[PvK]

I don't think it can be modded - but I do think it's on the suggestion list. Opportunity fire was suggested and discussed a long time ago, but seems to have fallen off the table somwhere along the line. I guess MM saw the main problem was that bases and planets were at a disadvantage, and the tweak to handle that was to give their mounts range bonuses. I agree it could be an improvement to add Opp fire, if it was well done, which would require a fair amount of careful design, work, and testing to do well. In some games, Opp fire causes more problems than it solves, because of "baiting" and other issues. E.g., use something that probably won't be hit or hurt or that you don't care about to draw fire by moving into Opp fire range of the enemy, and then move in your ships that you don't want to get hit, etc.

Also, the combat system is clearly an abstraction of the actual situation, since it's 2D and uses alternating turns, squares, ships without meaningful facings, and inertialess movement, none of which are accurate representations of space combat. So within the abstract representation, an immobile ship not always being able to fire back against hit & run could represent more maneuverable ships moving to attack from an angle that the target can't respond from.

Still, done well, I think Opp fire could be an improvement.

PvK