Some issues I noticed about the game (pr1.2 w/PU1.1b6-DSE)

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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Well, if you are in active mode and there's a ship nearby in silent mode, you'll get the bounce signal from your radar but no transponder ID returned; so your nav computer can't pull out the ship's type from the database. However, it can train its optical telescope on the ship and then use image recognition to tell its model. The only way to "fool it" to think that the Cutlass is a Centurion would be by making the Cuttlass look like a Centurion.
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Post by z30 »

chuck_starchaser wrote:Well, if you are in active mode and there's a ship nearby in silent mode, you'll get the bounce signal from your radar but no transponder ID returned; so your nav computer can't pull out the ship's type from the database. However, it can train its optical telescope on the ship and then use image recognition to tell its model. The only way to "fool it" to think that the Cutlass is a Centurion would be by making the Cuttlass look like a Centurion.
Hmmm - a variation of the stealth cloak in PR, an optical illusion that fools the telescope.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

I'd stay away from inventing new "magitech". The WC universe already has plenty of it... artificial gravity, inertial compensators, jump drives, tractor beams, fuel scoops, shields, cloak...

And what exactly is the point of making a Cutlass look like a Centurion, anyways? What kind of advantage does it confer to the pilot?
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Post by Zool »

chuck_starchaser wrote:You are partially describing 'cloak". That would indeed "give players TOO MUCH of an edge".
MAS wrote:Civilian ships should not be able to cloak. SM is different from cloak as you are still detectable.
I think I was trying to come up with and suggest a "radar cloak" device/thingy and not a full blown cloak. I have read all the cloaking issue agugements and for the most, I agree. To my way of thinking this is sort of what you are trying to with the radar anyway but maybe a step further. Anyway never mind, it was a crap suggestion.
MAS wrote:This is the only part of your posts that i don't agree. Autoing is the only and fastest war to travel in-sys. For AI it's Ok, but for a human it's annoying. I did a test.
I totally agree with this. If I actually have to fly manually to remain in passive or silent mode then I would seriously think about giving up the game. Also if you look at the cut scene when you use the AP (autopilot) there are NO afterburners in use anyway. So using the AP definitely should NOT affect passive running. AB's, I say YES, using them should give you away but I say again NOT AP!!
Dilloh wrote: But I don't see the connection to z30's idea of having the appearance of a Hunter Centurion while sitting in a Pirate Cutlass - is this impossible, talking about realism or canonity?
I think this stealth idea is starting to get off the rails a bit. :? Instead of using one ship profile to suggest another, couldn't we have some sort of fuzzy, strange looking, distorted image instead on the target VDU?
Dilloh wrote:Capturing is okay to me, but I think pirates are in for quick money. It's hard to believe they have the perception to plan about the future. Not impossible, though.
They dont, but show me a pirate who wouldn't think of trying for a ransom payout if he happened to come across a worthy candidate. I'm not talking deliberate kidnapping but once they found out who Bo is/was then..............
So we'd need to jump into this story at a point where Bo already worked for the pirates.
Exactly what I had in mind. The "story" I wrote is the concept and background into the existence of the Cutlass in Gemini. The explanation of how and why.
Dilloh wrote:Still, we already have some technical requirements in the engine: I can set up a modified cloak which doesn't make the ship invisible, but puts it away from the radar. You could still hit afterburners though.
Dilloh, my friend, as you have said previously, I could kiss you :shock: :oops: This is exactly what I was trying to suggest . A simple and hopefully effective compromise to radar issues. After all this is what I think they are trying to do in the simplest sense, (but at a more complicated level). Maybe it wasn't a crap suggestion after all. :)

Is there any way you make it so that when it is activated it goes on/off/on/off......etc say every 3 to 5 seconds? or just would it be a case of just on OR off?
chuck_starchaser wrote:I'd stay away from inventing new "magitech". The WC universe already has plenty of it... artificial gravity, inertial compensators, jump drives, tractor beams, fuel scoops, shields, cloak...

