Forums » Suggestions

Make ice/sun/starflares prox into a hemisphere

«12
Dec 12, 2005 Harry Seldon link
The point of this is to make flares inpotent if you are within the minimum distance that the flare has to travel before exploding (speed*time delay).

It's not to make it impossible to back people into flares with this fairly minor change. Again, they just have to back up a little more, so they're slightly in front of the flare, rather than behind it.

Missiles are not created with the ability to be omnipresent of their surroundings. They look in a cone in front of them, which is why the forward facing hemisphere makes sense.

I like this idea. Very much. This is silly how much people disagree with ideas like this simply because it makes it a little bit tricker to make an enemy hit a flare. Try using mines sometime. They'll do what you want just fine.
Dec 12, 2005 Spellcast link
""It's to prevent flares from exploding BEHIND you, even if you are within "the safety fuse". "" (softy)

I'm reading it just fine.. It's highly unlikely that you will get an opponent to back all the way up so he/she is actually in front of the flare again, but they can sometimes get close enough to trip the fuse of the missile that is BEHIND them. Usually this blast tumbles them AND pushes them back towards the pursuer.

A prox radius is a prox radius, if you are in it, and a valid hostile target, the missile explodes.

""It's not to make it impossible to back people into flares with this fairly minor change. Again, they just have to back up a little more, so they're slightly in front of the flare, rather than behind it."" (Harry)

see above.

Missiles are not created with the ability to be omnipresent of their surroundings. They look in a cone in front of them, which is why the forward facing hemisphere makes sense. (harry)

WRONG--
Modern air to air radar guided missiles almost always have a trigger line in the detonation circut that will cause the warheads to detonate if they are within blast range of the target, -AND- the range is increasing. This way a head-to-head shot that passes over the canopy, fuselage, or wing of a target aircraft will still explode once the radar distance from the target starts to increase. These missiles dont use a radar cone, they use a normal full scan radar array (at least the more expensive ones do) and several varieties can turn around and re-attack a target that they missed on the first pass.

This is silly how much people disagree with ideas like this simply because it makes it a little bit tricker to make an enemy hit a flare (harry)
I dont disagree with it because it would make it a bit trickier to hit an opponent, i disagree with it because imo its unnecessary. what the hell are you doing that close to someone with flares anyway. Right now those of us who prefer a little distance in our fights dont have a lot of options for dealing with people who want to get up close and personal... flares are often the only method we can use to discourage this type of flying, especially in heavier ships like the rag and the centaur where letting a cent or a vult get up close and personal is suicide.
Dec 12, 2005 Lord Q link
um, comparing flares to moderd Air-to-air missiles is kinda' stupid, i mean flares are balistic missiles. if anything they should be compared to WW-2 era rockets.

also, if i were designing a balistic missile, with a proxcimity fuse, i'd either want a hemisphere perjecting out the rear of the missile, or a sphericle fuse that triggers on increasing range. (both of those options allow the missile to aproach within close proxcimity of the target before detonating).

i think we curently have a sphere that triggers on opening range, which is the better of the two.
Dec 12, 2005 genka link
> what the hell are you doing that close to someone with flares anyway?

Assuming that all combat works exactly like it does when you have two cents with neuts against each other?
Dec 13, 2005 G0D link
I'm sorry, I forgot the virtues of sitting at 300m and firing into the great blue yonder. Thank you for bringing it to my attention genka.
Dec 13, 2005 KixKizzle link
With the new UI will it be possible to add on like a "targeting computer" so we can see a detonation sphere around the rockets?
Dec 13, 2005 The Noid link
WRONG--
Modern air to air radar guided missiles almost always have a trigger line in the detonation circut that will cause the warheads to detonate if they are within blast range of the target, -AND- the range is increasing.


Interesting, got any references?
I was under the impression that current anti-air missiles don't have a sphere-shaped blast region, but a cone-shaped one and thus want to explode before reaching the target, while pointing in the direction of the target, thus putting the target in the cone-shaped blast.
Dec 13, 2005 Spellcast link
NOID i'll see if i can dig a few up to back my point, but with most military data being at least partially classified specifics are a little harder to come by.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/missile.htm has a good listing of weapons specs that are widely availible, including some vaugeish details on guidance, and under the specifications sheet you can see the warhead sizes(in most cases) and types.

Actually it would make no sense at all for a missile to have a cone shaped blast simply because ideally you want to spew shrapnel in as large a pattern as possible.
Hollywood movies aside the warheads on air to air missiles arent usually that large, usually under 100 pounds - which any physics calculation will tell you isnt a lot of blast in an open air environment-. The warheads tend to be fragmentation warheads as its the shrapnel getting sucked into engines, holing the airframe and slicing control lines and hydraulic systems, along with the cuncussive blast propogating through the atmosphere that do the real damage.

Most ground targeted weapons do have some form of conical blast, but they are meant for targets that aren't dodging and evading as much as a hostile aircraft and can devote more weight to the warhead.

anyway having wandered way off topic... i'm gonna stop now.
Dec 14, 2005 Cunjo link
I say no.

Main reason is that flares are already ineffective if you're halfway decent at dodging up close.if a good pilot can get within a couple hundred meters of a flare-thrower and stay out of his head-on, the flares are useless. once they pass you, the only real reasons for you to run into them are either
a) you're not watching where you are going
b) you weren't dodging well enough in the first place.

In any case, they don't need this... if you have a problem dodging flares, learn to fight better. That is all.

.

EDIT:
on the subject of existing weapons, it depends on the type... some are designed to 'throw' their load at a target as they approach, while others are designed to simply wait until they're as close as they're going to get (ie, start opening distance again) and then go boom. It would stand to reason that most unguided explosive ordinance (at least that which is smart enough to KNOW what a target is) would be the latter. (such as 20mm HE anti-personnel shells, which are desgned to explode after passing around a corner or pasta barrier)