EW Drones

[PsiTraveller]

Page 3 of the Traders and Gunboats has the Countermeasure Drone. I was thinking it would make an interesting addition to the defensive array of a ship. I am trying to sort out what the building process might be.

Overall thoughts would be to put in a TL 12 or TL 15 Brain. This would give a skill level of 2 or 4. Skill chips or programming for Gunnery and EW Sensor operation would be installed as well.

The computer for the drone could run EW software to boost the roll. This may be expensive in both Core processing power and software. Otherwise the Sensors and any additional technology (Enhanced signal processing for example) would boost the EW roll.

The TL 15 Drone could then have a skill check of 2D (avg 7) + Skill 4 + 2 Advanced Sensors + 4 Enhanced Signal Processing = 17, Effect 9 on an average roll. This would allow 9 extra missiles to be taken out from incoming salvos within Close range. The Drone would be around 12 tons. I am messing around right now and they weigh in at just over 10. I plan to add a beam laser to let the Drone shoot down a missile as well with Fire Control software.

Has anyone else played around with this idea? It is a 30 Million workaround of not having extra Sensor operators. My thought was to allow more than one EW attack on a salvo from a ship. The Drones would be a different attempt, or they would be used to attack different salvos in a missile barrage.

 

[phavoc]

Depends on how you want the EW drobes to work. Are they there just to confuse more missiles, or can they do more?

So would your EW drone be able to simulate the electronic signature of the launching warship, or even any warship?

Should they be able to act as decoys and get missiles to wast their attacks against tiny little drones instead of the ship?

So for example you launch your drone and at long range you are running quiet. You are really a battlecruiser, but you want the enemy to think it's a pair of tin cans. So yes, that would mean a ships EW suite would have same capabilities.

Or, you've deployed a pair of drones (A limit if two semi reasonable) and a massive missile salvo comes in. You attack with point defense, and do your EW attack. You've eliminated 50% of the salvo. So now you have 100 missiles inbound. Your EW drones are able to suck away some and they are expecting a big starship so their attacks are wasted. Say only a third or a half of the missiles actually strike. It would depend on how effective you want to make EW drones.

I would make the relative bulky (50 to 80 tons, depending on the class of ship they have to simulate) and expensive so even the richest of navies only typically allows 4 to 6 per ship. And each attack they woo away always has a chance of actually destroying one. You could even have them be effective at any long or very long range attack. So that spinal mount just shot down your electronic ghost.

But this would require ECCM by the attacking ships, to give them an ability to at least use their onboard people and sensors to see through it. I would always have it at least somewhat effective against seeking weapons.

Might get complicated rather quick. This brings back the days of SFB with the different levels of rules.

 

[PsiTraveller]

Actually I was just thinking of using the drones to make a straight EW roll against an incoming salvo.
Using msprange's ratio of 1 Sensor Operator per 1000 tons of hull let's take a 1000 ton warship as an example. the ship has one Sensor Operator. The ship is attacked by three enemy ships which fire three salvos at the ship from Long range. Normally only a single EW roll would be allowed against a salvo. This would leave two salvos with a full complement of missiles each.

If the 1000 ton ship had two drones, or even 2 fighters with EW sensors equipped the drones/fighters could target the salvos and remove some of the missiles. 9 missiles each if my math in the first post was correct. The rules seem to state that a second ship cannot help against a single salvo if the first ship has performed an EW attack on it. This may be attacks from the same ship and leave the door open to an aiding ship targeting the same salvo. If this is the case I can see a cloud of anti missile drones or fighters around larger ships to thin out salvos. They ships or drones may also offer PD capability as the missiles engage.

Sending out false signals from Drones is an entirely different and intriguing possibility. Masking or altering ships to hide or falsify identities or abilities is an interesting option for combat.

I am looking at options for ships. Do they give up tonnage to get another Operator/roll/turret for PD? A 1000 ton ship has 10 Hardpoints and 1 Operator. Giving up 10 or so tons per drone or fighter could add an extra defensive roll for the ship.

 

[phavoc]

I wouldn't make EW drones too powerful. But I could see them offering say an extra roll, at no +DM, against a salvo. I'd also have them vulnerable to being hit by the incoming missile salvo too, just to make sure they are expendable in some way.

If you keep their size and cost from being a give-away, then it would make sense that a tin can might carry one or two, assuming it's a front-line combatant. Otherwise I'd say it would be cruisers and above that would have cost justification for deploying them. Since this would be for naval combatants and not adventure-class ships, having a design rule restricting how many a ship could have, including spares, seems reasonable.

 

[Nerhesi]

Each missile salvo can only be effected by EW once a round I think.

So as it stands, you can deploy drones for more PD, but definitely not to do more EW. I think...

If we wanted to make them a possibility, very simply use the task-chain system. This means that every other sensor-ops, whether it is additional sensor dudes on large-craft or a bunch of guys in circlin ew fighters can give a +1 or +2 each. At best.

That would allow for more dedicated ew craft/tactics without breaking the system and making EW too powerful

 

[PsiTraveller]

I wonder what the tech would be behind a sacrificial EW Drone? Cheap parts, no armour, enough thrust to attract attention and it transmits its location to sucker the missiles in to hit and destroy it.

Thrust X high burn thruster and enough fuel for 30 minutes
no power plant, a high energy battery can power things. it is charged up before battle.
Sensor suite enough to transmit and attempt to spoof incoming missiles as an EW attempt? not sure how you would handle that part.
computer power enough to control movement and run the EW attempts.
No weapons or armour.

You try and get the cost to be a few million credits and it is sacrificed to protect the 500 million Credit warship. That is a good return on investment.

Modern day military is all about trying to get Drones in place instead of people.

The drones could even be sent into enemy ships as suicide missions. You could put a bomb inside them to add more oomph, although the enemy hacks your defense net and turns your drone force against you. That is the TL 15+ threat, some better hacker or AI takes over and Skynets your military.

Or maybe a Virus that infects computers chips and turns spaceships into killers.

 

[Nerhesi]

In the interest of missile balance, I would say we are well past decoys being functional at all. No matter how expensive it is, being able to divert a slavo is a pretty big deal.

Also, why couldn't the same technology be used to simply fool an enemy ship not just missile? Divert all their fire for one turn? The ultimate dodge!

 

[Chas]

A number of issues to consider here. For myself I'd rather EW didn't have a big part to play in fleet action though. I'm happy to see someone attack a single missile on a small ship scale. When a 1000 missiles are being launched at you, that's when EW should take a back seat.

If we're pursuing this there should be severe negatives for EW on any attack that has been fired with the lock on achieved. If you've successfully locked onto a target the squeaker by the side is easy to ignore.

 

[PsiTraveller]

If the ship had a lock on at time of launch, or maybe even if it gains a lock during flight time there could be a -2 DM or -3 DM to the EW roll. Or invoke a Bane roll onto the EW roll.