And what exactly is the point of making a Cutlass look like a Centurion, anyways? What kind of advantage does it confer to the pilot?
My sentiments exactly. :?
Last edited by Zool on Sat Jun 02, 2007 11:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Zool wrote:
MAS wrote:This is the only part of your posts that i don't agree. Autoing is the only and fastest war to travel in-sys. For AI it's Ok, but for a human it's annoying. I did a test.
I totally agree with this. If I actually have to fly manually to remain in passive or silent mode then I would seriously think about giving up the game. Also if you look at the cut scene when you use the AP (autopilot) there are NO afterburners in use anyway. So using the AP definitely should NOT affect passive running. AB's, I say YES, using them should give you away but I say again NOT AP!!
I only threw in the AP thing as an extra dis-incentive to the use of SM, since you seemed to be concerned about its being too adventageous, and justified perhaps as a built-in security measure. So, I'll remove it. But just to clarify, though, autoing in SM is *VERY* dangerous. I won't do it, myself. A group of pirates could just be sitting there in ambush, in silent mode, and if you're also running in silent mode you don't see them at all, and your nav computer doesn't see them at all, until you're in visual distance, so you might come out of auto in the middle of an ambush. A good use of SM would be if you're navigating a system full of AF's and infested with enemy ships; where you KNOW you don't have a chance to get across if they see you. You'd be constantly monitoring your sensor display, getting visuals, trying to judge how far they are from you, trying to keep maximum distance from them, timing you flying to get through flight groups that are flying in a circuit. Edge of your seat kind of stuff. You wouldn't want to use silent mode by default, and hitting auto; that'd be suicidal, IMO.

IOW, SM is for special occasions. Just like ECM. Pilots don't fly all the time with ECM turned on; it would be suicidal. You turn ECM on when you know you're locked, or about to be locked.
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Post by Zool »

chuck_starchaser wrote:Just to clarify, though, autoing in SM is *VERY* dangerous. A group of pirates could just be sitting there in ambush, in silent mode, and if you're also running in silent mode you don't see them at all, and your nav computer doesn't see them at all, until you're in visual distance, so you might come out of auto in the middle of an ambush.
That would actually be quite acceptable. There has to be some drawback to spending extended time in SM and it's a logical extension of the arguments so far.
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Post by z30 »

chuck_starchaser wrote:I'd stay away from inventing new "magitech". The WC universe already has plenty of it... artificial gravity, inertial compensators, jump drives, tractor beams, fuel scoops, shields, cloak...

And what exactly is the point of making a Cutlass look like a Centurion, anyways? What kind of advantage does it confer to the pilot?
Surprise , Chuck, stock in trade of every pirate group in RL & fictional history. The Cutlass is easily recognizable for what it is, since no other faction has it.

Asides from merchant convoy ambushes, a pirate vessel doing reconaissance of trade routes near militia centers needs an extra edge - even if he is driving one of the fastest pirate fighters in the Gemini sector.
Zool wrote:
Dilloh wrote: But I don't see the connection to z30's idea of having the appearance of a Hunter Centurion while sitting in a Pirate Cutlass - is this impossible, talking about realism or canonity?
I think this stealth idea is starting to get off the rails a bit. Confused Instead of using one ship profile to suggest another, couldn't we have some sort of fuzzy, strange looking, distorted image instead on the target VDU?
This should be possible - pixelate the image, like looking at low resolution photographs at high magnification. Good idea :)
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

z30 wrote:
chuck_starchaser wrote:I'd stay away from inventing new "magitech". The WC universe already has plenty of it... artificial gravity, inertial compensators, jump drives, tractor beams, fuel scoops, shields, cloak...

