3D modeling question / Making missiles harder to hit

[Gazz]

More missile spam can not be a solution because all that does is freeze random ships and turret scripts.
This serious engine issue is one of the main reasons for this project.

"More missiles" also increases the supply and micromanaging issues that are... not fun.

Which capital weapons are great at shooting down missiles?

In my tests, PPC, Gauss and their ilk have been occasionally used successfully and M6 sized lasers definitely work very well.
Anything smaller... obviously.
Flak is not even ideal.
Lasers like PRG have a higher fire / turn rate and can engage several missiles in succession while Flak is still rotating to fire at the first.

With vanilla turret scripts Flak is great because they keep firing until the current target is destroyed.

Missile Defense Mk2 works more like a Phalanx system, engaging multiple missiles without necessarily waiting for the bullets to arrive.
If the first target did survive, it just gets scheduled for another appointment with the turret lasers.
That allows it to use heavier and longer range lasers effectively.
It's also the only way to deal with missile barrages.

[paulwheeler]

Well the rapid box settings in TBullets means you can adjust bullet "hit box" sizes easily without any fiddling about with models and altering visibility. But I'm not sure that it is the answer.

The problem definitely is - how do you make missiles hard to hit, while still being able to defend against small fighters.

By their nature ships are harder to hit than missiles as the missiles travel in a straight line at their target whereas a fighter will avoid when it gets too close or starts taking hits.

Making bullet hit boxes smaller will not help and will only make taking down fighters even harder. In the CMOD I have given the ISR a very small hit box and it has trouble with fighters, but still takes out missiles with ease.

I don't agree that reducing the missile model sizes doesn't help. OK - it won't make much difference for the smallest missiles, but I'm definitely seeing more heavy torpedoes get through an M2s missile defence with the model size halved - especially with faster fire rates so you can send several at a target within a small period of time.

With the CMOD missile pack I have really raised missile speeds, fire rates and turning and it has helped but its still not as good as it should be.

Is there no way we can script shields onto a missile once its launched? However, even if you did this, adding a 1MJ shield to a missile won't help much if its hit by a PPC blast, or even a flak blast.

Perhaps a combination of smaller missiles and smaller bullet hit boxes is the way to go. Then you'd have to reduce the effectiveness of fighter weapons to give capital ships a chance to take them out with their lower hit rates.

I may do some testing with the CMOD with smaller bullet hit boxes all round and see how it changes the mechanics of battles.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

In vanilla, the Kha'ak beam lasers prove very effective at missile defence (I found wraith missiles ineffective against Kha'ak capitals on the whole).

Beam class, PSG class, and Zig-Zag (IonD) weapons are very effective against missiles from my experience.

If you wish to increase the effectiveness of missiles against large targets without increasing the number, one way is to use a large blast radius (c/f Vanguard Aldrin and Vanguard Earth in AWRM). It is not entirely fool proof or safe but I have found it to work (perhaps a synaptic detonator approach? - lob a big unguided missile in the general direction then detonate it when targets are in the blast radius and you are not)

[TrixX]

Perhaps a combination of smaller missiles and smaller bullet hit boxes is the way to go. Then you'd have to reduce the effectiveness of fighter weapons to give capital ships a chance to take them out with their lower hit rates.

I may do some testing with the CMOD with smaller bullet hit boxes all round and see how it changes the mechanics of battles.

Well currently when you compare fighter weapons vs normal they are already unbalanced. Quite often an M3 can field FAR too much forward firepower compared to the M6 and M7 classes. Hence a group of 5 M3's are real trouble for M6's and M7's even with dedicated anti-fighter weapons.

I rebalanced XTL with this in mind so the Fighter balance is much closer together but they still have specific roles, and aren't overly powerful against larger M6 or higher vessels.

[Gazz]

Is there no way we can script shields onto a missile once its launched? However, even if you did this, adding a 1MJ shield to a missile won't help much if its hit by a PPC blast, or even a flak blast.

Very few script insctuctions work on missiles.
Beyond the basics like positions, speed, waretype and such, you can pretty much only get the missile's race.
That's why the "obvious" ways don't work. =)

You can remote control a missile with force position and set rotation but that is limited by the fact that you need high frequency scripts to do that smoothly.

You can turn off it's collision detection. No fun.

If missile use was cut down severely, boosted missiles that strafe might have a chance... except against stuff like Flak or PBE.


Bullet / target size was just the most obvious visible problem.
If you already tried and it didn't do much... I'm somewhat out of ideas.
Extreme-micromanagement scripts that force a missile to "maneuver". Messy.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

If missile use was cut down severely, boosted missiles that strafe might have a chance... except against stuff like Flak or PBE.

