The KSP Naval Academy

[camulus777]

To be honest hitting a nose cone sized target on a planet or moon is like shooting a match head. I had to practice a lot to even get close and i made sure to do it on different planets and moons each time so that i could get used to controlling it not just on one planet. It was hard at first but getting it down meant that ground targets were never safe if i knew where they were.

@zekes your missiles can be used as cruse missiles but are hard as hell to hit a planetary target with when entering an atmosphere. I did put some small winglets on one and fired it off and it made a world of difference. I'm am only talking about the ones on the Drek, but seeing as they are not designed for planetary bombardment they are rather versatile.

[camulus777]

New episode should be up soon, i've been bzy with the kids being sick and the wife as well. When your wife gets sick the house falls apart. LOL

[Xeo]

Regarding the rules, I was wondering : why are we not using timed turns, as in timed with the MET. I can see several benefits to that, the main one being a greater tactical depth. A few examples :

- No need for artificial rules like "use one craft at a time, in the order of their weight" or "target only one thing". Just do whatever you have the time to do. You think you need the firepower of a capital ship ? Go ahead and maneuver it into position but you probably won't have the time to do anything else. Need to fight on several fronts at a time ? Use your fast and nimble fighters. You can surely pilot several of them in one turn.

- You can choose to let your precious carrier away from the battle to ensure it's safety. But that means your fighters will have to travel longer and will not be able to join the battle, deliver their payload and get back to the ship in one turn. It also makes re-fitting / repairing (docking your front and aft section back together after the middle one exploded) in combat less "over-powered" since doing so will likely cost you a turn. You can also plan ahead more efficiently as you know how many time will pass before your next turn, and therefore where the fighter you left drifting will be when you get to play again.

- If the fleets start away from each other, pre-engagement maneuvers will now mean something ... as they will finally exist. The player who gets the first turn may not be able to reach the enemy fleet and one-hit-kill a capital ship with its fighter before the other player can react. It also means fleeing / kitting / guerrilla tactics becomes real things as slow ships won't be able to catch up on fast an nimble ones anymore as they won't have all the time they want to perform an intercept before their prey can play again.

- It brings stress and human error into the equation a lot more. If the fight is going badly for you, you will probably want to do as much as you can in one turn and are more prone to commit an error while rushing a maneuver. Or you can fail to see a move your opponent is slowly pulling out because you are blinded by the few distractions he keeps throwing at you.

- Reinforcements. A backup fleet on it's way to save your day but you will have to survive long enough to see it. It is an interesting engagement scenario but is more or less impossible right now.

I think you get the idea by now. This system would make time a thing to consider and to play with. And as a consequence it makes distance a meaningful data too. It promotes different playstyles ans offer more choices to the player. It also diminish the number of additional rules needed. Who cares a given ship is too big to be considered a fighter and cannot play first ? It's potentially better firepower is offset by the fact that is is slower and thus less "time-efficient". Hell, why couldn't I just decide to take my first tun with my heavy cruiser and try to severely cripple some high priority targets, so that they would then be more vulnerable to the light weaponry of my fighters ? Again choices, tactical depth.

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Here is how it could work.

1 - Once the battle is ready to begin (the players agreed on the fleets, the place, the victory/defeat conditions, ramming or not ...), MET is set back to 0 via save editing, the players decide how long a turn will last as well as an "inter-turn". The file is given to the first player, he has the time of an "inter-turn" (let's say 30 seconds for this example) to select his ship, get his bearings and whatnot.

2 - When the 30s are elapsed he can do whatever he has decided to do during this turn (let's say 3 minutes). At the end of it, he quicksaves. The MET is now 3 min and 30 seconds (approximately, the inter-turn is there to serve as a "buffer-zone" for the small errors). The first player can proceed to take after-action screenshot freely as the second player will just reload the quicksave to go back in time afterwards.