And what exactly is the point of making a Cutlass look like a Centurion, anyways? What kind of advantage does it confer to the pilot?
Surprise , Chuck, stock in trade of every pirate group in RL & fictional history. The Cutlass is easily recognizable for what it is, since no other faction has it.
True. Point granted. But still, how much of an advantage is "surprise"? If I see a ship speeding in silent mode coming up behind me, I'm gonna turn around, target it, lock it, and have my fingers on every weapon and missile button and then some, ready to fire; regardless whether it's a Cutlass, a Centurion or a Broadsword. SM is a threatening sign all by itself; probably even more so than recognizing the ship as being a Cutlass.

Now, you might ask, does my radar see him? If my radar is in active mode and he's in passive mode, he sees me before I see him at long range; but at shorter range I see him in my sensor as a (greay?) SM dot, just without a faction id. And I will react as I was saying. If the range is longer and I don't see him at all, whether he looks like a cent or a cutlass makes no difference; since I'm not even aware of its existence.

And if we're both in silent mode, we don't see each other at all until we see each other with the naked eye. Will this "centurion masquarading" technology work at eyeball range? Even so, even if he gets a first shot at me, it will only be the first shot. As soon as he fires a first shot, my sensor's IFF heuristics will paint him red.

And how does this "centurion maquarading tech" work, anyways? If I'm going to do the programming for this I need to understand how it works, so I know how to model it. Is the ship covered in LCD displays? If so, how do we explain the fact that we seem to see the displays through the armor? Or is the armor translucent? Or are the displays disposable, --mounted on the outside?

Sounds like the kind of ultra-expensive technology a military might be able to budget for, but not pirates...

Which raises yet another question:
If pirates have this technology, how come the Confeds don't? Do pirates have more/better research stations?
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Post by z30 »

chuck_starchaser wrote:
And how does this "centurion maquarading tech" work, anyways? If I'm going to do the programming for this I need to understand how it works, so I know how to model it. Is the ship covered in LCD displays? If so, how do we explain the fact that we seem to see the displays through the armor? Or is the armor translucent? Or are the displays disposable, --mounted on the outside?

Sounds like the kind of ultra-expensive technology a military might be able to budget for, but not pirates...

Which raises yet another question:
If pirates have this technology, how come the Confeds don't? Do pirates have more/better research stations?

Agreed - you win this point. If the human side were to have some stealth like tech (copied from the Kats) it would be the Confeds.

Pirates would have a degraded version similar to what Zool described - a fuzzed image instead of a clear ship outline on the HUD display.

Fyi, since Dilloh brought it up - don't you think that the Vegastrike zoom-in/angled target display is too advanced for the WC setting? The ability to have a 3D real-time full ship view of an approaching Talon seems like an ability that should be reserved for capships.

Let me think about the detailed mechanics of the chameleon cloak for a while.
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Post by Sunfire »

z30 wrote:
And what exactly is the point of making a Cutlass look like a Centurion, anyways? What kind of advantage does it confer to the pilot?
Surprise , Chuck, stock in trade of every pirate group in RL & fictional history. The Cutlass is easily recognizable for what it is, since no other faction has it.

Asides from merchant convoy ambushes, a pirate vessel doing reconaissance of trade routes near militia centers needs an extra edge - even if he is driving one of the fastest pirate fighters in the Gemini sector.
ok... first i didnt want to get into this because i thought you were misunderstanding me... and sometimes the best thing when youve explained it every way you know how is to just keep your mouth shut and let others speak... then, i realized that I was the one who didnt understand :roll: lol... sorry...

i had to think this thru... and i see your point... because pirates are going to be doing recon quite a bit... and not only that, they would probably be lying in wait quite a bit as well... and the minute a milita patrol paints them, bang.. theyre dead... so i understand now where you are comng from... you dont want an imbalance between the pirates and milita... unless im really missing somthing still....

so this got me thinking again... now... would pirates be at a disadvantage in a faster ship that relies on stealth to accomplish its mission? ... arguable.... but think abou this: 'trade lanes' exist and are stationary... as are milita bases... all you need to do to survey these stationary spots, is to make dam sure that you are past the edge of a milita ships detecting ability when it is active... physics dictate that the closest a ship with active could 'see' ships in passive would be no closer than 1/2 and more likely 1/4 the distance at which that same active ship can be 'heard'. pirates would know the safe distances to keep from normal patrols, and sit there dead as a rock on a recon mission... or dead as a rock (engines off.. just listening) lying in wait for a fat juicy target to blast...

