Your game functionality wishlist

@archon, on 20 March 2012 - 06:45 PM, said in Your game functionality wishlist:

Archon's comments on EW

I think I could be a big fan of 'electronic warfare', though it isn't clear what exactly that descriptor encompasses. I envision a system where you don't automatically have situational awareness (SA) to everything going on milliseconds after you jump into a system.

Case in point: I fly jets for the Navy, and gaining/maintaining radar SA is a huge part of the job during an air-to-air mission. I understand that spacefighters are different than their earth-bound, atmospheric counterparts, but I believe there are similarities between the two, insofar as needing SA to another ship before you can actually start to shoot.

In my job, we spend a lot of time and have developed tactics to ensure that we give ourselves the best chance possible finding an enemy craft before it has closed in to an attack range. Against some non-stealthy targets, we can pick up a possible target well out at range, much farther away than our weapons can actually be effective. However, that initial SA may be nothing more than a raw radar hit, and I may still not know if the target is civilian airliner or something else. Over time, the radar gets enough radar hits to start building more information on that 'trackfile', and I can start to find out the altitude, bearing, and airspeed of the aircraft. As other sensors on my jet come to bear on the target out at range, even more information starts to get processed, including IFF interrogations and other ancillary information that may help identify the target as a neutral, enemy, or friendly aircraft.

However, in some cases, the target may be manuevering, which can throw off the extrapolation algorithms of the radar, causing the trackfile to seem erratic, and decreasing my trust in the quality of the radar lock. In the event of a spacefighter with virtually unlimited ammunition (for its fusion lasers, or whatnot), quality of lock may not matter as the pilot can just spray deadly fusion bolts everywhere. However, once you start talking about a limited ammo situation (maybe you only have hardpoints for 6 anti-matter rockets), you need to confident before you squeeze the trigger.

In even worse cases, the target may be designed to deflect incoming radar energy away from my radar, effectively cloaking itself. It is probably impossible to create a craft that can deflect 100% of EM energy away, especially if could potentially arrive from any directions (as it could in space). However, typical aircraft design (and conceivably spacecraft) leads to vessels that seem 'cloaked' when they approach my radar head-on, but have a much larger radar reflection if they are showing me a different aspect.

Finally, some aircraft have the capability to jam, and this is where I think the term 'electronic warfare' shines. Some jammers work merely by blasting static over the commonly-used radar frequencies, causing all radars in a particular area to become ineffective. It is kind of like not being able to see objects that are near the sun because all you see is the blinding whiteness. This technique works to cloak other objects near the jammer, but does make the jammer itself an beacon for any missile designed to home in on EM emitters. Other jammers work on more nefarious principles, like recording the particular nuances of a radar, modifying the parameter of the received radar pulses, and then retransmitting the forged radar pulses. Theoretically, the first pulse received by my radar is accurate, but then my poor radar is inundated with 'doctored' radar pulses telling my radar that the target's range is quite distant, and the suddenly quite near, or the target's speed is varying between stationary and flying Mach 5, or that the target has suddenly become 5 targets, or many other adverse effects.

So, how do I envision a 'full-up' EW system being implemented in EV4?

-Radar SA takes significant amounts of time to build once you enter a system or depart a planet. Initially, everything is a single radar return, frozen in space. Over time, more information is gathered, and you would see the radar returns starting to 'hop' a few times, until your radar was able to accurately track the target, yielding a smooth depiction like we are used to seeing in EV's radar display.

-Radar SA works on a spectrum from merely receiving a single radar return with positional information to having complete, continuously updated knowledge of a target's position, size, ship type, heading, speed, shield and weapon status. The single radar return could be represented by a white spot that slowly fades to black over time if no other radar returns are received.

-Radar SA is dependent on a target's innate design (semi-trucks are more visible than sports coupes), radar-absorbing materials (RAM), their aspect(head-on versus side; front of the semi-truck versus the side), and their range (further targets yield lower-powered radar returns, forcing the radar closer to its signal-to-noise limit).

