still even targeting the module in that case? Plus the whole pointing problem of even being able to aim a multi-ton laser to thousandths of a radian or less. (Engineering problem)
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Post by bdcarrillo on Feb 13, 2017 15:41:40 GMT
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Post by omnipotentvoid on Feb 13, 2017 17:20:11 GMT
Easy I realize I know little about the functionality of detection equipment. I was actually hoping to learn about a bit more in depth in this discussion (without getting sidetracked constantly, which tends to happen when I simply look something up). That is why I stated it was a question in thread tittle. However, sensory data is one of, if not the most, important things in tactics. In fact, on tanks, the targeting system is the most advanced technology on the whole tank. The reason missiles are used on ships is that they can acquire targets beyond possible effective gun range. Even in infantry, technological advances has mostly been made in sensory and informational equipment. Take drones for example: the technology was effectively retrofitted to be armed. Their primary use is still reconnaissance in a strategic and situational awareness in a tactical setting. With such a major factor missing from the simulation, I can't really think of the tactics displayed in the game as realistic. It's like saying: lets make a tank simulator, but make all the guns handle the same way.
Based on my knowledge, I'd expect fleets to engage in the following way: - Fleets launch recon drones in order to enable long range targeting for capital ships and increases situational awareness. (well before engagement)
- Hunter-killer drones and missiles are launched to find and destroy the recon drones. (well before engagement)
- Interceptors are launched to intercept hunter killers (well before engagement)
- Missiles and drones are deployed to engage the enemy capital fleet and drones/missiles the enemy have deployed, this continues throughout the engagement. (shortly before engagement)
- Capital ships open up with main batteries at long range with rate of fire reduced to maintain maximum accuracy. (upon engagement)
- Maneuvers are executed if incoming shots are detected on time.
- Drone/missile fleets clash.
- Surviving drones engage capital fleets, secondaries and PD weapons engage drones and missiles, primary battery focus on enemy capital fleet
- Secondaries engage when the enemy capital fleet enters range, continues dodging begins
- Closest encounter: PD weapons intercept missiles and drones, secondaries use saturation fire to guaranty damage, primaries target important modules.
- Capitals stop launching drones in order to preserve ammo for possible follow up encounter, secondaries continue saturation fire, primaries switch back to targeting entire ships.
- Capitals leave effective secondary range, dodging is back to when incoming rounds are detected.
- Primary guns are out of range, engagement ends
- More recon drones are launched in order to improve targeting, search and destroy against enemy recon drones
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Post by Easy on Feb 13, 2017 17:32:11 GMT
Well recon drones would be more for target identification. Because you already have a lot of information even with the extreme range sensor net. So you start the engagement with good assumptions. The precise little details don't matter much until the terminal phase of combat when seconds matter. So launching hundreds of recon drones for a close look isn't that useful unless they are supporting a kinetic package, which begs the question of why the sensors cannot be on the kinetic package. (Kinetic as in weapons, including laser and nukes) Read childrenofadeadearth.wordpress.com/2016/07/20/sensors-and-countermeasures/If you haven't already.
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Post by omnipotentvoid on Feb 13, 2017 18:54:07 GMT
Well recon drones would be more for target identification. Because you already have a lot of information even with the extreme range sensor net. So you start the engagement with good assumptions. The precise little details don't matter much until the terminal phase of combat when seconds matter. So launching hundreds of recon drones for a close look isn't that useful unless they are supporting a kinetic package, which begs the question of why the sensors cannot be on the kinetic package. (Kinetic as in weapons, including laser and nukes) Read childrenofadeadearth.wordpress.com/2016/07/20/sensors-and-countermeasures/If you haven't already. Things like "there is no GPS in space" is exactly what I mean. Why not? If I'm going to send 50 drones against a capital fleet a few are going to be destroyed. If their expendable, why not launch a few that maintain constant distances from the enemy capitals in order to make my missiles and weapon targeting better? If from a distance it is hard to tell the difference between flares and a ship, send a drone to take a closer look. Drones are expendable and information is a resource worth expending them for The reason you wouldn't sacrifice recon drones as KKVs or missiles in general: there is value in having multiple observing drones. Further more, a few drones can be used to target, theoretically, as many projectiles and missiles as you have to fire, making the advantage the give versus resource cost fairly viable. Additionally specialized recon drones can have more advanced sensor systems and reduce noise produced by the drone itself by designing it specifically for the task, thus making it more effective at its job.
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