WIP - Intermittent Emission (Full Version)

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Geoffropi -> WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/18/2021 9:30:42 AM)

Hello everyone,

We are currently developing a new feature for radars, to allow them to be able to have unpredictable intermittent emission.

-You can set intermittent emission for each individual unit, it only affects active radars.
-Each configuration set is linked to the side's DEFCON. The DEFCON defines which intermittent emission configuration set it will use.
-Guidance is affected too, but we are thinking of adding a switch to that too.


[image]https://i.ibb.co/MRDSJS2/B2.png[/image]
[image]https://i.ibb.co/ZS0XHc2/B1.png[/image]

IN DETAILS :

"Intermittent mode" "Continuous Mode" toggle :
-> The master switch for the configs, whether or not the unit uses intermittent emission.

Emission Duration :
-> How long it will use active radar during the emission phase.

Interval :
-> How long the interval will last until going back to the emission phase.

Interval Random Variation :
-> The additional time the interval will last, giving unpredictability since it will be randomized at each cycle.

Wake when detecting threat toggle :
-> Defines if the radar that still detects anything else than friendly contacts will stay alert.

If the vicinity stays silent from any non-friendlies for the defined time in "Time before going back to sleep mode" textbox, it will go back to its normal intermittent business.

Looking forward to your suggestions



KLAB -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/18/2021 10:13:27 AM)

Is DEFCON state going to rigidly direct if you can go intermittent or not?

I can think of intelligence and asymmetric situations where you would want to be tempting the OPFOR with on off emissions when your at low DEFCON just to test the OPFOR response?

Plus will it be applicable to LIDAR?

This is however a brilliant development, the settings seem intuitive and self explanatory, will they be LUA'able?

Thanks again,

K



Gunner98 -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/18/2021 10:48:03 AM)

Excellent stuff. Really a great development.

The choice of 'DEFCON' as a term is somewhat unfortunate as it has major linkages to global Cold War status. It is workable but could cause confusion.

I assume that all of these settings will be adjustable via Lua?

Will this be applied to other emitters or just radars? I'm thinking OECM, active sonars etc

A couple ideas that might be do-able or perhaps not:

It would be fantastic if this could work as a group control setting: i.e.:
--You have 5 area surveillance radars covering an area
--You group them and apply some form of this setting
--The 5 radars would act randomly but coordinated - so at least one would always be on and when that one randomly turned off, another in the group would pop on etc.

It would be great if the type of radar was selectable: i.e. if you have a ship (or group of ships) with multiple radars, this setting could be applied to all the area surveillance radars but no other emitter, perhaps just a certain type to try and mask the ship type, perhaps only the 3D radars etc.

Really looking forward to this - I suppose it will require us to go back and adjust old scenarios but that will be a great improvement.

Thank you!



TitaniumTrout -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/18/2021 11:47:17 AM)

I really like the concept.

Emission is the time it is actually ACTIVE?

Interval + Interval Random is the OFF time?

What is SLEEP mode in relation to those two?

In the above example the radar is ACTIVE for 30 seconds and off for some random time between 0 and 60 seconds?

How quickly can some of these large surveillance radars cycle on-and-off? It would be interesting to have a minimum interval depending on platform or era. I imagine a modern solid state radar could cycle much more quickly than a magnetron style emitter.




thewood1 -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/18/2021 12:50:34 PM)

Even older radars have a warm standby mode with a sink to absorb the energy. They can be switched to active fairly quickly. If they are cold started, they can take a bit to get the tubes warmed up.



SeaQueen -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/18/2021 12:56:38 PM)

That's neat but that's not how that works. There isn't any random variation.

I'd define emission intervals and durations by minutes, not seconds. Otherwise you're going to end up getting some pretty big numbers in there. At sea, EMCON instructions might be stated as something like "10 of the last 15 minutes," or whatever.

