So, while Bounty-Hunting i have noticed that when a ship dumps a heat-sink, it (the ship) disappears from radar and looses tracking for a fraction of a second. This reminded me of the thermal flares used by military aircraft.
We already have the chaff launcher against active scans and radar signature tracking. However, many weapons and systems use Passive emission tracking (turreted weapons, ship sensors, heat-seeking missiles).
This emission tracking could be disrupted by a Radiation-Flare burst. Additionally to tracking disruption, the flares act as radiation sources which could have interesting effects.
The proposal:
Addition of Radiation-Flares as an active defensive weapon (mounted in a utility slot as the chaff launcher)
Function:
Instead of functioning like the chaff launcher (over-time effect), the RF launcher could have a stationary Area-of-Effect. Deploying the RF Burst could create a gradually expanding volume of multiple radiation sources (like a swarm of fireflies). That means that the cloud would not move with the source ship.
An RF launcher should have a set amount of uses, say 2. Mounting multiple launchers would not increase number of uses but the area of effect. Additionally, it should not be possible to disable individual launchers.
Eventually, flares would slowly burn out and disappear after 15-20 secs.
Effect:
The primary effect of the RF cloud would be sensor interference, obscuring detection of ships in or behind the cloud (ships in cloud would loose detection in all directions), causing ships to appear as they were out of range and unable to be targeted.
The secondary effect is the increase of local radiation. Ships rely on radiators for heat removal, increased ambient radiation can interfere with it. Ships inside the cloud would suffer effects similar to flying close to stars (i.e. easier overheating)
Results:
fooling seeker missiles to change target if RF cloud gets between target and missile.
turrets loosing tack of obscured targets
firing weapons within the cloud causes overheating
etc.
obviously cloud size, lifetime and effect magnitudes would all need balancing
We already have the chaff launcher against active scans and radar signature tracking. However, many weapons and systems use Passive emission tracking (turreted weapons, ship sensors, heat-seeking missiles).
This emission tracking could be disrupted by a Radiation-Flare burst. Additionally to tracking disruption, the flares act as radiation sources which could have interesting effects.
The proposal:
Addition of Radiation-Flares as an active defensive weapon (mounted in a utility slot as the chaff launcher)
Function:
Instead of functioning like the chaff launcher (over-time effect), the RF launcher could have a stationary Area-of-Effect. Deploying the RF Burst could create a gradually expanding volume of multiple radiation sources (like a swarm of fireflies). That means that the cloud would not move with the source ship.
An RF launcher should have a set amount of uses, say 2. Mounting multiple launchers would not increase number of uses but the area of effect. Additionally, it should not be possible to disable individual launchers.
Eventually, flares would slowly burn out and disappear after 15-20 secs.
Effect:
The primary effect of the RF cloud would be sensor interference, obscuring detection of ships in or behind the cloud (ships in cloud would loose detection in all directions), causing ships to appear as they were out of range and unable to be targeted.
The secondary effect is the increase of local radiation. Ships rely on radiators for heat removal, increased ambient radiation can interfere with it. Ships inside the cloud would suffer effects similar to flying close to stars (i.e. easier overheating)
Results:
fooling seeker missiles to change target if RF cloud gets between target and missile.
turrets loosing tack of obscured targets
firing weapons within the cloud causes overheating
etc.
obviously cloud size, lifetime and effect magnitudes would all need balancing
)