-Radar SA can be confounded by jamming, both blast-jamming and deceptive jamming, and is represented accordingly on the radar display as a cone of static emanating from a point in space, or as the target occuring at multiple locations, based on the type of jamming. Only one of the instances of the target would be the true target.

-Radar SA would be a compromise between gaining knowledge of your surroundings and making yourself easier to find. By equipping a high-output radar, you open yourself to anti-radar missiles fired from further away.

Obviously, a wall of text has shown up here when I only meant to type a few lines. 'EW' is something that comes up constantly at work, and I'm eager to see an implementation in the space arena. Some similarities between the atmosphere and space environments, and quite a few differences too. Some of what I've said may have been simplified, but I think it is in the interest of a better game experience. I know it is a large divergence from traditional EV gameplay, but I also know that part of what make EV great is the wide variety of strategies, as well as options available to developers. Like other ideas suggested in this thread so far, this type of EW could simply be something that can be turned on or off by certain plugs.

Comments, thoughts, questions?

Werhner

@werhner, on 29 March 2012 - 03:15 PM, said in Your game functionality wishlist:

Snip

That's a lot of really good information on e-warfare that I had no idea existed; thanks for your insight.

I'm not sure how directly it all applies to hard-space simulation - I know there would be sensor lag because of the sheer distances involved, so it's likely that your first points about radar pinging and getting better and better confidence in a target lock apply nearly directly. What I don't know is what sensor type would be the best to lock in space - according to the Atomic Rockets page, you could 'see' the shuttle's maneuvering thrusters out by the orbit of pluto because of the heat, so jamming and hiding your signature may be completely impossible.

Identifying that signature, however, is something different entirely- I don't know how you'd identify the shuttle's main booster against, say, a confederate cruiser's neutron cannon warming up (other than the small sun that would appear adjacent to it, wherever the cruiser keeps it's reactor).

Hmm I had a much different idea for e-warfare. One in which can affect a ship's engine power, shield strength, weapon damage and detection both positively and negatively. Maybe possibly affect more than one ship entirely. Basically, hacking or enhancing a computer system that controls ship functions and stuff.

This post has been edited by Coraxus : 30 March 2012 - 09:23 PM

Very interesting, Werhner. However, the way you describe it seems to veer off to the realism side of things, and away from the fun side of things. Entering a system full of hostiles that you can't identify or locate strikes me as frustrating at best in a video game like EV. If I can't immediately have a good time the instant I hyper into a new system, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to play. The only way I can immediately have fun is if I can immediately start fighting enemies, which a realistic situational awareness model precludes.

One more idea, which has been touched upon earlier, but here's my take:

Give ships the ability (activated or not by the ship resource) to strafe left/right with a separate acceleration value, in addition to the existing rotate/thrust model. This could be really abused by plug-ins for odd effects on large ships, but generally this should be for ships like small fighters. Also possible applications to boarding. Emphasis on the optional ship flag.

Bonus: Allow mirrored vectors other than 90 degrees from forward/back.

I thought of another thing I want. I'd like the ability to have a flag that allows a weapon to set a yield percentage, down to "disable only." It doesn't have to be available for all weapons, but I think beam weapons especially would benefit from the ability to dial down the power when you don't want to destroy a small target.