This probably is the best option in the short term. IMO the introduction of M7Ms and M8s in X3:TC was a bright idea that was poorly thought out. Seems evident from the fact that in Vanilla, AI M7Ms and M8s are proverbial sitting ducks.

Swarm missiles are probably the furthest we should go in that direction... although I do like the modding efforts to improve the effectiveness of AI controlled M7Ms and M8s (LitCube's missile boat scripts) and efforts to improve anti-missile turret performance (e.g. your MissileDefence Mk2 script).

[bobxii]

You can turn off it's collision detection. No fun.

How about rapidly flipping it on and off? (to introduce a random "damn it missed" element)

[X2-Eliah]

Is it fun, though, and not just plain annoying? (I.E. 'wtf - I hit the missile twice, I clearly see the bullets striking it, but only one does the damage').

Besides, flipping one missile on/off rapidly would already need a frequently-looping script, doing it to 100 missiles, or just 20 (more than possible even in small fights) would be pretty much murder, I'd say.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

I don't know if this has been suggested before but one potential option would be to impliment/use something along the lines of the XTM ECM script. Going from memory, I think the XTC team have something along those lines implemented already but I do not know if it is available in a standalone form for anyone to use.

[Gazz]

But where is the challenge in PRESS BUTTON TO WIN?

If ECM has 50% chance to kill each incoming missile (within whatever range), I'll just press it 3x. Win.

Wouldn't that make missiles even more boring and pointless than they are now?

If it has a 60 sec cooldown or something like that... again, what has changed?
When most of the time your turrets are responsible for missile defense, ECM is no more than a cute gadget and we're back to square one.



Scripting ECM is trivial. Basically a cheat script.
Hotkey setup and script to loop though all incoming missiles. (about 10 lines)
Destroy all missiles within 1500 m with a 50 % chance each. (5 lines)
Add some cost to it? Can be as easy or complicated as you please.

The problem? That's not an interesting script. Neither to write nor to use.
Maybe if you add a drastic cost like your ship's laser energy being instantly drained to zero for the next 20 seconds...
Even EBC or GC require laser energy to fire.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

True, I like the idea of the laser drain that seems appropriate for an ECM script, perhaps a percentage drain and only a percentage chance of missile destruction (which could have a further chance of detonating or fissiling)?

Not sure if the above would solve the problem of increasing missile effectiveness though...

I suppose the key point is what is being addressed by this thread? Are we saying that missiles are not effective enough or that the ships are unable to defend themselves effectively?

If the former, would not a simple answer be to put a handicap on any scripts/mods that improve missile defence too much (subjective)?

[HotSake]

I wonder if it's possible to make ECM interesting. What if it:

• was powered by shield/laser/engine power, making it a gamble that the missile is more dangerous than the combat handicap?
• was directional and only affected missiles in a cone in front of you/behind you/centered on target missile?
• had an area and only affected missiles in a given radius around the target missile?
• was used offensively to scramble an attacker's guidance, causing any missiles it launched for a short period to harmlessly self destruct?

[THE_TrashMan]

Anyone notice some sloppy work on Ego's part?


I'm taking apart some of their ships and I just see plenty of errors that point to haste. The modelers must have been in a churnch or something.

[Gazz]

I wonder if it's possible to make ECM interesting. What if it:

• was powered by shield/laser/engine power, making it a gamble that the missile is more dangerous than the combat handicap?
• was directional and only affected missiles in a cone in front of you/behind you/centered on target missile?
• had an area and only affected missiles in a given radius around the target missile?
• was used offensively to scramble an attacker's guidance, causing any missiles it launched for a short period to harmlessly self destruct?

The main problem I have with any such ECM systems is that they are not interactive.
The player doesn't have to do anything differently for it to work. He cannot see it work.

With turrets you can watch them track and engage incoming missiles. That is real.

It also should not be a micromanagement nightmare like having to target every missile individiually to make it go boom.
That would get old real quicklike.

Non-interactive systems are very hard to balance and even harder to put on a good show with them.

The MARS cargo collection is practically all show. In comparison, it would have taken a trivial effort to just beam all cargo within x km into the cargo hold.
There are a few scripts which do exactly that.
But it wouldn't have looked real to me.

It's a game. Putting up a good show and entertaining the player is the prime directive.

I suppose the key point is what is being addressed by this thread? Are we saying that missiles are not effective enough or that the ships are unable to defend themselves effectively?

Technically, I was investigating a way to make missiles harder to hit.

This would have been the first brick to build something like this.

So far it looks like it will not be possible to generally balance all lasers to achieve the goal.


And when a problem is not solveable, do the obvious. Change the problem. =P

What if... a single laser would be the only laser allowed to engage missiles?

Could simply call it a Point Defense Laser, even supply different versions on the same laser ID.
The rationalisation would be that it's some kind of gatling laser that fires a whole cloud of bullets, which is the only reliable way to hit missiles.
The firing sound would be changed to something like a chaingun burst.

