[dmm]

Been fooling around with Star Trek: Starfleet Battles lately. I like how they handle missiles. (Yellow Alert: STSB has a strategic component but mainly is real-time tactical. So it is a bit opposite to SEIV. But I still think this may be helpful.) Anyway, in STSB, missiles do a lot of damage if they hit, just like SEIV (but maybe even more so). There are fast, medium, and slow missiles. The slow ones are free, but ships at full speed can outrun them. And there are small and big ones. You can carry twice as many small ones, but of course they don't do nearly the damage of the large ones (half?). Your launchers can only launch a certain number of missiles at each load, regardless of type. Missiles reload FASTER than most other weapons, even faster than PDC. (HUGE difference from SEIV.) Ships will automatically use tractor beams to hold missiles off if they are charged. Ships will also automatically use phasers as backup PD if they are charged. (You can probably turn that auto-defense off, but I don't know how yet. Anyway, I like it.) Missiles run out of fuel and disappear after a certain amount of time. Like SEIV, they never simply miss.

In practice, a well-rounded ship will be able to beat off the first attack from a same-size missile-dependent ship, and do some damage as well. But she'd better get away fast, otherwise the next wave of missiles will hit before her PDC and phasers recharge. Turning on tractor beams will stop some but not all of the next wave, and will slow down phaser recharging. Also, that's risky, because then if you lose the tractor beams before the missiles die ... BOOM! It's loads of fun to knock down the shields and beam marines on to such a ship, with orders to destroy the tractor beam! ("Beam us back, and I mean NOW!") Of course, it's also fun to hold off missiles with your tractors and then bLast a missile ship at point-blank range with full overloaded phasers that the enemy thought you'd need for backup PD. ("Taste my vengeance, you fool!")

Does anyone else like the sound of this?
What could be done to implement this in SEIV (as much as currently possible)?
Has anyone already made a mod like this?