From: merrick (Merrick Burkhardt)
Subject: More Rules stuff
Date: Sat, 3 Dec 1994 11:27:35 -0700 (MST)

More Bogey Detection stuff (and other comments)

I'm thinking of cleaning up my LOOOONG post on facing, etc, and posting it to 
the TML (it'll be shorter)... should I?


Here are some new ideas.

Passive sensors are just actives that don't transmit, so (in a continuing 
attempt to make passive sensor use make sense) here are a couple of new rules.

1.X  Passive Sensing of Active signals:  

1.0  When the target of a passive, sensing ship is active, the sensing ship gets
to use the range breaks of the *active* (targets) sensor.  TL differences are 
used as per Jamming tasks (use the same DiffMods), and EMS sensors can be used 
in this way against each other and lesser sensors, but HRTs, etc, won't work 
this way in the passive role against EMS.

1.1  Locking is possible out to *twice* the extreme range of the active sensor. 
The task level is Imp +1, and must be reduced to Imp or below by DiffMods. The 
justification is that the sensing ship is receiving much more energy/area than 
the broadcasting ship receives (half the path length, and signal is full 
strength for range, not reduced by absorbsion/scattering by the target).

1.2  All active sensors may operate at *any* short range below their maximum 
value (this seemed obvious to us, but I thought I'd add it).  ie: an AEMS with 
SR16, could operate at SR5 in order to conceal its location.

1.3  Passive sensors are built either fixed or folding in FFS, but they are 
explicitly aperture synthisis arrays.  Because of this I assume that as many of 
the elements of the array as can fit are put on the hull, the folding part is 
whatever is left over.  I note all AEMS passive arrays with 2 short ranges, the 
first is the maximum fixed array short range (for that length ship), the second 
is the size of the installed array (folding) if it is bigger.  ie: PEMS 
(folding) 5(8)  would mean that without unfolding its array, it could operate 
with SR5, and unfolded it would be SR8.  The cost/size is simply the larger 
array (as it includes the smaller).  Use the surface area of the smaller, and 
add the difference between the two for the folding part.

Related to the 1.X rules are the following:  

2.X  Surprise:

2.0  Any target that has no idea that it is locked on to (it has no lock, or 
even bogey on any enemy unit) is assumed to be running to conserve g-turns.  As 
a result the range tables for shooting are not needed (they assume the target is
trying to avoid being hit) so don't use them.  Ships may fire out to twice their
extreme range (you'd have to provide damage values, etc for this).  2xextreme is
an Imp +1 task.  It must be reduced to Imp by DiffMods to be attempted (MFDs 
count for this). 

Comments:

The system above, added to a rudimentary Bogey Detection system makes passives 
work.  Going active doesn't just broadcast your rough position, it allows an 
otherwise impossible lock-on and shooting attempt.  Now I wait until I don't 
care if the other guy locks me (this is after my ship has a bogey, and as soon 
as we know (or think) that we're at least a bogey to the other guy.

This *really* works!

BTW, the rationale for the easy shooting is basically that ships in combat use 
some small (but positive) amount of g-turns every turn during combat to minutely
evade.  This is enough to make shooting a 1cm^2 beam uncertain, and hence the 
range table for shooting.  Under normal operating conditions this fuel is not 
wasted.  Refs can allow ships to patrol under micro evasion (maybe yellow alert 
instead of GQ) at a cost in g-turns (maybe 1/10 g-turn per turn). 

One more thing.  I'm aware that even with our playing area (80x60ish hexes) most
combats will start within these ranges.  What we've done for a couple of battles
is to use our rules so that we can consistantly set up a reasonable scenario.  
The big problem (to me) with just blowing off the lack of good sensor rules, and
taking care of it in the scenario setup is that you get setups that don't make 
sense (like "why the hell did we decide to engage that Tigress with our Zhdts" 
:)

-Merrick