now... think about game cannon... the opening movie of OP takes place because grayson is 'deep in trouble little tourist' his nav console actually is fried, and he's been searching for a jump or base or anything... unfortunately, he has drifted into a wing of pirates out in bfe who have been lying in wait for survellance reasons... and now the pirates have 2 choices... let the guy keep drifting and possibly radio thier position to the milita, or go active and blast this guy right quick and possibly make a buck or two for the expense of giving away your position....

also, think about this... in all WC games, command gives you nav points to search... a reason for this, is to find ships that are beyond sensor abilty to find... someone is out there... and fly this search pattern so you can (probably) light them up with radar... and smoke them out...

i would posit that they ship they fly is irrelevant... if theyre doing recon... no pirate in his right mind would be anywhere NEAR paintable range of those fixed targets... unless they're coming in hot and fast for the kill....

now.. you might say... ok... but how do they know how close that milita patrol is getting? what defense do they have? why doesnt milita just fly straight for that AF and get the drop on them since milita is flying in active? if you have been sitting in wait for a little while monitoring a fixed target, you know several things... you know when the milita shows up, you know whether they are heading twards you or not... and you also know how fast they are doing either.... (doppler shift) now.. this presents you with a choice... sit tight and hope they dont get too close to see you, fight, or fly... and if youre in an AF... maybe you ease right behind an asteriod relative to thier positon... theyll never see you till they go past... but then... youll never know where they are after you lose sight of them either... and if you come out of hiding too early... well.. 'now we see the value of not being seen'

(the aforementioned situation is exactly the situation a sniper team has to make choices about... think of THEIR stress levels)

the way i see it, pirates already have the advantage with a faster ship, and if theyre stupid enough to stick around to get painted... they they deserve to die... :twisted: and since they have the advantage... they dont _need_ some sort of fuzzy cloaking ability or the balance is too much in their favor.

does this make sense? or am i still missing something?

EDIT: oops... you posted while i was writing this...

oh... and at least in OP you have a real time in flight camera of your target... you just have to select it in the hud... not to mention missile camera...
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Post by z30 »

Sunfire wrote:
the way i see it, pirates already have the advantage with a faster ship, and if theyre stupid enough to stick around to get painted... they they deserve to die... :twisted: and since they have the advantage... they dont _need_ some sort of fuzzy cloaking ability or the balance is too much in their favor.

does this make sense? or am i still missing something?

EDIT: oops... you posted while i was writing this...

oh... and at least in OP you have a real time in flight camera of your target... you just have to select it in the hud... not to mention missile camera...
I think you pretty much covered it :)

One of the reasons pirates use popular ships (Talon, Drayman etc) is that it enables them to blend in for just a few more moments. Asides from easy to find parts, that is.

Pirate Draymans would probably have hidden compartments for contraband and maybe hidden fighters. This reminds me of the ninja of Japanese legend who would masquerade as farmers, merchants ie. common folk to attract the least attention.

There really should be a strong storyline behind the Cutlass because it's so unique - there are so many disadvantages to this, so there must be a compelling reason for the pirate faction to use one.

One reason could be the defense of inner, hidden pirate strongholds - their hq's , factories etc...
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

z30 wrote:One reason could be the defense of inner, hidden pirate strongholds - their hq's , factories etc...
EXACTLY. And I was also suggesting having "pirate smugglers", who could fly Cutlasses at full afterburner in silent mode. You'd rarely see them --not because of them being few, but because of their passing so fast they'd barely register on your retinas--; and they wouldn't attack anybody, regardless of faction relations, as their job would be to get that brilliance from point A to point B. Why on silent mode? They don't really need to fly on silent mode, if they can outfly most militias (except maybe stilettos), but I'd make them fly in silent mode precisely so that the player hardly ever notices them, so as to not break canon too much; and the in-game justification could be that they simply don't want to give away their ship ID's and leave record of their comings and goings.

