In a few words, add burst damage turrets and launchers. Give them fof like targeting that works at a fleet level against drones, missiles and bombs.
In a lot more words;
This may be unworkable given the balance implications but it may also be food for thought. I’ve posted this on my phone. Formatting may be awful. Sorry in advance.
Defenders right now are exclusively missiles. So turret ships with the odd missile hardpoint can use them, but missile ships have to make significant sacrifice to use them. I’d like to propose a new turret types that works as a point defence and a new launcher type dedicated to defender missiles. None of these take any hard points and would require little fitting resources.
Both turret and missile variants are burst fire like rml’s, doing decent damage for a few seconds inbetween long cooldown times, have short-ish range (turrets: 10-15km, missiles 20-30km) and high tracking. I believe this would make for better gameplay. They would be more effective at their job but the operator has to choose the right moment for their use.
They would use their own type of ammo. Defender missiles for launchers and repurposed bombardment ammo for turrets.
They would work by auto-targeting similar to fof missiles. They would see as potential targets; any bomb within their range and anything within their range that has aggressed a fleet member or the point defence operator themselves, prioritising the closest bombs to the operator, then the closest missiles, then the closest drones (and then the closest ship if you want).
Anticipated queries:
What about smartbombs?
- concord in hi-sec makes them dangerous at best. They have their own strengths and drawbacks (high damage, hit everything, short range, friendly fire)
Why is this needed?
- it’s an extension of existing fof and defender mechanics that ignores what hardpoints a ship has. I’d hope it makes the gameplay in this area better and more open.
This is biased in favour of guns!
- Sorry but it is. And this is probably the reason point defence will never become a proper thing. Sometimes thoughts just have to be written down.
What about the existing anti-bomb defenders?
- Can stay as they are if you want. My proposal can be handled with new launchers and new ammo types. If the short range of my proposed weapons would be useless against bombs it would be possible to make long range ammo that only targets bombs.
Thoughts?