3 - The second player gets the files, loads the quicksave and has until the MET reaches 4 min to get ready, then he plays, quicksaves and gives the save back. And so on until the game is over.Tell me what you think.

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I also thought of another rule concerning civilian/support ships. Basically, my idea is to disallow a player to engage a civilian/support ship (designated as such before the fight) if an escort ship is less than 1km away from it. The idea behind it is to render escort tasks possible in a turn-by-turn system because right now, nothing prevents you to hit a target at will even if there are 50 fighters near it since they are "inactive" until you're done.

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Still on the topic of rules, I want to say that the need of a nearby controlling ship for using smart torpedoes and unmanned ship seems a fair and good rule to me, even if it is not the more "realistic" one.

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Lastly I want to say that I really appreciate camulus videos and that I love how a little community has built a "game in the game" and keeps making it better everyday. I am clearly not really a vocal member of the forum but I spend a fair amount of time reading it and I am always amazed by those threads that retrace battles or showcase amazing starships. Keep it going guys, you're doing it really well.

Edited August 29, 2013 by Xeo
Mean forum decided to delete my formatting. Repaired it.

[Commander Wilmot]

If the turn based system remains, I think there should be a difference between short and long range guided missiles, or there should be a difference between long range and short range firing.

For example, a short range missile like those I have seen some players make with an srb engine won't get as far and is more point and shoot when it comes to aiming. It might be nice to add a probe control unit to the missile to slightly improve aim, but since you can't kill the engine you only get one shot and less range. Alternately any missile can be launched in one turn (perhaps only under a certain range) but can't be guided in. A player would launch the missile, rotate the missile as he thought necessary to properly aim it, and then would engage the throttle and engine, but would not be able to control or adjust it's flight path after activating the engine.

Either way there would not be an unbalanced advantage when launching a guided missile from far away as it would still require two turns giving the opponent a turn to attempt to move and evade or intercept, but would also allow guided missile ships some means of defense if they were fighting in close rather than the waiting two turns to score a hit. Guided Missile ships like mine or zeke's would still probably be at a disadvantage in close range as ships with dumbfire weapons tend to have more armaments from the designs I have seen.

[Mekan1k]

I did not know that Kerbals Had Navels! This changes everything!

[Sliinty]

As for rule changes you may know my idea is shooting by mass. Personally I prefer high velocity to high mass weapons, which lend themselves to mid-long range dumbfire or just high acceleration.

Where guided missiles become unfair is their ability to be used after the ship carrying them is destroyed...

[camulus777]

For me that would be the point is that the enemy can kill you even if you can kill them. Gives more of a reel time feel to the combat, but again if you use anti missile weapons then it wont matter you will have a chance to kill the missiles too.

[War Eagle 1]

Or the rule could be that after a ship is destroyed, its guided missiles are rendered inoperable. Even if a section of a ship is blown off that is carrying a missile, that missile cant be used

example, if my salvation class destroyer is hit and still alive but the area where the missiles are has been ripped off. I can still use the missiles attached to the ship but the missiles on the part ripped off can be used.

[zekes]

For me that would be the point is that the enemy can kill you even if you can kill them. Gives more of a reel time feel to the combat, but again if you use anti missile weapons then it wont matter you will have a chance to kill the missiles too.

that's what anti missile weapons are for, one ship can "kill" multiple missiles if they are from the same enemy ship.

[War Eagle 1]

my only problem with anti-missile weapons is if your having a battle set by macey deans standards is how would that work. If a player takes his turn and fires a missile, how will the other player (who has to wait for the game file to be sent back) defend against it.

[FallingIntoBlack]

my only problem with anti-missile weapons is if your having a battle set by macey deans standards is how would that work. If a player takes his turn and fires a missile, how will the other player (who has to wait for the game file to be sent back) defend against it.

By having good ship armor.

[Top8]

Hello everyone - great ships and hats off for starting to develop what looks like it will be a good system for ksp wargaming. I am so in - work and school permitting.

