Oolite Bulletins

We've got the ECM for standard missiles, but the only defense against hardheads is a combination of fancy maneuvering and injectors until the missile runs out of gas. How about a second anti-missile defense, dropping chaff or flares to redirect a hardhead, once you discover to your dismay that ECM didn't kill the incoming missile?

Some limitations that could be built in:

- Torpedoes and nuke-heads would be immune to chaff/flares (they are slow-moving enough that if you can't avoid them, you deserve to get nailed)

- Chaff/flares do not operate with 100% effectiveness - sometimes the hardheads aren't fooled. Maybe a 50-50 chance of them working?

- Launching a chaff/flare pod could come at the expense of a random piece of cargo (1 ton of cargo or 1kg of gems/metals)

- The chaff/flare launching system could occupy a missile bay, so that you'd have to sacrifice one missile slot. Each chaff/flare pod would contain 4 or 5 charges before needing replacement.

- It would be available only at TL 12+ shipyards, cost about 1,500-2,000Cr (similar to the cost of a homing beacon launcher) and replacement pods would cost maybe 300-500Cr (assuming 5 launches per pod).

Feasible? I haven't the slightest idea about speccing this out, nor do I have even the smallest clue about writing code for this, so I'm just putting it out there as an idea. (Hey I'm a consultant - I come up with ideas, somebody else gets paid to do the work!).

-Mick

NHMick wrote:

- Chaff/flares do not operate with 100% effectiveness - sometimes the hardheads aren't fooled. Maybe a 50-50 chance of them working?

- Launching a chaff/flare pod could come at the expense of a random piece of cargo (1 ton of cargo or 1kg of gems/metals)

…or there could simply be a chance of the missile going after an ejected cargo pod. :-)

I have an anti-missile defence system in the works that could be developed into something like a chaff or flare dispenser with just a little bit of tweaking. It would be good to provide these to larger cargo ships who wouldn't usually have military shield enhancers but could expect to have more in the way of defensive equipment than just a standard ECM.

how about a turret-style CIWS? >:-)
that would be fairly cool fo rthe big ships, a dedicated turret that would automatically *only* lock-up missiles, not ships.
could make it expensive, as a downside. also, fitted to the (eg) dorsal side would mean having to rotate the ship if the missile came from below.

Some flare pics:



I haven't looked at turrets for a while so I don't remember what kind of AI they use. If it's they're like any other ship it should indeed be possible to get them to focus on missiles.

NHMick wrote:

We've got the ECM for standard missiles, but the only defense against hardheads is a combination of fancy maneuvering and injectors until the missile runs out of gas.

Or you can shoot them out your aft view.

I worked on anti-missile turrets for a while.

They inherit their target from their parent entity.
I tried to have them scanning for missiles within a certain range, then engage if found.

-I can't remember whether I was succesfull.
It may have been the case, that subentities (turrets) had their AIs reset to dumbAI regardless of what was entered in the shiplist entry.

JensAyton wrote: ↑Thu Feb 01, 2007 8:49 pm

NHMick wrote:

.... sometimes the hardheads aren't fooled...,

…or there could simply be a chance of the missile going after an ejected cargo pod.

Umm - does this still work?

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2024 1:03 pm

JensAyton wrote: ↑Thu Feb 01, 2007 8:49 pm

NHMick wrote:

.... sometimes the hardheads aren't fooled...,

…or there could simply be a chance of the missile going after an ejected cargo pod.

Umm - does this still work?

If hardheads are not smart enough to follow the engine trail it should work

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2024 1:03 pm

Umm - does this still work?

Not sure it ever did?

hiran wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2024 1:50 pm

If hardheads are not smart enough to follow the engine trail it should work

Maybe it could be more likely to track a cargo pod if it contained ship-like materials e.g. machinery, alloys, computers, or metals generally including gold and platinum.

That way it could cost a lot more than just ejecting a few pods of food.

Hardened missiles aren't cheap and so if they're easily thwarted then what's the point? The default game offers two extremes of missile reliability at present so if nerfing one it might be an idea to boost the other a little.