But they can't detect a massive star that's right under your nose and frying your ship
Why Are Weapons And Sensors Badly Unrealistic?
- Thread starter Mrjupp
- Start date
But they can't detect a massive star that's right under your nose and frying your ship
Actually space is a really cold place and the sensors in ED work based on detecting head radiated by hot things. Stealth by cold running is as simple as covering the radiators of your ship with some kind of insulated reflector aka metal cover with some ceramic on the outside.
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Speaking of enjoying SF writer/handwavium explanations to circumvent things. I like how the Gundam series made close quarters combat viable again:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Century_technology#The_Minovsky_particle
I wonder if there'd be a way to tie that concept into supercruise technology somehow? Make it so that the residual charge left around a ship that has entered or exited supercruise or hyperspace (since they use similar technology) causes interference at long ranges, and gets exponentially more difficult to counter, to the point that long range targeting beyond 7km is all but impossible.
I like my handwavium served hot
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I don't think the stealth argument works because we can detect the electromagnetic radiation (light) reflected from event ships - by looking at them. It wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility for a sensor package to use reflected light to detect and target ships at 100km+.
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I'll have to go with the "because gameplay" argument. Realistic space combat, whatever that is, probably wouldn't be fun. Heck it's probably not something humans, with our primitive earth-dwelling brains, could even do with any degree of effectiveness.
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I'll have to go with the "because gameplay" argument. Realistic space combat, whatever that is, probably wouldn't be fun. Heck it's probably not something humans, with our primitive earth-dwelling brains, could even do with any degree of effectiveness.
The old "gameplay" and "balance" arguments are really just sad excuses. The sensors should at least extend to visual range. If I can see it, I should be able to scan it.
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Speaking of enjoying SF writer/handwavium explanations to circumvent things. I like how the Gundam series made close quarters combat viable again:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Century_technology#The_Minovsky_particle
I wonder if there'd be a way to tie that concept into supercruise technology somehow? Make it so that the residual charge left around a ship that has entered or exited supercruise or hyperspace (since they use similar technology) causes interference at long ranges, and gets exponentially more difficult to counter, to the point that long range targeting beyond 7km is all but impossible.
I like my handwavium served hot
Small problem with that, we can target some things at over 7km out, it's a combat enhancing gameplay mechanic, pure and simple. Simple and most plausible handwavium reasoning, all ships carry ECM, it's a standard and commonplace piece of hardware, actually part of the sensor package, and we can only detect ships at short ranges in normal space due to that. BattleTech uses the same reasoning in it's universe, ranges in that are far shorter than in Elite, same time frame, related techs. All war vehicles, which is just about every damn thing in the universe, come with ECM as part of the sensor package, and it's so effective that sensors are only good at very short ranges. You can visually see your targets in BattleTech at double to triple the range of your sensor systems due to this, and you can try to manually aim in those circumstances, much as we can in Elite.
In Elite, that's why our sensors are so short ranged in normal space. While in Supercruise however, the distortion of spacetime around your ship cancels out your ECM for 'this makes no damn sense but sounds good!' reason, therefore we can detect ships at billions of kilometers while in SC.
It's just handwavium really, but it's almost plausible if you don't know anything about those things
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I just realized the most plausible and possibly probable and real reason for sensor range in SC as opposed to normal space!
In SC, standard sensors don't function, the field stops them due to the frame shifting. So we use a quantum based system while in SC for sensors, reading the quantum state of the universe around us, and due to that, ECM has no functionality. This system only works in SC due to being unable to access the proper dimensional frames of reference for reading the quantum state of the universe.
Yeah, nonsense really, but it SOUNDS pretty damn plausible, and most people will most easily accept it without giving it much thought, as MOST people just glaze over at the words quanton state
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Read this and could only think of this moment from ME2
[video=youtube;sCoHT_cHPzY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCoHT_cHPzY[/video]
Then why does chaff confuse the sensors?
Sometimes it works like radio, sometimes it works like optical FLIR, fudge if I know how it really works.
True, but what exactly can you lock onto over 7km away? Stations, sure, but they're huge, so they pick up on radar at greater distances. Nav beacons? They don't have the supercruise interference going on, and probably put out a strong enough pulse to punch through it, since it registers right into Supercruise even though ships in normal space don't.
