Radar

But the surface of a planet is 2d. Even if radar ranges are '3d' they're still circular.

It's a question of; does the radar detect in a sphere, or a cylinder (or another shape)?


Depending on how unit position is stored, a cylinder might be a faster calculation.

I think that's probably going to be the least concern as far as performance goes.

I would have to disagree with that statement.

On earth a line of sight distance if you are on a 100m mast is ~40km. I used to work on offshore telecommunications equipment. At a certain point, you have to switch to cable, or satellite.

So, if radar cannot pass through the planet, you will only be able to 'see' things a short distance away. So, we have a few options.

1. Just hard code a distance and ignore terrain.
2. Take radar height and planet radius into account, but ignore mountains
3. Take all terrain into account

My preference is 3, because I think it will allow for more strategy/tactics - i.e. Sneaking up on your enemy in the dark area behind a ridge.

However, it makes for a lot of computation, so, probably 1 or 2 will be chosen.

Slim

Radar can bounce of the ionosphere and go around the planet that way. They did it to broadcast AM across the atlantic back in the day, and I'm pretty sure they still do.

Or whichever part of the atmosphere it was called.

I'd like to see terrain block radar nonetheless, but it's computationally expensive and takes a lot of effort so I understand if it doesn't happen.

That's not how radar works.

You know, since the math for projections of a sphere and calculating radar coverage on a sphere is very well understood I don't see any reason why a mod maker couldn't make a radar tower with mathematically correct coverage. Even the math to calculate coverage based on the surrounding hills is well understood if you really wanted to go for full bore realism with regards to detecting air units.

I don't think its critically important for game play that things be this hyper realistic but if it really matters to someone they can always mod it in.

Thats radio.

Radio is not equivalent to radar.

You can use the ionosphere to bounce radar. Australia uses it all the time.


We caught a American stealth bomber that way. It was being flown to one of the US-owned airforce bases in Australia (conveniently forgot to tell the Australian airforce about it). Snuck up behind it in the middle of the Pacific, and threatened to turn the stealth bomber into a submarine.


[EDIT:] We also use it to watch planes take off from China.

Radar is basically just a ping with radiowaves right? So I don't see why not.

The radiowaves have to bounce back from the target unlike when you just send them.

Is current radar technology able to send radiowaves that bounces on the ionosphere, bounces back on a stealth bomber, bounces on the ionsphere again and is finally picked up again at the radar dish?
Sounds like you have to a really strong signal and a powerful array of radar disks.

Also, radar requires accurate timing on those radar returns to determine distance. If there was an indeterminate number of ionosphere bounces, with an inaccurate altitude (where the ionosphere starts changes) might make those timings difficult to take.

That said, in theory it might be doable, but tricky, I cannot imagine the timing would be accurate enough though.

Slim

over the horizon radar is a thing

Radar emitter stations and receivers need not be in the same place. Especially since emitters are big beacons with a giant "shoot me" neon sign that anyone with a receiver can detect from far beyond it's own detector range (inverse square for people looking for radars, inverse fourth for the radar to see them).

In fact, with multiple receivers and a powerful search-light style radar where you just light up a target with frequent strong pulses that make it glow in your transmit frequency, your receivers could potentially be anywhere. Triangulation solves the position and range problem.

It's a simple factor of four difference (plus the RCS of the target) between active and passive scanning, there's no fourth power relation anywhere. It'd make radar pretty useless.

There is a power in there, it's greater than one and less than four. It exists because, while most of a correctly-aimed radar will bounce, not all of it will.

Barely. It requires a specific type of upper atmosphere, with a specific frequency, and a huge array to make any sense of it in the broadest of sense. Like in Zero-K, the information would be sparse and unreliable, and that's if the smallest of effort isn't spent to ruin the information completely.

Over the horizon may be necessary just to give radars an effective range. And there's really no reason to make it TOO complex. It gives extra intel without much extra effort. That's pretty damn good as is.

Of course, airless moons and asteroids cannot have over the horizon radar, as there is not atmosphere.

I guess I would like it semi-realistic, but the most important aspect is fun, while allowing some strategies and tactics. If its not fun though, people won't play.

Slim

This only makes me want OTH radar more.

I don't think we have to restrict ourselves to archaic radar technology when this is set far in the future. Can't we just accept they have a perimeter monitoring system based on technology not yet in existence?