[jimbob]

or allow some weak form of point defense early on. Then you can do a better job of balancing them so they Last longer without throwing the early game so terribly out of whack.

I think that flak was introduced in one mod... was it Ultimate?? Can't remember, but I thought it was a good idea. I'm thinking of making an "in house" mod for some guys I play hotseat with, and I'm going to add flak for WeapPlatforms and blister packs for Ships/Bases. Available in maybe 3 levels, all Point Defense. The first level will be available right at the start.

I'm also going to add a type of shield that requires NO research... and the game will still be balanced! I remember some board game from eons ago in which one of the shield systems was just the expulsion of huge volumes of water. It didn't provide a great amount of protection, but did defract beam weapons to a small degree and decreased chances to hit for incoming fire due to the defracting image of the defender. So I'm making a component that has these properties, but that uses a whole heck of a lot of supplies to do it. It will be outclassed by shields and ECM quite early though.

I'm also thinking of decreasing the accuracy of all weapons by 20% across the board to make ships harder to hit in the early game and fighters in the later game (there is a recent thread regarding this and weapon mounts).

And then the new patch... oh the possibilites.