My two cents on stealth and scouting in RL space - though complete stealth is impossible practical measures for limiting the information the enemy has ... or falsifying intelligence - are possible.

You can mange energy emisions, spoofing other ship types and even classes. You can eliminate waste heat asymetrically and appear like something or someone else. You could even shed energy is wavelengths that are noisy. So against a large patch of sky that is bright at deep infrared it is possible to shift waste heat to blend in to that patch ... the universe is noisy in many ways.

The other thing to remember, which some here have, is that detection has its limits. There is no sensor system that scans cubic light years of space ... the ones we have do it a small slice at a time and the resolution is cruddy at best. Massive telescope arrays completely and utterly fail to detect well understood types of natural objects unless they are huge, bright, etc. Furthermore the mountain of data generated by our sky searches today loterally takes decades to analyse in a proper fashion. If astronmers have an idea of what to look for then maybe tbey might shrink a survey to months in duration.

So scouting would be very important and stealth a very real strategy.

The spaceflighters are useless fellow everyone quotes is dealing in scenarios of ideal technology ... and he will probably be correct in a few centuries or millenia. Until the real world space tech will make for plenty of cat and mouse action.

It would be a shame if this level of realism were left out of the rules since ksp is obviously not representing the kind of ideal far future tech that makes fighters obsolete.

My two cents as someone with a fair bit of science education and a love of hard sci-fi

[Sliinty]

I was playing devils advocate before, so ill do it again.

Firstly you talk about very sci fi ways of eliminating waste energy, which sound somewhat dubious to me, then talk about using contemporary space telescopes and such to find a ship! No fair!

Also the sky is pretty much the same in every direction... hugging jupiter might be a better bet lol

Just as weve never tried to make a space fighter, similarly weve never tried to scan for space fighters! Its a lot easier to see stuff in space than it is underwater, and submarines have to be pretty careful not to get caught...

For the foreseeable future its not going to be hugely difficult to stay unseen though, its true.

[Top8]

For sure I am not saying it will be easy ... bit stealth is possible. Heat can be eliminated in an asymmetric fashion with a shroud of variable materials and active cool. With my limited engineering knowledge it would be expensive, but doable. We already cool things in space to near absolute zero for purposes of shrouding IR detectors from interference.

Plus you don't need to have such an extereme solution, because space is radically different depending on where you look. That's how astronomy works, there are bright objects, and even at visual wavelengths its not completely black out there.

Its not sci-fi at all to think about hiding in the noise. In fact, proof in point is how hard it is to detect NEOs. Bear in mind that these objects have variant temperature due to solar heating, radioactive content, solar wind, etc.

As long as you don't fire up a drive flare or have unshielded electronics going detection at any real range is actually really hard. People tend to think we have better 'sensors' IRL but we don't. Its sort of sci-fi to postulate we do have good detection capability in space.

Devil's advocate is good BTW - and I am making every effort to match the paradigm KSP probably might have. Shifting wavelength may sound fancy too, but it would just be a matter of choosing the right materials and geometries to radiate the heat. Take a look at some of the invisibility cloak work being done with meta-materials if the topic is of interest.

Would the stealth be cost effective? Depenends on the military budget. I can imagine a reusable duck blind being pretty effective at 100km range if one stayed very inactive. Directional comms via laser or maser would still be usable. Cold thrust for station keeping.

I think a case could be made with science - but the better question is: Does it add to game play?

[camulus777]

Stealth in space is less a matter of being invisible and more a matter of being unnoticeable, looking like everything else. I my self have been annoyed by people coming up and saying that space battles will be fought this way and can't be fought another way, thus sayith the lord of science. Truth be told we have no idea what it is going to be like or what technology will be implemented. They mention shielding in future ships but if we ever do work out how to manipulate magnetic, or static, fields to the point that we can create a shield of some kind they will not and can not work the way they do in any sci fi movie or show. But they have no problem saying that they will work. Not to mention that lasers are cool and accurate and all but the power requirements are one hundred times to one thousand times more that a rail gun. So strapping millions of lasers on a ship and saying that they are all powered to the point that they can all be fired off at the same time and each take out a space ships is ridiculous. Your ship would have to be 90% capacitors to fire off a few of them and then they would probably burn out. That is why i like KSP we are using technology we have today and showing that practical space combat is just as complex as combat here on earth.

