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morale/parked command in SG2 and ESM in space

From: "Thomas Barclay" <kaladorn@f...>
Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 02:56:25 -0400
Subject: morale/parked command in SG2 and ESM in space

Morale/commander movement:
Here's some ideas to correct "static 
commander syndrome":
1) Transfers from outside LoS of the 
commander are at +1 difficulty
2) Rally attempts outside of 6" are at +2 
difficulty
3) Surprise enemy squad (lesson: you aren't 
safe by yourself even in the "cleared" woods). 
4) SNIPER!
5) Run a con scenario and let the players of the 
various squads know that their survival is part 
of the victory conditions and then you'll find 
them perhaps more willing to pretend they 
didn't get a transmission or whatever... ;) 

ESM in FT (well, in real world, but extended):
I understand it is a difficult thing to execute real 
life analysis of ESM data for several reasons 
relating to wash from your own radar if it is on, 
reflections from everything (ships water 
whatever) and the fact that a given pulse 
detected from a given area might only give you 
a broad angle to the bogey and that 
determining range is another feat on tomp of 
that. Plus you have to determine if you get 
multiple pulses if you have more than one 
target, or if it is a reflection, if it is an air or sea 
target, etc. etc. 

And the enemy has systems in his active 
systems which screw up the signature of his 
system so it won't match the one in your 
database (maybe they even vary dynamically) 
and therefore your stats on pulse repetition 
(fixed or incremental) and such might be hard 
to corellate. 

Additionally, you introduce a pile of civilian 
contacts in any moderately busy system and  
you throw in the fact that the enemy emitter 
may well be able to tune his rig to look like 
something else (a civilian active system 
perhaps? or an allied vessel?) and you have 
quite a challenge. 

Will this collection of challenges vanish in FT? 
Some terrain related ones might, but what 
impact does spacial terrain and energy fields 
have on this picture?  And will civilian shipping 
be a problem? In the busy areas, I'd think so. 

And for every step forward in ESM analysis, 
don't you get a step forward in the opposite 
(screwing up ESM by messing up the signature 
of your active systems?). Someone described 
the competition like this:
"You have a pentium-V running at 2 GHz 
analyzing incoming signal pulses. You have to 
sort out bounces, reflections, your own 
emissions, and then take the data, determine 
range and bearing and how many of them 
there are, and do this from a fragmentary and 
maybe not up to date database. Meanwhile, 
EACH enemy vessel has a pentium-V running 2 
GHz messing up their outgoing signal in new 
ways or imitating some other kind of rig. It's a 
one against many competition."

Sounds like anyone trying to use ESM to 
passively figure out what is going on is going to 
have a bit of a time, no? 

To quote Los the oft-right, "for every measure, 
a counter measure". 

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