Dauntless Guidance System Broken?

[RedMarth]

Mine doesn't seem to be doing anything since the new patch. Maybe it has something to do with the MIRV fix? Anyone else noticing this problem?

[gGeorg]

Do you use all those Beam 3 boosters ?(rangemaster, High e-focus, Energy shrink tech)
Can you compare also Heavy mounted Death rays?

[numbnumbnewbie]

With what I learned today.
1 doom star with zeon missles/ dauntless guidance system AND 4 titans with zeon missles/ duantless guidance systems
can take out an entire antaran fleet for a victory condition.

[numbnumbnewbie]

Originalmente postado por gGeorg:

Do you use all those Beam 3 boosters ?(rangemaster, High e-focus, Energy shrink tech)
Can you compare also Heavy mounted Death rays?

I did, use all 3 boosters, got shredded due to cool down.


the orion guardian death rays would probably have the same problem, beams come out, destroys a ship, then wait until it cools down.

With DGS, a volley of missiles are launched and once it destroys a target, it will track a new target, then wait for the missile cool down, launch again, destroy more ships.

[numbnumbnewbie]

Changed up the 4 titans and doom star to use mirv missles only and no duantless and lost the antaran victory battle. LOL.
wow,
what a difference with DGS vs MIRV.

[bilbous]

On my missile titans I always use hard shields as well as heavy and reinforced armor. I load up on useful stuff and ignore all the beam specials. Fast missile racks, auxillary engines, automatic repair modules, DGS, whatever I can fit before I start adding missile banks. One slot of PD beams just for good luck no more than 10% of weapon space. I can't say I have played since the latest hotfix though.

[WhatIsSol]

Daughtless is one of those techs that is probably too good.

Ways to correct could be - increase missile cooldown (like the opposite of fast missile racks - thinking increased targetting time), shorten the retarget range, provide a chance that the missile will not retarget, and/or even make the missiles cost more in ship space for the extra guidance equipment.

I kind of like that last one. Make the ship have to have the special and then make it a missile mod that increases their cost and space requirements for that slots. Change the code to check for the presence of both or the missile does not retarget. That would allow a ship to have some missiles under daughtless and some not under daughtless.

I also think I'm going to bring back ammo consumtion and capacity for missiles. It is logical that they should have an ammo count. This would be a bigger deal to implement due to AI changes needed, but would probably provide some balance.

[bilbous]

You might want to make ecm affect the splinters if it doesn't already. You wouldn't want it 100% effective though. Actually it might be good to make another ecm check everytime a missile retargets. That alone might be all you need. It would be good to know how that subsystem actually works.

[WhatIsSol]

If you are talking about the ECCM mod for missiles - it currently does nothing. Well that is not totally true - it makes the missile take more space and production costs. But its jammer factor is not being used for hit calculations on missile strikes.

I have fixed it in unreleased UCP 5.1

But I did not think about maybe making the retargeted missile have a lower chance of hitting - that could work as well. So first strike is at 100% attack chance and each retarget reduces it by say 25%.

[WhatIsSol]

Wide Area Jammer is also not working right.

It is supposed to give +25 missile avoidance to ships that do not have an active jammer and +75 to the ship that has it equiped. The +75 is not functioning.

Honestly before I mess with missile power, I think it makes better sense to correct all these issues and then re-evaluate.

[bilbous]

The ECM on the target ship has a chance to prevent the missile from hitting its target, right? So when the missile enters its field range I assume there is a check to see if the missile is affected. That chance cannot be 100% or missiles would be totally useless. ECCM on the missile is used to reduce the possibility that the missile gets prevented from hitting its target.

At what point is the check made? On a standard missile it doesn't really matter as long as it is made only once. On a mirv missile it matters if it happens after seperation if it doesn't affect the 4 sub warheads. What happens when a missile comes into contact with the overlapping fields of several ships? Is there a greater chance that it will be disabled or is there just the single check at the standard rate?

If there is only one check per missile at the standard rate, additional checks on retargeting might be valid. If there are additional checks on retargeting but they do not apply to the 4 submunitions of the mirv that might also be a valid area to tweek. Right now from what you have said it seems like the submunitions do not benefit from DGS but the seperation of the warheads from the rocket chassis could be considered a retargeting on its own and thus qualify for a second check

Like I said I can only speculate on how the programming works. These are the kind of things I would want to discover if I was the one probing the black box. These ideas are offered for what they are worth, they may be worth what you pay for them.

[WhatIsSol]

It only does one check that I could tell at the point of impact.

Only the jammer effect on target ship has any effect - except in the case of the wide area jammer. In that case if the target ship does not have a jammer it gets the wide area fleet jammer defense.

Fragments are considered missiles for hit chances - no difference, no check at split.

No check is made at the point of retargeting, it just picks a semi random target within range to retarget.

[bilbous]

Not too realistic then, it would appear the field strength orf the ECM attenuates rapidly enough that it extends slightly past the shields under normal conditions. Of course it is not actually doing anything of the sort with the one check I'm just trying to visualize the model of what that one check might be. It does apply the ECM effect before the shields, right?

The wide area jammer would seem to be a bird of a different feather extending out to a longer range at lower levels while maintaining core strength just beyond the shields.

Are the ECM and WAJ cumulative or does the WAJ mean your ECM is pointless? It appears I am putting more thought into this than the developers or that they coded for expedience after due consideration.

Perhaps I expect too much from a game :)

[WhatIsSol]

Yep it checks before impacting the ship so before shields.

It only applies one jammer effect and checks them in this order: Multi-Wave, Jammer, and then fleet effect (if any from wide-area jammer).

I have corrected this and the soon to be released UCP 5.1 puts Wide-Area Jammer on the front of these checks, since it is supposed to provide 75 missile avoidance to the equiped ship - currently it would only be providing 25 (the fleet effect).

[gGeorg]

Originalmente postado por WhatIsSol:

Wide Area Jammer is also not working right.

It is supposed to give +25 missile avoidance to ships that do not have an active jammer and +75 to the ship that has it equiped. The +75 is not functioning.

Honestly before I mess with missile power, I think it makes better sense to correct all these issues and then re-evaluate.

ECM should work first agreed.
One of the rocket solution might also be, set ECM device cheaper space. :]

That ECM check on impact is wierd. Electromagnetic countermeasure needs to work as a field. Lets say half range of PD. That field reset the target so a rocket change a direction then continue fly stright as torpedo. We are in space so such disabled rocket will leave a combat zone eventualy. It is possible however that it impacts with any other target. Side effect of proper ECM field is that a small ship with an ECM on board spearheding the rocket spam, can make a surprise. :D

Also, could you check the speed mod on the rocket?
I dont see a difference... .
Two slots for rockets, they fire both. Rockets flyes with same spacing. Noone is faster.

[WhatIsSol]

Doubtfull that I would adjust to act as a field, it is more realistic, but level of effort would be very high and would almost certainly have performance impacts to the tactical battles.

I will check on the speed mod.

UPDATE: Yep speed mod is bugged, it is adjust velocity not max velocity. At the point it adjust it velocity is zero so no change in speed.