It's also different for land based systems versus ships. On land there's a kill chain, where the EW/GCI radars hand tracks off to lower echelon radars which eventually hand them over to missile batteries themselves where the acquisition and tracking radars light up. Depending on what's going on, you might get no warning until the tracking radar lights up. Ground observers are still an important part of this process in many parts of the world as well.




Geoffropi -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/18/2021 4:39:16 PM)

Thanks for the feedbacks.

quote:

ORIGINAL: KLAB

-Is DEFCON state going to rigidly direct if you can go intermittent or not?
-Plus will it be applicable to LIDAR?
-will they be LUA'able?


-For instance yes, but a custom tab is being made
-It applies to all active radars
-As soon as we are all satisfied with this feature it will be Lua binded

quote:


-The choice of 'DEFCON' as a term is somewhat unfortunate as it has major linkages to global Cold War status. It is workable but could cause confusion.

-I get that point, as a non-native speaker I tend to use odd vocabulary, especially in highly contextualized situations.
Feel free to suggest a more common term.

quote:


Will this be applied to other emitters or just radars? I'm thinking OECM, active sonars etc

-It includes anything that radiates EM . Excluding torchlights which are not implemented.

quote:


It would be fantastic if this could work as a group control setting: i.e.:
--You have 5 area surveillance radars covering an area
--You group them and apply some form of this setting
--The 5 radars would act randomly but coordinated - so at least one would always be on and when that one randomly turned off, another in the group would pop on etc.

-This is a possibility since group's sensory system can be managed/saved.

quote:

I suppose it will require us to go back and adjust old scenarios but that will be a great improvement.

-It is compatible with older saves/scenario

quote:


Emission is the time it is actually ACTIVE?
Interval + Interval Random is the OFF time?
What is SLEEP mode in relation to those two?
In the above example the radar is ACTIVE for 30 seconds and off for some random time between 0 and 60 seconds?

-yes
-yes
-No direct relation :
"Wake when detecting threat toggle :
-> Defines if the radar that still detects anything else than friendly contacts will stay alert.
If the vicinity stays silent from any non-friendlies for the defined time in "Time before going back to sleep mode" textbox, it will go back to its normal intermittent business.
"

quote:


How quickly can some of these large surveillance radars cycle on-and-off? It would be interesting to have a minimum interval depending on platform or era. I imagine a modern solid state radar could cycle much more quickly than a magnetron style emitter.

-Interesting, I bet OODA could do the job, that is not directly related to the intermittent behavior though.

quote:

That's neat but that's not how that works. There isn't any random variation.

I'd define emission intervals and durations by minutes, not seconds. Otherwise you're going to end up getting some pretty big numbers in there. At sea, EMCON instructions might be stated as something like "10 of the last 15 minutes," or whatever.

It's also different for land based systems versus ships. On land there's a kill chain, where the EW/GCI radars hand tracks off to lower echelon radars which eventually hand them over to missile batteries themselves where the acquisition and tracking radars light up. Depending on what's going on, you might get no warning until the tracking radar lights up. Ground observers are still an important part of this process in many parts of the world as well.


Thank you, that will give precious insights.
So there is definitively no (significant) precedent of tactic involving randomness in order to deceive the opponent?
Within the game simulation, I can see the benefit of such behaviour, so is it due to any technical limitations, lack of adaptation in real-life doctrine or simply practical ineffectiveness of such tactic?







Parel803 -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/18/2021 6:33:35 PM)

Very nice idea.
Real life for ships I think (same as pthers) older radars can also be switch on pretty fast. There at sea in a standby mode as long as there not broken or in maintenance, as for TWT and Magnetron. We might use sector blanking to prevent counter detection, same for different modes like power settings.
When some radar go on you might wonder if they are building up for threat and that every time she switches on.
In real life you might be careful with switching between emitters cause once seen by the adversary give info away, so combinations between units might be used as confusion. But the one on stays on as guard.
Do like presets when situation changes. We use preset for different type of attacks. Based on ranges, types of missiles/torpedo's, etc.

with regards Gert-Jan







Gunner98 -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/18/2021 9:14:22 PM)

quote:


quote:


-The choice of 'DEFCON' as a term is somewhat unfortunate as it has major linkages to global Cold War status. It is workable but could cause confusion.