The idea of residual SC interference akin to Minovsky particles might still work.
Only you can't. You literally can only see other ships in SC while in SC. The most likely reason would be that it's that very distortion you're picking up, but not the ship.
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Give me a break with your strawman argument. Op never asked for 100% REAL space combat. He simply asked why the scanner and weapon's range is so bad. Just amping up the range by few kms wouldn't hurt the gameplay at all, while still making way more sense than what we currently have. The "If it was 100% real it would be boring" argument is completely irrelevant when people are simply asking for a little more realism.
Also, drones will be vulnerable to hacking in the future. And countermeasures will be good enough so that super-duper long range weaponry becomes kind of ineffective.
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Ah, but you see, we can seea lot more than just other ships in SC, we can see planets, stars, moons, asteroids and stations, and even pick up signals from objects in normal space, the XSS's. With the quantum state bit, that all fits, everything but the XSS's show up via quantum state mumbo jumbo, while the XSS's register but that's it, their quantum states aren't 'fixed' enough make out what they are, just enough to register on the QS sensor. Our standard sensors, which we use in normal space and include ECM, don't function in FSD, we use the QS sensors, et viola, it's all covered from why we get a sensor lock on ships in normal space at range and why we can see so far in SC.
Simple reasoning that's JUST realistic enough to get past most people's natural cynicism, and those who know something of the field..well..it IS quantum physics, there's a poor cat somewhere...or is there?
While I have no problem with the idea of QS sensors being used to map out a solar system and everything in it, and why ships not in SC don't pick up on it (your explanation for all that is fine, by the way) remember this started because of the fact that our normal space radars are hamstrung to 7km or so (depending).
Sure you could say we all use ECM standard, but then, we also ECMs in game for use against missiles. It also doesn't explain why we can't choose to turn the ECM off so that we can see more distant objects in a neutral non-hostile situation. The idea of SC causing some kind of residual interference that takes forever and a day to wear off similar to M-particles would provide some consistency.
Heck, with a bit of work, that residual SC field concept might even be used to explain why there is "drag" in space, even for stationary objects like cargo canisters (that spin away once hit, but eventually slow and stop). I had toyed with the idea that there is a kind of inertia caused by the SC/Hyperdrive field that makes objects coming out of SC/Hyperdrive try to reach a stationary position relative to whatever the nearest significant gravitation well is (star, planet, station, depending on where you are). That charge can even be passed on to objects it makes contact with (such as a bumped cargo canister). Eventually the charge can wear off, but it's too long to be of practical consideration in-game.
Plausible, and covers multiple gameplay mechanics that make you go huh...I like it!
I love realism, but your is the point. With realism you should eat, sleep, quarrekl, have parents, son, become old etc etc....
Some choices are made to give player an enjoyable world...
Slowing down when you throttle back, huh..? Mine doesn't do that, unless I forget to deactivate 'Easy Mode' when I first log in.
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Peter F. Hamilton too. Smart drones fired from Millions of km away obliterating targets with nuclear warheads that would utterly devastate any living thing within the combat area.
Not sure what you mean by this. Falcon 4.0 uses peer-2-peer and works across hundreds of miles though most engagements start at around 30-40 miles.
That's what I was talking about. In the link I posted, there is a very long list of reasons why stealth in space simply doesn't work, at least not without some applied phlebotinum.
The fact that civilian ships come equipped with radiator covers that work, even for a short while, implies that in the conflict between stealth and scanner technology, stealth has won out during this period of time in the Elite Universe, to the point where being stealthy is considered an essential feature. In order for those radiator covers to work, the entire ship has to be designed to move heat from the outside of the ship, where it can be easily detected at a range of over 100 ls, to the core of the ship.
On the flip side, there is the very real downside of using active scanners over passive ones. Namely, the huge glowing bulls-eye you paint on your ship, allowing everyone within several light hours to know exactly where you are, and providing them with a homing beacon for their weapons. Not to mention that there are a wealth of technologies designed to spoof, trick, jam, or otherwise play around with active scanners.
Until we start getting different sensor options that allow us to equip our ships for information warfare, I'm going with the assumption that at the present time in Elite, stealth is king, which limits the effective range of combat.
Every ship in the game has a hard counter to extreme range weapons (assuming you can detect a launch) in the form of it's FSD.