1. Ship resc should include passenger count for static purposes so that it doesn't affect capture odds.
2. When self-replicating commodities or cargo items fill up a ship's cargo at full capacity, they can begin leaking out of its cargo hold.
3. Ammo can either decrease in number or self-replicate over time just like cargo and commodities can.
3. Support for decimal placing when dealing with mass and cargo ton capacities. (i.e. a ship can have 20.25 tons of cargo space)
4. Stored ordinance or unstable cargo items can potentially increase risk of explosion during battle when stored inside ships.
5. Unpaid penalty fines can increase overtime.
6. Add an auction system for commodities, excess cargo items, weapons, outfits, and even ships.
7. Resale values for commodities, cargo items, outfits, weapons, and ships can increase or decrease over time.
8. Weapons and outfits can sustain damage and even be repaired, this can also affect its resale value and performance as well.
9. A single weapon can be set to take up more than one gun or turret slot.
10. Players are not exclusive to using onboard vessels as escape pods, other crewmembers and fighter pilots can also bail out in similar manners as well.
11. Players can establish or transfer a command flag to any ship in its fleet of escorts at any given time. (this is good if you lost a ship in battle.)
12. Ships of defense fleets can be just as vulnerable as any AI ships, meaning they can be disabled and even plundered or captured.
13. A way to categorize ships, weapons, and outfits in outfitting shops, shipyards, and in player dialog boxes.
14. When player hits the "buy ship" button expand features such as offering to choose any available variants or perhaps just buying the chassis itself before bringing up the text field which to type in the name of their new ship.
15. Full autopilot for hyper route travel.
16. Key button that cycles through only mission-related ships.
17. Firing guidance weapon with no selected target will behave like rockets or can be released as bombs.
18. Demanding tribute can invoke fleet reinforcements.
19. Disabled or derelict ships can suddenly explode without warning at any given time if various conditions are met (i.e. such as a player merely approaching the ship, or attempting to hail the ship, etc.)
20. An ammo's damage power can either improve or deteriorate over time. This also affects resale value as well.
21. Weapons brought offline can be transferred to cargo holds if possible.
22. Weapons can also be rearranged in different compatible weapon slots if they are brought offline and uninstalled.
23. Spobs can fire more than one weapon and at multiple targets at once.
24. Dominated spobs will have a defense grid button available which players can then access a spob's weapon system and defense fleet.
25. While in the dominated system, a player can order a spob to attack a specific target with its weapon or sick its defense fleet at it.
26. Players can either rent or buy a personal hangar storage facility to offload anything they possess, including ships.
27. Mission bits can trigger relationships between factions.
28. Crew compliments can be transferred between ships.
29. Landing shuttle, an outfit for players to fly when they cannot make landfall to a planet or dock directly onto a station. AI ships will also use landing shuttles as well.
30. Guidance weapon can be manually piloted to attack a specific target.

Expect to have these ideas added to my long-ass EV4 wishlist

This post has been edited by Coraxus : 22 November 2012 - 01:02 PM

i've always thought it might be kind of neat to have missions where the AI has some kind of radar jamming device; perhaps you can tab to target the AI ship, but it doesn't show up on your radar, and causes your directional arrows and autopilot to malfunction (maybe holding autopilot would make you fly in circles?) thus forcing you to manually sweep through space to find your target.
likewise, perhaps the player could also get such an outfit which would force the AI ships to have to sweep through the pixel field to find you (once found they might chase you and alert other ships until you either evade it or destroy all the ships that have located you, kind of like alert/evade in metal gear).

edit:
midflight trading and (perhaps in special situations) outfitting might also be nifty.
i'd also like to see "no firing" zones, as well as more (rare) unidentified alien craft with no role in the game's story (just as a curiosity, or perhaps as an interesting trade/outfit opportunity).
edit #2: i'd also very much like to see some classes of ships (mother ships) that you can space-dock with and perhaps access missions, outfits, the bar, etc.

This post has been edited by daowei : 10 May 2012 - 01:07 AM

@coraxus, on 09 May 2012 - 11:53 PM, said in Your game functionality wishlist:

28. Crew compliments can be transferred between ships.

"Why, that's a mighty fine engineer you have there!"

"Your gunner is a crack shot as well!"

@werhner, on 29 March 2012 - 03:15 PM, said in Your game functionality wishlist:

…

Comments, thoughts, questions?

Werhner

That was very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
I think that there are several ways to implement this in a fun and exiting way.

I think one has to treat the players main view as a sort of visual field, which always allows identification and targeting, but maybe use the mini-map as the place where e-warfare takes place. I think this is what you mention. I think one could maybe simplify it a bit to make it easy to understand.

