[Urendi Maleldil]

I just had a great idea for improving the effectiveness of AI-controlled point defense ships: Rangefinder components.

We all know that in order for a ship fully loaded with point defense to actually fight, it needs to have a regular weapon component on-board. Most beam weapons bring AI point defense ships in very close (relatively speaking) to the enemy, making them more likely to be destroyed.

Rangefinders would be tiny direct-fire weapons that only do 1 damage out to a relatively long range. You could then set the strategy of a point defense ship containing one of these weapons to max range and the AI-controlled point defense ship will try to maintain that distance from an enemy ship.

You can also set the targeting priorities to whatever type of enemy ship would pose the most danger to the point defense ship. Since the point defense automatically fires on moving seekers and fighters, the AI-controlled point defense ship will maintain the Rangefinder's distance from the most dangerous ship, all-the-while intercepting any seekers or fighters that come into range of its point-defense cannons.

You could tweak this system by having long, medium, and short-range Rangefinders or playing around with the weapons range setting of the ship's strategy.