-I get that point, as a non-native speaker I tend to use odd vocabulary, especially in highly contextualized situations.
Feel free to suggest a more common term.


I'm not really sure, perhaps one of the pros has an idea. I would suggest EMCON but I think you're already using that.



c3k -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/18/2021 10:13:58 PM)

2nd the term EMCON.

And, EMCON was used in "Levels".

The higher the level, the tighter the control on emissions.


---
It seems like there's an assumption that this can be done for all emitters, especially radars. (Specifically radars?)

Is this true? Can/could all radars be turned on and off like this? In modern terms, the kill-chain may need the data. In older periods, were the waveform emitters reliable enough to be turned on and off and not disrupt the system?



boogabooga -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/19/2021 4:07:46 AM)

Will ALL of the radars on one side blink on and off together, or is it radar-by-radar?

I've never played Harpoon, but I have seen screenshots where intermittent was an EMCON setting, apparently. How was it handled back then, if so?



SeaQueen -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/20/2021 3:50:13 PM)

Here's something I'd find useful:

In a formation of warships, it'd sometimes be nice to have the option of disguising one's numbers and the types of warships by having a "no unique emissions," option, which would avoid turning on radars which were unique to that ship in the formation. For example in a CSG, it might make sense to turn on the CRUDES radars because there's a bunch of them, but it wouldn't make sense to turn on the CVN's radars because that would just highlight it to the enemy ES. While you can do this kind of thing manually, it gets tedious fast having to check each and every sensor periodically.



SeaQueen -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/20/2021 4:06:34 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Gunner98
I'm not really sure, perhaps one of the pros has an idea. I would suggest EMCON but I think you're already using that.


EMCON is fine. DEFCON is just plain wrong. DEFCON is was about readiness for nuclear war and didn't have anything to do with emissions.

Btw, something I think is important to think about, before you go all in on this, is that all the capability to do EMCON the right way is already in LUA, so if you're not going to make something better than what is there already, I'd strongly suggest doing nothing at all because it just be creating problem that doesn't exist.



thewood1 -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/20/2021 4:12:31 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: SeaQueen

Here's something I'd find useful:

In a formation of warships, it'd sometimes be nice to have the option of disguising one's numbers and the types of warships by having a "no unique emissions," option, which would avoid turning on radars which were unique to that ship in the formation. For example in a CSG, it might make sense to turn on the CRUDES radars because there's a bunch of them, but it wouldn't make sense to turn on the CVN's radars because that would just highlight it to the enemy ES. While you can do this kind of thing manually, it gets tedious fast having to check each and every sensor periodically.


And I'll come back to templates instead of just formations. This scenario is one I used to partially justify templates that include positional formations and EMCOM formations that can be switched and applied on the fly.



BDukes -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/20/2021 4:18:24 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: SeaQueen

quote:

ORIGINAL: Gunner98
I'm not really sure, perhaps one of the pros has an idea. I would suggest EMCON but I think you're already using that.


EMCON is fine. DEFCON is just plain wrong. DEFCON is was about readiness for nuclear war and didn't have anything to do with emissions.

Btw, something I think is important to think about, before you go all in on this, is that all the capability to do EMCON the right way is already in LUA, so if you're not going to make something better than what is there already, I'd strongly suggest doing nothing at all because it just be creating problem that doesn't exist.



Agree and would be awesome for some of our LUA guru's to start building libraries of this stuff for people to use.

This being said I'm suggesting something that I'm way to lazy to actually put together but would gladly donate to somebody's patreon for!

Mike



SeaQueen -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/20/2021 4:58:27 PM)

quote:



Agree and would be awesome for some of our LUA guru's to start building libraries of this stuff for people to use.

This being said I'm suggesting something that I'm way to lazy to actually put together but would gladly donate to somebody's patreon for!


