Noisemakers

I like the idea however it would have to be coupled with something like stealth. An idea I had for that would be that if you power all systems down to zero you stop emiting a signal. That way you could launch the torpedoes then go dark. The enemies would follow the torpedoes until they detonated or the enemies found that they were not the ship. Another possibility is if launched fighters and drones would go after the closer one allowing your ship to avoid those and focus on the fleet. That would also mean that the missle cruiser would actually have some defensive capabilities against drones. Anywho, I kinda went off on a tangent but that's my thoughts. Agree disagree?

The ability to go dark sounds awesome. I would expect it would only cause the AI to retarget the bases but in a dogfight that would be handy.

The noisemakers don't typically detonate but if they program them in the Artemis gods can make them go boom if they want.
The fighters would be a great tactic.

T

"Going dark" is a feature I'm interested in as a byproduct of wanting a variable-output reactor system. I'd like to see power conservation and regeneration being more of a thing, instead of "if you run out away from a starbase, you're all but dead", but like any system, if you push it too hard it goes bang :)

Countermeasures.

If being tracked by torpedoes that tracked using sonar, sending something out that would make noise or reflect the sonar instead of the submarine would be a countermeasure.

A B-52 flying around might throw out flairs as countermeasures to divert a heat-seeking missile.

But countermeasures don't work on laser-guided missiles. Unless the laser itself is interfered with, nothing can send a missile off course.

Getting into space, your countermeasures are going to depend on the tracking mechanism of the missile/torpedo. The nukes of Artemis have no tracking ability, they just go in a straight line, so countermeasures would have no effect. The guided missiles and drones could be affected by countermeasures.

So, for Artemis, the weapons console could have the function. The captain could say, "Deploy countermeasures," and the weapons officer deploys them, which for a few seconds would distract any drones or torpedoes that have targeted Artemis. But if those drones or torpedoes are still active and can re-acquire Artemis after the countermeasures dissipate, then they could resume a trek to Artemis.

Food for thought.

I second the vote for a going dark feature on both sides (player and enemy). It's based off what I see as the likely means of tracking objects for a ship.

Thrust generates a lot of heat and is therefore the easiest method of tracking ships (and it can be extrapolated to give their current position). Here I would say that the propulsion systems generate heat as long as they are *ready to move* (powered). If you want more fun, you could also say that if the total energy usage of the ship is above a threshold it's still detectable. So it's easy to picture going dark as a way to defeat long range sensors.

This would be ineffective within a certain range as the ship is likely to have a more sophisticated short range system. As RussJudge said it's possible to have some form of chaff but the ship would have to be well outside the detection range of the torpedoes by the time the chaff dissipates.