[Phoenix-D]

Combat bonuses are tricky. They need to be powerful enough to be useful, yet not so much they are an insurmountable advantage, agreed? So researching improved weaponry rather than improved sensors should be a viable option- miss more, but make up for it with better weapon performance. You can't really do that in standard SE4. Extending the ECM/CS tree while lowering the actual benifits sounds good.

Something else I've thought about, inspired by the proportions mod: better sensors/ECM, but they are bigger than the normal type and non-stackable. Again, it becomes a choice between increased accuracy (or defense) and firepower/direct defense. Proportions doesn't go far enough with it IMO; the components are always small enough that except on very small ships you aren't sacrificing much combat capability to go with the best.

Stealth and Scattering armor are a good example here IMO. You get 15% more defense plus a few other stuff- it's not the best cloak, it's not even the best armor. And it's fairly big; sticking both plus ECM on a ship makes you pretty hard to hit, but you pay a nasty price size wise.

Two other thoughts:
-making ships tougher? So that who gets the first shot in matters less.
-should ships really be able to *outrun* missiles? How about running away to give PD more shots?

Phoenix-D