It would be really scary to be attacked by a fleet who is jamming your mini-map, so that all you see is the position of that one ship and noise everywhere else on your mini-map, and you can only ever target the ships around you if they are in your visual field. It sort of gives you good incentive to go after the jamming ship first.

As long as this does not happen in every system you enter, I think it is a great addition. It would also be a great feature for a storyline or sidequest to connect into.

This post has been edited by Modesty Blaise : 12 May 2012 - 08:18 AM

@modesty-blaise, on 12 May 2012 - 08:07 AM, said in Your game functionality wishlist:

It would be really scary to be attacked by a fleet who is jamming your mini-map, so that all you see is the position of that one ship and noise everywhere else on your mini-map, and you can only ever target the ships around you if they are in your visual field. It sort of gives you good incentive to go after the jamming ship first.

I believe that the final level in Real Space 3 had something like this, where the ship you were dueling was hiding in a nebula that rendered your radar screen inoperable. It seemed interesting at first, but it added excessive amounts of artificial difficulty that, ultimately, made combat a hellish chore. On the other hand, having some means of disabling the radar-jam effect would make it actually fun and interesting.

On a side note:

Please re-add Ppat radar-jam static. I know the functionality exists in Nova, but it isn't used. Static was super cool looking and so much better than your mini-map not updating when it was 'jammed'.

So, another thought on bars. Not only should there be a few different options, I think it should cost to go in there. Pricier bars might give different mission types, which I think could be accomplished with a rating system exactly like the tech level system. So, a cheap seedy bar might only cost you 15 credits (cost of drinks being cheap,) but it might lead to smuggling missions and the like. A pricey establishment might cost you a hundred credits to get in, but lead to high-level courier type missions. That would also allow for specific contacts to meet you at specific bars (using a special level number just like special tech.)

I think it could be done in a way that doesn't add too much needless complexity to the game, but to offer it if the programmers would want it. You'd need to pay attention to mission briefings and make sure you head to the right bar, not just the right planet.

While we're at it, add in a flag for whether or not the player's character drinks alcohol.

Could be interesting... your contact wants to know why you have a Shirley Temple and declines to offer you the mission?

1. It's a Boy Rogers.

2. No alcohol keeps my intellect keen.

I would be drinking Pepsi, and I don't like the flavor of alcohol.

It would pretty much prevent you from getting to the Wild Geese storyline (or prevent it from making much sense,) but I think it's certainly a flag that could be included for some interesting mission string offers.

And to be fair, I love a good Arnold Palmer myself, as well as a few others.

• Mission-related fighters can be docked inside players' ships as an option if they have corresponding docking bay outfits.

• Addendum to painting a target as a high priority target, add a "high priority" target in escort command so that all the other commands will respond accordingly.

@coraxus, on 12 July 2012 - 06:32 AM, said in Your game functionality wishlist:

• Addendum to painting a target as a high priority target, add a "high priority" target in escort command so that all the other commands will respond accordingly.

Isn't that what the "Attack" command does now? If you've got a target selected and hit attack, the escorts go for that ship first.

Or do you mean to use it for things like defending one of your ships that is not you?

@meaker-vi, on 12 July 2012 - 10:09 AM, said in Your game functionality wishlist:

Isn't that what the "Attack" command does now? If you've got a target selected and hit attack, the escorts go for that ship first.

Or do you mean to use it for things like defending one of your ships that is not you?

Yeah I should've been more specific, but you right I meant the latter. For when your escorts go into defend and in formation mode. And now to add a couple of more to my epic wishlist :3

1. Escorts will not waste any ammo when players order them to destroy a derelict or disabled ship.
2. A new escort command "follow" to be added. "Follow" is exactly like "Formation" except that escorting ships will not fire weapons no matter what, nor will they go after random hostile target if they stray too far from a player's ship.

Anyone say anything about cool, mid-flight space phenomena in the background, like in naev? Also additional syst color properties would be cool. Tweaking the hue and saturation of ships and planets in the area would make it look like you were actually flying through a nebula rather than flying on top of it.