Countermeasures

[finnbear]

Types

• [x] Sonar decoy (attracts torpedoes)
• [ ] Noise-maker (repels/confuses torpedoes, suggested by Crepe)
• [ ] Prairie-masker
• [ ] Sonar jamming (suggested by Carlsons1938)
• [ ] Radar jamming (suggested by Carlsons1938)
• [ ] Smoke decoy (suggested by Carlsons1938 et. al.)

Goals

• When a weapon is launched at you, impact should not be inevitable. A skilled player should be able to counter minor to moderate threats by quickly deploying the appropriate countermeasure.
• Maybe a subset of countermeasures should affect whether enemies can see your ship

Research required

• Which ships have them?

Concerns

• Need to avoid duplicate kind/subkind for GUI purposes if they are to be weapons. Many submarines already have decoy/sonar.
• Want to keep the GUI as simple as possible, minimizing the amount of toggle switches
• Visibility of ship A to ship B (where B is in smoke) should be decreased by a percentage (so there is a distance, much shorter than normal, where you can't see it at all)
• Performance implications of applying smoke on the server are not great (n^2)

[JoeyMeepLand]

I have an idea for smoke decoy why dont you make a "dot" which is the smoke then you can scale it depending on the ship using it (1:2) when this smoke is on screan you cant see throw it instead of covering up an area. https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1vVXCc1c77abYty2NJsD6uOGLXGqAeEXISal4JZfqYd4/edit?usp=sharing

[JoeyMeepLand]

Another idea is to have a fleet member be able to see them the smoke fades but not completly

[JoeyMeepLand]

Cant you use the sonar dicor and make a copy then change torpidos with missles

[finnbear]

I have an idea for smoke decoy why dont you make a "dot" which is the smoke then you can scale it depending on the ship using it (1:2) when this smoke is on screan you cant see throw it instead of covering up an area.

What you describe would totally work in terms of showing the smoke on the client side. However, if the smoke was just a client side effect, then it could be exploited (disabled) by cheaters. My concern was about enforcing the smoke on the server side. Specifically, when you deploy smoke, the server should literally stop sending your boat to enemy players, so they have no ability to simply disable the smoke effect to see you again. Even more specifically, the calculation to tell if your boat is within smoke is a bit tricky. But maybe it could be simplified to "this boat has deployed smoke recently." I'll think about it :)

I just saw your drawing, and it would, unfortunately, be even harder to implement (since it depends whether the smoke is in between you and the enemy, so it couldn't be simplified to "whether you deployed smoke recently"). Still, I'll think about it :)

Cant you use the sonar dicor and make a copy then change torpidos with missles

I assume you are talking about a radar decoy for missiles. One real-life example of this would be the Nulka system. This is a good idea (although I do want to keep the number of weapons on each ship at 5 or less, and this would push ships like the Arleigh Burke over that limit, so it requires some more thought).

[JoeyMeepLand]

Ok i see how the first one could be an issue lets say the smoke lasts for 10 secen and has a limited amount of use and the smoke would only cover the area you see it in but another idea is adding a top effect which would be harder for hackers to hack and you could move all ships down a layer in graphs so the play could not see you from being unable to uproot their layer. But this would be very complicated. for the sonar you could just replace the weapon out with another sponar so you either get an anti missile or anti torpedo. Also on a different note would you like to work with the robotics team in Wi Waterford Union Highschool I am on the business team. I would like help from other coders and how there coding language is different from ours (we use java) Email me if you have any questions.

On Mon, Dec 20, 2021 at 4:16 PM Finn Bear @.***> wrote:

I have an idea for smoke decoy why dont you make a "dot" which is the smoke then you can scale it depending on the ship using it (1:2) when this smoke is on screan you cant see throw it instead of covering up an area.

What you describe would totally work in terms of showing the smoke on the client side. However, if the smoke was just a client side effect, then it could be exploited (disabled) by hackers. My concern was about enforcing the smoke on the server side. Specifically, when you deploy smoke, the server should literally stop sending your boat to enemy players, so they have no ability to simply disable the smoke effect to see you again. Even more specifically, the calculation to tell if your boat is within smoke is a bit tricky. But maybe it could be simplified to "this boat has deployed smoke recently." I'll think about it :)

Cant you use the sonar dicor and make a copy then change torpidos with missles

I assume you are talking about a radar decoy for missiles. One real-life example of this would be the Nulka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nulka system. This is a good idea (although I do want to keep the number of weapons on each ship at 5 or less, and this would push ships like the Arleigh Burke over that limit, so it requires some more thought).

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[finnbear]

smoke lasts for 10 secen

Assuming we figure out a way to make an efficient, non-cheatable smoke effect, it would probably last approximately 10-30 seconds. Hard to say, though. But if it is too complex and/or laggy, then it being only 10 seconds doesn't really fix the problem.

harder for hackers to hack and you could move all ships down a layer in graphs so the play could not see you from being unable to uproot their layer

Mk48.io uses the WebGL graphics API, which doesn't have a concept of layers. And even if it did, a cheater could turn them off, since it would be a client-side thing. Right now, the rendering procedure is to sort all entities (ships, crates, smoke, etc.) by depth/altitude, to render lower objects first, but this occurs on the client, and could be bypassed. The only dependable solution is for the server to simply not give the enemy client any knowledge of you when you are obscured by smoke. This way, when players complain about the "hackers" or "cheater" who seemed to see them through smoke, as would predictably be the case, I can rest easy knowing that there is no such thing.

for the sonar you could just replace the weapon out with another sponar so you either get an anti missile or anti torpedo

I do want to give more flexibility in terms of allowing you to switch out your weapons. For example, unloading a Mark 48 torpedo from a Seawolf and replacing it with a Harpoon missile. However, this is complicated and requires a lot more thought.

Also on a different note would you like to work with the robotics team in Wi Waterford Union Highschool

I can't make any serious time commitments, and I'm far too far away to meet in person, if that's what you're asking. All I can do is answer technical questions, such as:

I would like help from other coders and how there coding language is different from ours (we use java)

Mk48.io is currently primarily implemented in the Rust programming language. The main differences between Rust and Java are:

• Rust is compiled to machine code, while Java runs in a virtual machine. This means Rust programs will run faster.
• Rust is a lower level, systems-programming language, so it is harder to learn than Java (which is high level and object oriented)
• Java has a garbage collector unlike Rust. This means Rust programs are harder to write, but end up being faster and using less memory.