Oh, I didn't mean alone. In my experience, 1v2 is viable, Big Ship v Mediums, but the Big Ship won't win with the utmost apex builds and piloting on both sides. Weaker but still respectable pairings can be defeated, though.
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You're basically making the point here. You say that a big ship will be in trouble when fighting several enemies. You describe that two can be tough when their pilots are perfect, if they are not, it requires more than two to get the big ship into trouble. But why should a big ship reliably beat more than one enemy? Just because it's bigger?
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It might be just me, but the game very much is based on the number of players. One on one counts Players, not the mass of ships, shield value or number of hardpoints. A wing consists of a maximum of four players, there's no "you can field a total of 10 hardpoints, so if one brings a T10, he can only wing up with one hauler". Thus in my eyes, the player counts, while the ship is merely their tool. As long as big ships are at an advantage against an equal number of smaller ships, their pricetag is justified, although idealy the opponent can compensate for the advantage by competent flying.
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While I think that ways to attack the boosters directly would be great, exposing them outright would be not good :
- Long range rails would instagib them
- Missiles would mop them up like there is no tomorrow
- It would only work for PvP because NPC's don't target sub-systems.
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The first one -may- be true, depending on the implementation, although it will require some skillful flying and shooting. So it could merely be seen as a reward for skill. Also, utility slots are rather small spots on the hull and based how the suggestion was written, i would expect the area of vulnerability of a shield booster to be just s small cone on top of it. So shoot it from the wrong angle, and you still hit the shields.
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That would mean that turning your ship to Keep the boosters away from the enemy would again prevent them from being damaged. So again, skill would be rewarded.
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On missiles, it would very much depend on how much damage would bleed through. If the mentioned cones of vulnerability would exist, it would require missiles to hit rather well. Turning your ship away would again be the "skill" solution, but you could also bring one or two PDS and missiles wouldn't be any trouble any more. (Unless somebody carries more than two missile racks, in which case he sacrificed a good deal of firepower and deserves doing the damage.
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Last not least on the PvE aspect: many NPCs do carry missile launchers. They just currently almost never fire them while shields are up. As most players fly unbreakable shield setups, they don't experience missile fire from NPCs. Within the scope of this suggestion, NPCs could start using missiles against shielded players. So you better have your shield boosters on your ships belly and turn them away from incoming fire, or alternatively bring a few PDS. I don't really see a big issue.
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I'd rather have a "softer" approach to it :
- Change phasing so that phasing weapons can damage boosters.
- Change reverb torps/mines so that they damage boosters first, shield gen last.
- Make booster very susceptible to heat damage.
- We'll see about the flechette launcher. It was very undewhelming during the beta.
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So the answer would be more engineering, more god-effects? I don't think so. I'd rather have a solution which doesn't once again rely on very specific engineer-based mechanics. We already have way too much of that, we don't need even more.
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