@Sunfire:
You make a wealth of great points, and make me realise that coding the silent mode radar is going to be not even 10% of the work; the other 90%+ being fixing the AI to work properly with all the tactical and strategic angles silent mode opens up.
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Post by micheal_andreas_stahl »

Yeah, if i was a smuggler i would pick lanes that are less populated and if there has to be lots of people then pick a lane that manly has ships i can out run.

Remember Sunfire that AF's are suppose to be unscanable. Radar's are not supposed to be able to see what's in side them.
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Post by Dilloh »

chuck wrote:I'd stay away from inventing new "magitech". The WC universe already has plenty of it... artificial gravity, inertial compensators, jump drives, tractor beams, fuel scoops, shields, cloak...
It also already has holos... A cloak wrapping a holo around a ship would make sense, holos are already possible today, of course in a limited way.
Zool wrote:A simple and hopefully effective compromise to radar issues. After all this is what I think they are trying to do in the simplest sense, (but at a more complicated level). Maybe it wasn't a crap suggestion after all.
I'm not sure... the grade of visuality doesn't matter for the AI at all. They see you by radar. It would make sense in a multiplayer human vs human, but not here... Plus AI doesn't use cloak at all.
Zool wrote:Is there any way you make it so that when it is activated it goes on/off/on/off......etc say every 3 to 5 seconds? or just would it be a case of just on OR off?
I currently don't see a way for that.
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Post by micheal_andreas_stahl »

the visiblity in the game is good enough that you can see what is on the other side if the system.
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Post by Zool »

chuck_starchaser wrote: Just like ECM. Pilots don't fly all the time with ECM turned on; it would be suicidal. You turn ECM on when you know you're locked, or about to be locked.
Actually, I do, (mainly because the couple of times I have tried to turn it off in game have resulted in my being ejected from my ship), and I'd be willing to bet that just about everyone else who plays does. As soon as you mount it on your ship, it's automatically active, and as there's no power drain or drawback to leaving it on, so why would anyone bother to turn it off? And why would it be suicidal?
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Zool wrote:
chuck_starchaser wrote: Just like ECM. Pilots don't fly all the time with ECM turned on; it would be suicidal. You turn ECM on when you know you're locked, or about to be locked.
Actually, I do, (mainly because the couple of times I have tried to turn it off in game have resulted in my being ejected from my ship), and I'd be willing to bet that just about everyone else who plays does. As soon as you mount it on your ship, it's automatically active, and as there's no power drain or drawback to leaving it on, so why would anyone bother to turn it off? And why would it be suicidal?
Hahahaha, I meant in Real Life you wouldn't. Yeah, in Privateer ECM is always there, but we might guess it is an "intelligent ECM" that turns itself on or off automatically.
The way ECM works in real life is that there's a whole bunch of "radar dishes" in places around your plane. When you turn on ECM, these transmitters send very powerful signals in the direction of whoever is locking you, and these signals are tailored to that one radar, to confuse it, to produce false images...

But the catch with ECM, or rather the two catches, are:
1) They can only confuse ONE enemy radar at a time.
2) They make your plane light up like a christmas tree to all other radars.

That is, if you'd be visible to normal radar at 100 miles, putting ECM on makes you visible like 500 miles away. So, ECM is something you use in very limited ways, when you are locked or about to be locked, and usually when facing just one bogie; NOT when you're on your way to a mission, for example.
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Post by Zool »

Oh..... :oops: ....I get it now

I would have thought that ECM was a signal broadcast in all directions at the same time, thus being able to confuse multiple targets.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

That would be the "ideal ECM", but it's a pretty unsurmountable challenge, if not a mathematical impossibility. The way ECM works is it uses phase synthesis, sort of like holography. Waves from multiple emitters are concentrated on one receiver such that their phase shifts are additive in one place, subtractive in another, to form a particular pattern at the receiver. But this pattern, or image, is destroyed if the receiver moves away by even a few inches from the targetted spot. So ECM makes continuous adjustments while tracking the radar it is jamming.

