Bret Devereaux

Just finished playing an odd little computer wargame, "Highfleet" (it's on Steam because of course it is). Pretty sure I'll end up talking about it on ACOUP because it is different from most commercial wargames in interesting ways. Mostly, it forces you to play w/ uncertainty.

So the briefest background is that you play as the commander of a retro-futuristic fleet of air-battleships. Your ships can engage with cruise missiles and aircraft outside of visual range or with traditional artillery or short-range missiles in close combat.

Honestly, don't think real hard about the technology here; it isn't supposed to make hard-sci-fi sense. The thing is, you generally both trying to find and defeat enemy groups but also avoid detection, because the enemy overall is much stronger than you.

Which means signals intelligence (SIGINT) is suddenly hugely important. Visual detect range is pathetic, so you need electronic eyes. Good news: you have radar. It can search the sky up to 750km out.

But there's also what the game calls (somewhat misleadingly) ELINT, by which it means passive radar detection. Radar can give you a precise fix on a target (but not tell you what it is) at 750km, but it tells every ELINT system in 1500km your general direction and range.

You have ELINT too, of course, but it can't see enemy groups that don't run their radar. You also have IRST, infrared tracking, which can track things out to around 300km. Much shorter range, but works on everything, totally passive.

Finally, you can decode radio intercepts, though the information you get is often fragmentary and requires other information (like knowing enemy callsigns) to interpret. Capturing enemy signals relays helps with filling in which callsigns are convoys and which are strike groups.

All of this forces the player to work under situations of uncertainty. You can't leave the radar on, because strike groups will just lob radar-seeking cruise missiles at unknown radar signals. Enemies that spot you will try to report your location...