I post stuff to LUA Legion. Feel free to use it.

The problem with LUA is that it's really not suitable for game play. It's better for when you're designing the scenario and you want to get a specific behavior from the computer controlled side. On the human controlled side, we need a better interface.



Gunner98 -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/20/2021 8:54:03 PM)

quote:

I post stuff to LUA Legion. Feel free to use it.

The problem with LUA is that it's really not suitable for game play. It's better for when you're designing the scenario and you want to get a specific behavior from the computer controlled side. On the human controlled side, we need a better interface


Yeah, it is one thing to use lua for designing - in which case an easily searchable lua library would be fantastic. Lua Legion is great but it is hard to find stuff, and you need to know exactly what your looking for, how to use it and how to modify it.

And it is difficult for a player to use.

So automating what can already be done in lua would be an excellent place to start, the button-ology etc will take fine tuning but that will come. I think a phased approach would be wise; once we get our hands on it - we won't like some things and we'll want to do other stuff with it. So building chunks of this with a plan to expand bit by bit would be the way to go.

B



boogabooga -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/22/2021 9:50:41 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: SeaQueen

quote:



Agree and would be awesome for some of our LUA guru's to start building libraries of this stuff for people to use.

This being said I'm suggesting something that I'm way to lazy to actually put together but would gladly donate to somebody's patreon for!


I post stuff to LUA Legion. Feel free to use it.

The problem with LUA is that it's really not suitable for game play. It's better for when you're designing the scenario and you want to get a specific behavior from the computer controlled side. On the human controlled side, we need a better interface.



Special Actions?



thewood1 -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/22/2021 10:47:09 AM)

Special Actions work, but I think you need something almost like macros.



mikerohan -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/22/2021 9:04:43 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: thewood1

Special Actions work, but I think you need something almost like macros.


Maybe a button to modify missions that opens up a LUA console/logic that it's linked to the mission



thewood1 -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/22/2021 11:09:34 PM)

I think the entire idea revolves around being able to make missions more dynamic. Turn missions from static mission-specific entities into flexible templates that allows the following:

EMCOM
Speed/altitude/depth
Formation
weapon loadouts
simple lua actions
unit makeup
ROE/WRA
Maybe even damage levels and losses

And probably a few more I can't think of right now. They can be assigned to a group of units by hot-keys, waypoints, events, etc.



SeaQueen -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/23/2021 3:41:22 AM)

quote:

Special Actions work, but I think you need something almost like macros.


You could do it that way, but it's a little clunky.



FifthDomain -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/25/2021 5:50:08 PM)

Really like this idea



Geoffropi -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/26/2021 10:06:45 AM)

Hello,

quote:


Will ALL of the radars on one side blink on and off together, or is it radar-by-radar?

It is for each individual unit/group


We did some work on it, with better control on which type(s) of detected contact will "wake" the unit, added a custom preset, group Emcon preset, and inheritance from group toggle.

[image]https://i.ibb.co/mH4CPLq/V2b.png[/image]

As for Lua binding, these are the currently available functions, feel free to post your requests if there are specifics functions you would like to see.

ClearUnitEmconConfigs(UnitID)
-- Reinitialise the unit or group with default values for all config presets
Exemple :
ClearUnitEmconConfigs("TestUnit")

ClearAllSideUnitsEmconConfigs(SideNameOrID)
--Does the same as above but for all active units (including groups) of a side
Exemple :
ClearAllSideUnitsEmconConfigs("Portugal")

DuplicateEmconConfigToUnit(PresetAlertID, SourceAUNameOrID, TargetAUNameOrID)
-- Copy and paste a config preset from a source unit or group to a target unit or group
Exemple :
DuplicateEmconConfigToUnit("Yellow", "TestUnit2", "TestUnit")

DuplicateEmconConfigtoSide(PresetAlertID, SourceAUNameOrID, TargetSideNameOrID)
--Copy and paste a config preset from a unit to all units of a side
Exemple :
DuplicateEmconConfigtoSide("Yellow", "TestUnit2", "Portugal")