With being able to adjust all laser stats around this particular purpose, it might work?

Obviously, turret scripts would have to be rewritten to understand the limitation.
Unlike other suggestions to generally dumb down turret scripts, this way would have a much better story to go with it and the clear goal of improved balance.
Much easier to sell than: Download this to make your turrets dumber!

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

And when a problem is not solveable, do the obvious. Change the problem. =P

What if... a single laser would be the only laser allowed to engage missiles?

Could simply call it a Point Defense Laser, even supply different versions on the same laser ID.
The rationalisation would be that it's some kind of gatling laser that fires a whole cloud of bullets, which is the only reliable way to hit missiles.
The firing sound would be changed to something like a chaingun burst.

With being able to adjust all laser stats around this particular purpose, it might work?

Obviously, turret scripts would have to be rewritten to understand the limitation.

Agreed This is probably the simplest answer. The only question is which laser(s) and how to maintain mod compatability (ship compatability for instance).

A custom missile defense only laser would not even need to do much if any damage since I believe the bullet impact alone may be enough to set it off.

One option would be to leave the actual choice of laser(s) to the end-user/modders and make it so that the missile defence scripts will only attack missiles/work if the required laser is fitted/available. A simple spoken error message of "<laser X> not available" would probably suffice for end user notification (if it is a player owned ship) when they try to initiate the missile defence commands and a fail over to protect ship or attack enemies perhaps?

[paulwheeler]

I don't know if anyone has actually tested this yet since I posted it in the SRM thread so I'll post it here too.

I am definitely seeing a higher success rate with missiles with this installed, especially with the larger missiles. Hornets are great with this!

It is the CMOD missile pack with all missile models halved in size.


http://www.thexuniverse.us/downloads/cm ... RMTEST.zip


It should work even if you don't use CMOD. Just install as a fake patch.

[Gazz]

The only question is which laser(s) and how to maintain mod compatability (ship compatability for instance).

Of course this goes way beyond scripting. It would only work with ships / mods that play nice with it or just happen to already have this laser on the compatibility list already.

Paul has volunteered the SRM as a guinea pig and a ship (or rather TCockpits) mod would be required to make such a thing work.


Maybe the Point Defense Laser (PDL) needs a small rapid box, too.
Will have to be tested.

Halving the missile sizes is definitely a good idea, regardless of what the lasers end up as.
Making missiles faster, too, because it's ridiculous if an M5 flies 2 or 3 times as fast as most missiles. =P
Faster than some heavy torpedoes - I can see that. But not faster than most missiles period...

One option would be to leave the actual choice of laser(s) to the end-user/modders and make it so that the missile defence scripts will only attack missiles/work if the required laser is fitted/available. A simple spoken error message of "<laser X> not available" would probably suffice for end user notification (if it is a player owned ship) when they try to initiate the missile defence commands and a fail over to protect ship or attack enemies perhaps?

I don't like micromanagement like that. It's also a big cut into a ship's overall usefulness if 2 turrets must stay devoted to missile defense at all times.
This would be bad if the PDL had rather crappy performance against fighters.

"Crappy against fighters" is easy to do. 1 shield damage, all hull damage.
Like shooting flechette rounds on a tank. Scratches the paint at most.

In this case I'd go for limited auto-swapping. Changing to PDL for missiles, then switching back to whatever laser the user had originally installed.
No "smart" swapping but merely the required workaround to let a "small" turret still handle fighters.

A lot easier that way than messing around with ship AI, jobs, default loadouts...
The loadouts would require some thought, though, because a ship would be unable to do missile defense without having at least a few PDL on board.



The main question remains, though:
Can this "special" PDL be made bad enough to give missiles a chance?

[TrixX]

Out of interest Paul what rapid box sizes have you tested? I know you have been through a fair few, just wondering where the limits of hard to hit start to come in with reduces laser/beam sizes.

[Gazz]

I'll tests when I get around to it.
First I'll have to create a table of missile (object) sizes, then check the effect of the hitbox in long-term barrage tests.

M7M are great for that because they put out missiles on multiple trajectories.

[paulwheeler]

I have been testing bullet rapid box sizes down to about 0.002, but the more I test, the more I think that past a certain size (about 0.05) the rapid box doesn't really seem to make much difference. Perhaps its because the actual bullet is bigger than that so the rapid box does nothing anyway. I think the rapid box is only used when you want hit box to be larger than the size of the actual bullet.

With the ISR with a rapid box of 0.05 x 0.05 it starts to have trouble hitting fighters. I tried ISR with 0.002 x 0.002 but it didn't make much difference.

Maybe if we remove all collision information from the bullet model, then maybe the rapid box will take over entirely...

Its a test in progress so I'll report back when I have more information.