I'm oversimplifying things, because there are actually many types of ECM. Another kind, for example, simply emits an extremely powerful EM pulse to try and fry the electronics of the tracking radar.

But in any case, ECM "jamming" is very focused and targetted; and the signals used to jam one radar cannot jam any other radar simultaneously; and being so powerful, they advertise your position very far away.
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Post by Zool »

WOW, I'm getting quite an education here at the moment. Thankyou :D

Ok so does the game ECM work the same as RL or is it a Magitech multi target?
I'm oversimplifying things, because there are actually many types of ECM. Another kind, for example, simply emits an extremely powerful EM pulse to try and fry the electronics of the tracking radar.
Ahhhhh, this is more what I thought it would be.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Yeah, the "frying ECM" was the style of early ECM, like WW2 up to Vietnam era. Since then, military radar electronics have become so robust the trick doesn't work much anymore.

I'm no expert in these matters, just a lowly electrical engineer that likes to read articles in magazines and stuff; but I would think it shouldn't be rocket science to design "Automatic ECM" that turns itself on at the right time, and then back off. Heck, it might exist already. So the ECM we see in Privateer, IMO, IS realizable. What I would change, if anything, would be precisely to make it only able to fool one missile at a time. Two radar guided missiles following you should result in at least one hit.

Another question we might ask is, does Privateer ECM work on all types of missiles, or only on radar guided ones? IR and HS missiles should be immune to ECM. I'm not sure how FF missiles work. I'm not even sure if there are any radar guidance missiles in Privateer, for crying out loud...

But yeah, flares should work on HS. Chaff, if it were there, should work on radar guided missiles as well, --not too reliably though.

I guess we could assume FF missiles are radar guided, for lack of any other candidates... :-/

But I'm not really suggesting changes; I was just explaining my earlier post, about flying with ECM on.
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Post by z30 »

chuck_starchaser wrote: Another question we might ask is, does Privateer ECM work on all types of missiles, or only on radar guided ones? IR and HS missiles should be immune to ECM. I'm not sure how FF missiles work. I'm not even sure if there are any radar guidance missiles in Privateer, for crying out loud...

But yeah, flares should work on HS. Chaff, if it were there, should work on radar guided missiles as well, --not too reliably though.

I guess we could assume FF missiles are radar guided, for lack of any other candidates... :-/

But I'm not really suggesting changes; I was just explaining my earlier post, about flying with ECM on.


HS should be immune to ECM, that would be one of it's advantages. And flares to counter HS would be great.

HS would have shorter range but be more reliable as far as jamming is concerned while IR would be longer range, track better but be more vulnerable to ECM.

I don't think the current HS works on heat signatures right now, because if it did - diving close in front of another hotter heat source should mislead the missile.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Z30, did you ever play Masters of Orion II? Probably my favorite game of all time; if not Privateer; can't decide really.
You could design your own ships, and you really learned the value of specialization and consistency. At the beginning of the game, missiles are better than beams. Later on beams become the better weapons. But at the early stages of technology, first ship I'd make is a missile frigate. There were a number of improvements you could apply to missiles: Extra armor, extra speed, ECCM, MIRV and Emissions Guidence. And there was a missile-specific ship enhancement: Fast Missile Racks. Totally divorced from any realism, but a bucket of fun, nontheless.
The best combination of missiles was to make half of them Fast and ECCM, and the other half Extra Armor, ECCM and Emissions Guidence. That way, the fast missiles did little damage, but kept the point defenses busy while the slower missiles went straight for the engines.

