Katran Luftschreck
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
9
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Posted - 2012.05.23 13:14:00 -
[1] - Quote
Can we bring back the old 20th century Phalanx System for missile defense? Defender missiles are just... wimpy, IMHO.
My idea: Not an actual gun system, but a type of medium power slot module (low power, heavy CPU) that allows any & all actual gun turrets on the ship to switch to "phalanx mode" (similar to how they already can be switched to overheat mode).
The module itself would have it's own built-in (hidden) target tracking (rapid acquisition) abilities, with the maximum number of targets (read: missiles) dependent on the size of the module used (small, medium, large, x-large, capital) and automatically locks onto & fires at hostile targets in range without the need for further player input.
Note that I say "hostile missiles in range" and not "incoming missiles" because the idea is to open up the possibility for dedicated point-defense ships to be part of a fleet and be able to shoot at missiles that are aimed at their buddies who happen to be close by, as well.
The advantage over defender missiles is that, assuming you do the smart thing and link them to turrets of the gatling variety, you'll be able to shoot down missiles much more quickly than you could with a measly defender missile launcher. In theory, at least; because the downside is that, unlike defender missiles, the guns would actually have to aim at the missiles, which means things like tracking speed & sensor strength come heavily into play. In other words, a phalanx artillery cannon would be pretty much useless. A phalanx equipped destroyer sporting half a dozen gatling guns, on the other hand, would be nearly impervious to missile fire (and in trade, incapable of actually doing anything else).
If CCP really wants to be creative, they could create at "phalanx mode" for drones as well, ordering them to automatically hunt down any hostile missiles that pass through their detection radius. Naturally this would favor light drones over heavy, because heavy probably wouldn't be able to catch up with their targets at all.
And speaking of drones... a new drone order "protect target." Should be pretty self-explanatory.
Now we just need a "drone hanger" defense "turret" for POS and we'll be all set...
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