Okay, but with respect, you are I gather pretty unhappy with the current combat. I can only go on what I've seen, but I think it looks very cool, so I'm thinking in terms of extending the current combat possibilities rather than replacing them.
But following along with what you've said:
(SNIP awesome scenario description)
Could that work in principle?
That sounds a lot like the sort of scenario I'd like to see. What I've found is that my feelings on losing a fight is 'not again. This sucks', and I think if the game has PvP that this shouldn't be the case because it means that 50% of the players in a PvP scenario aren't having fun (yes, I'm assuming everyone has the same experience of losing to PvP as me, but I think that's not a bad bet right now looking at other forum threads).
I'm replaying FreeSpace 2 at the moment. There's a bit where the Colossus is facing down the Sathanas. You're in command of a bomber wing. The scenario is set up so that you're completely outmatched: you're supposed to slow the Sathanas down and preferably take out some of it's weapons, but the designers intended the two capital ships reach each other and fight.
By switching your loadouts to anti-subsystem weapons and being careful, it's possible to totally disable the Sathanas instead. It's way more difficult than what you're supposed to do (which is already meant to be pretty tough), and it feels amazing to actually do it (not letting your resupply ship get destroyed is critical - you need a pretty much constant supply of bombs). The game eventually starts playing the Colossus's 'we're taking critical damage' scripted events, even though the ship is sitting there completely helpless, which is fairly hilarious.
It's awesome that the mechanics let this happen once you get skilled enough at the game, but there's something more important: to get to this point, I had to play this scenario multiple times, and attack the Sathanas not through the designed-in weak spot, but through its strongest defenses. So I died a lot. Not once did I think 'not again. This sucks', or even give up because I was trying something that was supposed to actually be impossible by the rules of the game. Every time I worked out how to get a bit further and it spurred me on. Every death meant the next time was different. All good PvP games have this feel to them.
I find a lot of the single-player mechanics of Elite are similar. They're hard, and you generally don't succeed on the first try, but it's generally pretty clear why you're failing. The combat mechanics are not like this, though, especially in PvP scenarios. It feels like it's possible to be better at them, but not only is there little 'feel' for what you can do better, but it also takes a very long time to go from a death (or from successfully fleeing) back to the action. The high penalty for failure is kind of irritating as well. Death by combat has a 'not again. This sucks' thing going on, and it doesn't feel to me like it's just balance. If a game is otherwise good, I actually quite like it when the odds are stacked against me - that's why I spent time taking down the Sathanas in the most difficult way possible. That's also why I'd quite like to see a good multiplayer implementation in Elite, and why I'm so disappointed in what I've seen. The flight mechanics feel great, but when you die - especially to another player - there's no real feel for what's going on, no 'I should have done this instead'. It's just irritating.
My thoughts about changing combat to be more about subsystems come from there: not only does it make it so a great pilot in a tiny ship can take down a bad one in one that's huge and horribly beweaponed but it also tries to give a novice pilot who is in the process of losing a fight some feedback so that they don't think 'not again. This sucks', but 'I shouldn't have done that. Next time will be different'. Almost as a side benefit, it also allows for the scenario where evenly matched pilots wind up in a much more involved battle. I was also trying to avoid the usual suggestions (like a PvP off flag) that seem to be considered as against the intended flavour of the game.