Long time ago I suggested at the VS Suggestions Forum to have ship design and missile design. This would be the best; though a bit of a programming challenge perhaps... I'd say have missiles you can buy, but also have a button to another screen that allows you to design your own missiles by combining guidance system(s), type of warhead or other payload, and an engine type. And have like multiple brands and models of guidence systems and engines, and kilometric list of payloads. But each element has its mass and its length, so depending on the type of launcher you have, you might not be able to fit your design. Engine size determines speed x range, roughly, but maneuverability may take a bit away.

But the bigger problem right now is that, as you point out, "HS" is just a name in units.csv. Actual guidence is not modelled, all missiles are the same. TFX did, and that was back in the days of Doom... I'm not sure if IR should be susceptible to ECM, as IR stands for "Image Recognition". I think the US probably already has image recognition missiles in service; they were being researched many years ago. The whole point was to NOT have to rely on spoofable tricks like radar or heat guidance. And what the hell is FF, anyways?

Amazing how good TFX was, back in those days. Every missile type "felt" different. The lock diamond on the HUD looked different for each type, had different types of info, the time they took to lock was different; the position relative to the other plane was more strictly behind for HS missiles, but more permissive for radar guidance ones. Wouldn't it be nice to model all these things for Privateer? But perhaps then it would be too different a game... :-/

Unless there was a way of modelling things in a way that you don't notice it too much, but eventually you realize it's there...
z30
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Post by z30 »

chuck_starchaser wrote:Z30, did you ever play Masters of Orion II? Probably my favorite game of all time; if not Privateer; can't decide really.
You could design your own ships, and you really learned the value of specialization and consistency.
chuck_starchaser wrote:Amazing how good TFX was, back in those days. Every missile type "felt" different. The lock diamond on the HUD looked different for each type, had different types of info, the time they took to lock was different; the position relative to the other plane was more strictly behind for HS missiles, but more permissive for radar guidance ones. Wouldn't it be nice to model all these things for Privateer? But perhaps then it would be too different a game... :-/
Never did get a chance to play it but every PC game scifi buff has heard of it. That's the tragedy of the scifi genre & PC gaming in general - in most games everything has been dumbed down & reduced to the most common denominator.

Where are the intelligent specialized ship crew of Psi 5 ? Why was Privateer 2 reduced to a space fighter game, losing the very important merchanter component? Where are the carrier ops & flight squadron tactics of WC?

Even the trading system of PR is dirt simple compared to that of Elite - it's direct ancestor.

[/quote]

chuck_starchaser wrote:

But the bigger problem right now is that, as you point out, "HS" is just a name in units.csv. Actual guidence is not modelled, all missiles are the same. TFX did, and that was back in the days of Doom... I'm not sure if IR should be susceptible to ECM, as IR stands for "Image Recognition". I think the US probably already has image recognition missiles in service; they were being researched many years ago. The whole point was to NOT have to rely on spoofable tricks like radar or heat guidance. And what the hell is FF, anyways?

Amazing how good TFX was, back in those days. Every missile type "felt" different. The lock diamond on the HUD looked different for each type, had different types of info, the time they took to lock was different; the position relative to the other plane was more strictly behind for HS missiles, but more permissive for radar guidance ones. Wouldn't it be nice to model all these things for Privateer? But perhaps then it would be too different a game... :-/
I dont' see any reason why we can't incorporate a mini version of this flexibility given enough resources. A player could buy the default missiles or pay the inventory computer extra to customize one. The problem here is that the subcomponents don't work together as a whole, the missile is one entire object.

But, it's possible to alter the object in memory by inserting new data into it's structure- longer range for example (maybe at the expense of payload) and other balance changes.

It would still end up as an IR missile but it's characteristics would be modified. This is assuming the weapons.xml file ends up as some sort of list or array in memory.

Wish one of the VS devs would drop by & enlighten us on this. It's a pale shadow of what you describe but it still would be something.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

z30 wrote:This is assuming the weapons.xml file ends up as some sort of list or array in memory.
Yes, disk files are read once (upon jumping into a system, usually) and the data kept in memory structures. Any code that fiddles with the data in memory can be implemented.
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