[Top8]

@ Camulus - 100% agreement from me.

In this case, it is KSP itself that provides the environment and thus shapes the way combat works. This is a wonderful thing that allows freedom of play within bounds that are the same for all. It would be good if whatever extra rules there are are simple and / or address things that KSP doesn't. My thought is that things that work in KSP, certain practices such as ramming possibly excepted, should work when they work and so on.

...

Technical Question to the community: What armoring fails and successes have you had?

I certainly have had some good results, but armor failure modes are tricky. My own inexperience with the game is likely the cause of bewilderment in this. Sometimes hits to similar areas with similar hits with result in bounces or dramatic shattering explosions. I have read mentions of flaws in the physics system ... but this is beyond my current understanding.

[briansun1]

what about ground base anti ship missiles? just an idea anyway

Edited September 11, 2013 by briansun1

[camulus777]

I'd use them but they are rather unreliable seeing as you have to be in the right spot to hit something in orbit. otherwise you have to wait to get your missile into position.

[Top8]

Guided missiles are good practice for maneuvering - surprising how hard it is to control once the relative speed becomes apparent.

I have no idea if it is typical, but I have to keep my speed way down to hit.

[Sliinty]

The issue with surface to orbit missiles is not accuracy but time, its probably over 10 from launch to target, like 5 minimum.

You really should consider hi velocity weapons, at high enough speed physics gets funny in ksp and you can quite easily clip through and ignore armour.

EDIT 10 minutes, just to clarify

[briansun1]

ok, what about orbital station mounted wepons

[Sliinty]

Also, new rule ideas to promote intelligent, tactical maneuvering:

-Turns last 2:30 MET maximum, 30s at the beginning of the turn for assessing the situation.

-If an enemy ship is below 750m from one of your ships, you may fire on it with that ship for free

-Friendly ships below 200m from the active ship at the start of the turn may maneuver, so long as they finish the turn below 200m from said ship.

-After your active ship finishes firing, you have 5s before the turn ends prematurely.

-If you do not use the full 2:30, the opponent gets to use any time you did not use.

-No quicksaving, please

The idea is to burn and coast so you are in that 750m at the start of your turn, or put ships in danger as a lure, for example. Other initiatives are to make formations necessary, and to put pressure on players.

Thoughts?

[Top8]

It might be handy to look at things from a pre-rendevous state first. So, the battle is going to need to 'start' when a number of ships come together. I am fine with timed turns and such as you are describing ... provided there is a definite point where battle starts. Maybe a range for that?

That range would have to agree in scale with the timing of the turns. This is to avoid someone being in the battle but being too far away to reasonably act.

Only players with ships in the battle need to take turns. There could be provision for a 'periphery' start range but those players would need to understand that they will not receive extra time to manuever. They would get the same round length as anyone else.

Also, initiative should be based on tonnage at the time of turn start. Ships get lighter as they use fuel and ammo - in a physics based game this should be accounted for.

As to the exact timing of the rounds I trust you have tried it out? Turns are a nice length at those times? Gameplay is good?

[Top8]

This also accounts for actually getting to battle. As has been mentioned before, support is important. Basing things on factors that take into account available fuel and such means having a carrier in some other orbit is an asset. A poorly supported fleet may not be able to deploy ships to battle at all ... depending on the energy required to get to battle.

[Sliinty]

Very good points there. I would say maybe 10km engagement range? All the numbers are somewhat subject to change, but I've taken the time to experiment a little