MadMuppet
Kerguelen Station
85
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Posted - 2012.01.18 21:59:00 -
[1] - Quote
Hunting submarines:
TLDR: IGÇÖm going to talk about real world mechanics because I am bored and waiting for my kidGÇÖs after school activity to end. What I am working up to is a way to actively hunt a cloaked ship, but personally I kind of like AFK cloaking, it keeps people paranoid. Yes I know features and ideas is that way --->
There are several major method and tactics for hunting submarines, some of which could be employed in some fashion in Eve. However, given the speed at which these ships can move it would be debatable just how useful they might be. Anyhow, a couple ideas.
Sound
A submarine needs to be able to limit the sounds it releases in to the environment. Such releases of sound can be detected by others. These sounds can be compared to a database of known sounds to gradually track and identify the target. In the vacuum of space this would not apply, but what could apply would be the release of heat or other radiation from the ship that can only be mitigated via the cloak.
A follow up to the computer tracking sounds from a submarine is a system that tracks all sounds in the water but is able to detect blockages of those sounds. You are not looking for the sounds themselves, but for where the sounds are being blocked by submarineGÇÖs hull being in the way. You are looking for a sound shadow. In Eve this type of system could also work if a still ship were to monitor the background radiation of the area and look for anomalies (like the Predator or the cloaked ships from Star Trek).
Tracking submarine sounds is done by a collection of sensitive microphones. A similar system in Eve could be introduced as background radiation monitors. A fixed system could be part of a SOV infrastructure(like the SOSUS line). Mobile background probes could be deployed by scanners, but would need to be fixed in place and have a warm up time (see sonobuoy) and would be disposable. Ships use fixed and towed microphones that improve their ability to detect subs; a similar system for an warship flying slowly in a straight line might be an option in Eve.
In Eve, using the GÇÿsoundsGÇÖ of background radiation could introduce a background noise problem for the hunting fleet. If there are a lot of active moving ships in the system (NPC or Pod Pilot) the results from the probes would be much poorer with enough ship movement in the system effectively blinding the hunters. This would make the hunting of cloaked ships a smaller scale event, ie reduce blobs. Things like asteroids (and hiding near them) would benefit the cloaker (and encourage him to be in those areas).
Once a ship is localized to an area, like scanning youGÇÖll eventually get a 100% hit to the grid, you will be able to use something between a radar and a smart bomb (active sonar) to pin down the ship. Yes, they can just fly away, but the radiation stamp left behind in the tracking would reduce further hit delays to grid (faster follow up acquisition). There would always be a chance of the cloaker escaping, but not without player interaction. Also looking for a background blur might be entertaining as well, but I can see that being a hack people use (replacing the file in their system so it show up as a yellow dot or something)
Also a GÇÿpingGÇÖ from and active tracker against a cloaked would fire an aggression timer, so they canGÇÖt run away until it wears off. No logoffskis. It would also apply a 30 second cool down so they canGÇÖt just jump out of system.
Magnetic fields
Another way to track a submarine is by its magnetic field. These systems are called magnetic anomaly detectors (MADs) and they can sense changes in the local magnetic field by things like submarines. In eve this would be a type of sensor to help pin down a cloaker by people running a search pattern once they are on the grid. Again, any nearby ship would alert the sensor, so large fleets would be an issue. I would add interference from asteroids as well (making asteroid fields a potential battleground?)
TLDR part 2 Maybe this is all too complex, but if you want to hunt cloakers like submarines, might as well find real world examples, and the small gang aspect of the hunt might be interesting for some of the anti-blob players.
Yes, I only have a Vigil, I've had a bad bit of luck Ok? |