From: david smith <bifsmith207@h...>
Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 10:44:16 +0000
Subject: Sensors/ECM (bit long, sorry)
I was thinking on how to make sensors and ECM a tactical rather than just a strategic equipment (which I feel it is now, after all, how many ships in the FTSR have enhanced sensors and or ECM?). It came to me that sensors COULD make a difference in the actual battles (just look how the german high seas fleet at jutland in WW1, with the superior optics). Feel free to critisize this, after all, this is just a VERY rough draft/idea in development (and likely to be altered when some proper sensor/ECM rules are developed/published). Please note that sensors are assumed to be operating all the time (unless damaged through thresshold checks, in which case the ship would fall back onto the standard sensors built into the hull under the standard cost), but the ECM can be turned on or off (when turned off or dammaged, the ship reverts to normal ECM/stealth built into the hull). All the effects listed below are cumalative (so a superior sensor equipt ship against a freighter would have a big range bonus). SENSORS These will be very important to any warship, because the ability to hit you enemy is determined by predicting WHERE he will be when you shot reaches him. Upgrading the sensors from the standard ones used on every warsip will allow a ship more chace to hit by providing more data for the firecoms to process, allowing a better chance to predict WHERE he will be. In game terms, this can be represented for superior sensors by allowing a extra 1MU on the range bands (or just a extra 1MU on the longest range band, IE-a Cl3 beam will go to 37MU instead of 36MU). For enhanced, this would be 2MU (my thinking being that in game terms this is a nice easy system to impliment, and will require no extra die rolling). Ships in navies further from the "state of the art", and/or civilian ships, will have less capable sensors, and this can be represented by a 1MU reduction in range bands or just the longest range band (so a Cl 1 bat would only fire 11MU). Of course, the second line navy could devote some mass aboard it ships to sensors to offset it`s disadvantage. These sensors would have no effect on the abilities of missiles (SM and MT) and fighters, because these are relying on their own on board systems to lock on target/plot a course nd the transmission time lag would make the data useless. ECM This would be a system in addition to the inbuilt stealth/ECM systems that every navy would build into their ships (and update/overhall/refurbish from time to time). A active ECM system would confuse the sensors and/or allow the enemy sensors less data for the firecon computers less chance to predict where the ship would be when the shot reaches it. This could be represented by a 1MU reductionin range bands/maximum range. For navies further from the "state of the art", the inbuild stealth/ECM built into the hull at time of construction (or for old ships brought out of mothballs and not refurbished), the effect would be a 1MU increase on range bands from incoming enemy fire. For civilian ships, stealth/ECM would be a very distant thought when building the ship, so these would have NO stealth/ECM,m and everybody would get a 2MU increase against these ships (which would require a alteration to the already published rules. If you assume that the stealth?ecm is built into the basic hull cost, civilian ships would cost less to build than a warship, and the cost of the basic hull per the FTFB1 rules would be less. Instead of the basic hull costing the same as the mass of the ship, instead have the basic hull only cost 2/3rds or 1/2 the cost. All this would require is a simple and quick recosting of already published ship designs. Of course, the navies own support ship would be built with stealth/ECM installed, because these ships would be expected to go where it is dangerous, and people shoot at you). For missiles, ECM would be a lot more effective, due to the lack of human decision making and less capable sensors/computers involved. This would be easly represented by having a 1MU reduction in attack range (2MU instead of 3MU for SM`s). For MT missiles, you could have the reduction in attack range and/or the ablity to select a target removed and instead they will only attack the nearest target (making ECM and banzai decoy mandatory against MT armed opponents). SENSORS Vs ECM (no numbers thought out for this bit) You would still have a point in the game where the enemy ships would only be bogies/unidentified, and your ships would have the chance to escape without engaging the enemy. The sensors enhacements/improvements would increase the range at which the enemy would be able to be identified, but the ECM would decrease the range (both these would be outside normal weapon ranges anyway, except maybe SV cheese designs with all power generators and 1 gun). Having the ECM active would make a silent approch imposible, because the ECM would be making noise/static/jamming/false signitures all the time, so you would know SOME thing was comming, even if you couldn`t tell what it was. Just a rough idea I`ve been thinking about, put up for people to comment on (or critisize <G>). If the above idea was implimented, the one thing I haven`t considered is the mass cost ratio/benefit and game balance (not that good a number crucher <G>). BIF