Automated Anti-Fighter Defense

Just musing:

I would like to see an anti-fighter weapon similar to the automated PD turrets that only target missiles. Here’s what I came up with: the Fighter Scrambler. Sort of a mini-EMP that can only target fighters. The pulse duration is extremely brief, and shuts down the fighters ability to a) fire weapons and b) turn. Essentially, for the half second or however long the pulse lasts, the fighter moves in a straight line on whatever heading it had when it was scrambled. consider it a Guidance Scrambler beam that wrads off fighters instead of missiles. Give it a suitably low % chance of affecting the targeted fighter and a high rate of fire, and you have a halfway decent low-level defense against fighters for large cruisers - scrambled fighters would have a tendency to fly back out of the shield bubble before they came back online.

Very rough concept; mostly came to mind because that way a cruiser that doesn’t “engage” fighters still has an active form of defense.

I’d like to point out that tractor beams will target fighters regardless of the host ship’s orders.

I can see the need for such an exclusive weapon system, but I’d rather have the underlying issues causing that “need” to be sorted out instead. I rather like the fact I can turn my AA pulse or missile weaponry on nonfighter targets (that have the audacity to go unprotected) with great success.

I don’t know that I’d call it a “need” as such. This is one of the thoughts I had that wasn’t based on plugging a hole in my strategy sieve. I’d just like a “no thought required” form of fighter defense, and basing it more or less on the anti-missile defenses seemed the appropriate approach.

Plus when I think “point defense”, I don’t just think missiles, I think everything that’s small. You can blame MOO2 for that one.

I certainly like the idea of a PD weapon vs fighters that would work even when attack fighters orders were deleted.

Exactly what I had in mind. Something that lets you give some level of anti-fighter comfort to your ships without running the risk of the ship obsessively locking on to a fighter swarm and not doing the job it was intended for (usually getting shredded in the process). And it still costs you a hardpoint, so it’s not a “no-brainer” module to use either.

It would be probably too radical a change - but I would simply like to see the anti-missile point defense systems have the capability of shooting at fighters. How different is a fighter from a missile, anyways? If those things can destroy missiles, surely they should be able to do at least a little damage to a fighter.

Also a valid idea. Although the idea of dedicated anti-fighter PD and general non-discriminating PD are not mutually exclusive. The anti-fighter PD could do more damage in exchange for ignoring missiles.

I would prefer that it was possible to tell ships to shoot fighters but don’t follow them to your lone death.

Also a reason I thought an automated anti-fighter weapon might be nice. It will shoot at fighters when they are near without causing the whole bloody ship to go following the little bastards all over like some bizarre reverse parody of a mama duck and her ducklings.

You’ll see AA fighters get the reverse problem occasionally and get stuck to cruisers with 1% attack orders.