SetUnitIntermittentEmissionConfig(AUNameOrID, PresetAlertID, ConfigurationID, Value)
--Set one of the intermittent emission config for a selected unit or group and alert preset
Exemple :
SetUnitIntermittentEmissionConfig("TestUnit", "Yellow", "SleepModeDelay", 20)

SwitchUnitIntermittentEmission(AUNameOrID, PresetAlertID, Switch)
-- A shortcut to call SetUnitIntermittentEmissionConfig(AUNameOrID, PresetAlertID, "UseEmissionInterval", Switch, ScenarioContext)
Exemple :
SwitchUnitIntermittentEmission("TestUnit","Red",1)

SetSideEmconAlertness(SideNameOrID, AlertID)
--Set the side's Emcon alert level (Green, Blue, Yellow,Orange, Red)
Exemple :
SetSideEmconAlertness("Portugal","Yellow")





boogabooga -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/26/2021 12:30:10 PM)

I recommend that 'realistic EMCON' be an optional scenario feature like "realistic submarine communications", etc.

This is not going to be everyone's cup of tea, and it might break old scenarios.

OTOH, when it is appropriate to have, we'll be glad to have it.



thewood1 -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/26/2021 12:32:41 PM)

I don't think it needs to be an optional switch. Just have the default be intermittent not being on. I would assume that alert level in older scenarios would be the highest level. From that point on people can do what they want.



Geoffropi -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/26/2021 2:03:14 PM)

No worries, this won't break any scenario. The default setting is either continuous or not existing at all -> ignored.



musurca -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/26/2021 8:04:52 PM)

For the function SetUnitIntermittentEmissionConfig, would it be better if it followed the pattern already established in the Command Lua API for multiple arguments?

e.g. instead of
SetUnitIntermittentEmissionConfig("TestUnit", "Yellow", "SleepModeDelay", 20)

it would be
SetUnitIntermittentEmissionConfig("TestUnit", "Yellow", { SleepModeDelay=20, SomeOtherConfigID=2 } )

That way you can store configuration info as a table, and quickly swap out different setups. Unless I'm missing something about the way it's currently designed?

EDIT: It would also be good to have a GetUnitIntermittentEmissionConfig returned as a table, if possible.



KnightHawk75 -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/27/2021 5:41:36 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: musurca

For the function SetUnitIntermittentEmissionConfig, would it be better if it followed the pattern already established in the Command Lua API for multiple arguments?

e.g. instead of
SetUnitIntermittentEmissionConfig("TestUnit", "Yellow", "SleepModeDelay", 20)

it would be
SetUnitIntermittentEmissionConfig("TestUnit", "Yellow", { SleepModeDelay=20, SomeOtherConfigID=2 } )

That way you can store configuration info as a table, and quickly swap out different setups. Unless I'm missing something about the way it's currently designed?

EDIT: It would also be good to have a GetUnitIntermittentEmissionConfig returned as a table, if possible.


I definately concur on the absolute need for a getter (something EMCON still lacks today), and on the parameter suggestion. Beyond just the latter being in line with typical pattern, taking the table of options to change at once avoids needing multiple calls when changing various entries.

Seems a good addition and appreciate you guys taking some feedback on it during the dev cycle. I'm assuming if I want to control a specific sensor(s) on specific units (not all sensors of type that this feature covers which is def the most common use case for 98% of people) to flip on and off I'll still be able to do that via lua as I can now so long as I don't enable this new feature?




mikerohan -> RE: WIP - Intermittent Emission (3/27/2021 12:59:58 PM)

What does the message "Affects the side alertness!" mean? Just a clarification, please :)

I was expecting something like "It gets affected by the side alertness" (so if I change something within "green", everybody in "green" gets affected)... not the other way around...

But maybe it's something that I'm not understanding (english not my native language!)

Thanks!



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