An Idea I had yesterday:
spent heat sinks should attract target lock from any heat-seeking munitions.
Reason:
a) Physics. The way heat sinks are depicted, they collect an absolutely staggering amount of heat energy before being ejected. Once exposed to space, they should emit black body radiation well into the visible range, and thus they would become THE most conspicuous object to any heat seeking warhead. Plus, as they would emit a continuous spectrum, filtering for certain frequencies wouldn´t help, at some point during their cooling, their spectrum would more or less match engine exhaust, regardless. Target discrimination would have to be a lot more nifty (--> possibility for advanced versions and/or modofications/experimental effects)
b)Gameplay: We have chaff against radar-based targetting (gimballed and turreted weapons), we have point defence as CWIS against all kinds of flying stuff (dumb and smart), we have ECM against any target lock. We also have heat-seeking warheads, which makes a lot of sense in space, but we don´t have flares. Why? everyone uses flares in air combat. They are cheap, effective and reliable.
Possible implementation:
a) basic: ejected heat sinks have a certain chance per second to attract target lock from a heat seeker inside a certain radius, for a limited period of time. Let´s say, 20% / sec for a period of 15sec after ejection on munitions in a 1.5km radius.
b) more nifty: heat sinks have an "attractiveness" that slowly decays from the moment they are ejected (both lock chance and effective radius). In addition, the starting point of the cooling curve is determined by the ejecting ship´s mass and heat percentage at the time of ejection, aka, the total stored energy in the heat sink: An eagle ejecting at 65% heat to avoid detection would leave a heat sink that is pretty ineffective as decoy/flare, and only for a very limited time, whereas a Beluga ejecting at 135% in desperation to avoid roasting the passengers would leave a heat sink that glares like a christmas tree for quite some time. As a counter measure, advanced warheads have a target spectrum filter and analysis capability, that drastically reduces the attractiveness of a glowing heat sink during certain parts of its cooling curve, thus reducing the window of time a heat sink could effectively fool it.
I think that would be a nice little tactical detail. Active use of HS as flares would be very limited, as they have low ammo count, a totally different primary function, and you need them for that.
On the other hand, if a heated battle zone gradually fills up with slowly decaying heat sinks, heat seeker munitions would become less and less effective as the engagement continues. This would discourage missile spam, as ppl would save heat seekers for certain kill shots.
It would be a mixed bag, as the ships ejecting sinks would also jam their own munitions eventually. On the other hand, if an attacker exploits a targets heat management to roast it into submission, and said target happens to have a heat sink ejector, and uses it appropriately, that could just open a tiny little chance to escape.
So it would be very very situational to actively exploit the effect, but it would be a nice additional feature to keep in the back of your head, and I would like that.
spent heat sinks should attract target lock from any heat-seeking munitions.
Reason:
a) Physics. The way heat sinks are depicted, they collect an absolutely staggering amount of heat energy before being ejected. Once exposed to space, they should emit black body radiation well into the visible range, and thus they would become THE most conspicuous object to any heat seeking warhead. Plus, as they would emit a continuous spectrum, filtering for certain frequencies wouldn´t help, at some point during their cooling, their spectrum would more or less match engine exhaust, regardless. Target discrimination would have to be a lot more nifty (--> possibility for advanced versions and/or modofications/experimental effects)
b)Gameplay: We have chaff against radar-based targetting (gimballed and turreted weapons), we have point defence as CWIS against all kinds of flying stuff (dumb and smart), we have ECM against any target lock. We also have heat-seeking warheads, which makes a lot of sense in space, but we don´t have flares. Why? everyone uses flares in air combat. They are cheap, effective and reliable.
Possible implementation:
a) basic: ejected heat sinks have a certain chance per second to attract target lock from a heat seeker inside a certain radius, for a limited period of time. Let´s say, 20% / sec for a period of 15sec after ejection on munitions in a 1.5km radius.
b) more nifty: heat sinks have an "attractiveness" that slowly decays from the moment they are ejected (both lock chance and effective radius). In addition, the starting point of the cooling curve is determined by the ejecting ship´s mass and heat percentage at the time of ejection, aka, the total stored energy in the heat sink: An eagle ejecting at 65% heat to avoid detection would leave a heat sink that is pretty ineffective as decoy/flare, and only for a very limited time, whereas a Beluga ejecting at 135% in desperation to avoid roasting the passengers would leave a heat sink that glares like a christmas tree for quite some time. As a counter measure, advanced warheads have a target spectrum filter and analysis capability, that drastically reduces the attractiveness of a glowing heat sink during certain parts of its cooling curve, thus reducing the window of time a heat sink could effectively fool it.
I think that would be a nice little tactical detail. Active use of HS as flares would be very limited, as they have low ammo count, a totally different primary function, and you need them for that.
On the other hand, if a heated battle zone gradually fills up with slowly decaying heat sinks, heat seeker munitions would become less and less effective as the engagement continues. This would discourage missile spam, as ppl would save heat seekers for certain kill shots.
It would be a mixed bag, as the ships ejecting sinks would also jam their own munitions eventually. On the other hand, if an attacker exploits a targets heat management to roast it into submission, and said target happens to have a heat sink ejector, and uses it appropriately, that could just open a tiny little chance to escape.
So it would be very very situational to actively exploit the effect, but it would be a nice additional feature to keep in the back of your head, and I would like that.