that depends on what weapons are available to bombers, if bombers can only use big, single bombs to inflict effective damage then any denser PD would defeat them except at point blank rangeRabiator wrote: In general, I think it might not be possible to make every type of craft attractive to use. Either the bombers can deliver meaningful attacks, then you might see an age of the carrier as in real life. Or they are easily brushed off as you say, then the battleship rules space.
but if each of them can fire a couple of missles at short range they could be pretty effective, despite good PD coverage, as some of them would be able to get through
its a difference if just the quantity of the attack is too much for you to defend against or the quality of attack is impossible to defend againstHyperion wrote:That's the nature of a game where you are thrown into a living universe that doesn't give a damn about you any more than any other AI, isn't it? would it be any different than your first meeting with a highly advanced gunship and blows you to dust in seconds? Couldn't it happen that your first kill had friends in high places who bring the wrath of God upon your head? you wouldn't stand a chance... tough for you I guess.
think of an RPG, your party is strong enough to survive any attack, but all of a sudden a hole opens up in the ground and your party falls down and dies
any hacking/jamming mechanic could become that hole that just opens up.
so i'd limit it to bigger enemies which you could conventionally only engage with any "bigger" ship, at which point advanced jamming and E-war comes available to you and you have to think about strategic issues.
to make e-war an opt-in mechanic, when you get bigger and begin to engage bigger foes you have to expect your missles to be redirected and stuff
i'd say the advanced forms of e-war, like letting ships crash into each other or creating convincing fake ships should not be available on smaller ships.
some weaker forms, like being able to confuse fighter-to-fighter missles could be available to smaller ships, but nothing that gets you directly into problems just because a passive effect is active in your general area.
well, we could use a system like my damge type mechanic for this, some kinds of electronic attacks are more effective against certain defenses and ineffective against othersHyperion wrote: Hacking doesn't seem to be making it into LT 1,so the exact nature of how to build a cat and mouse around it is just speculation. presumably though there will be some level of defense that even the most hacking averse player can get...
well, chaff would not increase your ships signature, as they would fail their design requirement if they did, being a bigger target than your shipHyperion wrote: Chaff may deflect missiles, but expands your radar presence, broadcasting holograms may make hitting you difficult, but consumes a lot of energy and that has to come from somewhere like weapons or thrusters, hacking may bring down enemy systems and get the enemy to attack themselves, but can be time consuming and make you vulnerable to physical attacks while you try to take over their systems...
they'd only increase "your" signature over longer ranges, over which your ship and the chaffs become one blob on the others radar
i agree with the rest