Seekers ability to hit a target.

[Commander G]

If seekers are changed to use the ToHit percentage, they should also get a better chance to hit than most weapons. But I agree, ECMs and Ship Defense Racial Modifiers should come into play.

I myself prefer to research Point Defenses in PBEM games early because Missles are very potent at that stage. I recently won a battle in a PBEM game with two missle Frigates (two missles, one PD) against two UR cannon Frigates (3 UR cannon IIs) and decisively won. I ended up non needing the point defense, because he did not employ missles. However, if he would have used missles without Point Defense he would have lost as well. The simple fact is that missles are very powerful in the early game and point defense are critical unless you can get your enemy to agree to not use missles.

FYI: Those Point Defense are also useful against Satelites and Fighters, which missles cannot target.

If you have point defense and your enemy does not, he has to research point defenses as well to fight you!

[rdouglass]

Seawolf, I can't agree with you on the statement that tow missles are seekers. They (TOW's) are "guided" missles and not seekers IMO. A seeker implies intellience as in our "fire and forget" smart bombs.

When I was in the Army and had an opportunity to shoot one of those tows (boy was that fun!!!), I remember that I had to keep my eye on the target. If I did not, the TOW would miss. Of course, it dod not take long at all for the TOW to reach its target.

However with SE4, it can take 3-4 combat turns for a seeker to reach its target. That implies an intelligence since you can target other ships / objects on your very next turn after firing (the seekers).

I don't know what they're seeking but I would think that a ship with all that stuff (and propulsion power used in combat) would be pretty easy for a seeker to key in on something: infrared, em emmisions, SOMETHING!!

[Tomgs]

How about a component that cloaked your emmisions from seekers? It would give you a chance to be missed but only if you had that special type of ECM device. Maybe it should be added into the combat support tree. I don't think this is something that could be modded the way the game is now but maybe its an addition that would help with this controversy.

If this was added maybe different types of missles and ECM could be added. Engine seeking (but not engine destroying) missles. And perhaps missles that used temporal or psysic sensor technology to acquire targets with the appropriate ECM to block those types of seekers. Hmm this may be a better idea for drones though. That way you could build them with the appropriate type of target acquisition device.

[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 25 January 2001).]

[Baron Munchausen]

Well, looks like the **** has hit the fan on seekers and 'to hit' probabilities. Now let's toss a little more on the fan. The same problem exists with MINES, too. They always hit. This is even more ridiculous than seekers always hitting and the counter measures are more expensive to acquire and use. Both of these 'features' need to be tweaked. Simply treating them like normal weapons would seem to be the simplest answer. Factor in the best combat sensors that the owner of the seekers has since we have to assume that missiles are being built and updated continually, and then use the target's ecm and other defensive values. The same goes for mines.