Would be nice to have an internal module that immediately shortens the cooldown of the FSD. Make it have limited charges, depending on size (up to size 4), needing rearm when docked to recharge.
Plus, I mean, Sirius has stolen the plans (or whatever related stuff they could during that attack) for the SCO FSD quite some time ago, been long enough for them to put the stolen research to good use. Achilles Aerospace can bicker with them, trying to prove that the new module made by Sirius was either directly stolen from them during the attack (even if it wasn't) or that the tech behind it was result from their proprietary research on the Titan Drive tech that they researched first. Nothing like a war between corporations to shake things up, Empire and Federation get too much spotlight.
Given the end of the war and the effects of hyperdiction on humans, there would be no better time and reason to address the long recovery time from emergency drops, and since the SCO already reduced the travel times, having a new module that also reduces risk of travel (along with travel times, if you force drops knowingly to speed travel) wouldn't be a huge step further.
Plus, I mean, Sirius has stolen the plans (or whatever related stuff they could during that attack) for the SCO FSD quite some time ago, been long enough for them to put the stolen research to good use. Achilles Aerospace can bicker with them, trying to prove that the new module made by Sirius was either directly stolen from them during the attack (even if it wasn't) or that the tech behind it was result from their proprietary research on the Titan Drive tech that they researched first. Nothing like a war between corporations to shake things up, Empire and Federation get too much spotlight.
Given the end of the war and the effects of hyperdiction on humans, there would be no better time and reason to address the long recovery time from emergency drops, and since the SCO already reduced the travel times, having a new module that also reduces risk of travel (along with travel times, if you force drops knowingly to speed travel) wouldn't be a huge step further.
This would change the PvP interdiction game a bit, obviously (that's half the point). But not enough to warrant rebalance.
Attackers only need to give up on one module slot to play their role, the FSD Interdictor. Everything else on the build is intended for the job.
Defenders either underperform heavily in order to survive/fight back, sheding internals and modules for extra defense and losing jump range, speed and/or cargo capacity in the process, or accept being sitting ducks.
Regardless of the attacker success, defender always loses: either they underperform to survive (partial succes for attacker), or straight out don't survive.
Now, just give the defender the option to shed a single module that will give them a quick escape without needing to jump away from the system (and thus losing time, which is a partial attacker success). Attacker only shed one module to attack and has the advantage of suprise factor, defender can shed one module one to counter.
And it's still a cat and mouse game: attacker can add that module themselves, sheding extra survivability, at the cost of becoming a juicer target for bounty hunters. Either that, or they play smarter when they know the defender force emergency drop on both and will escape faster, and instead ambush them at point of arrival. That could also change attacker behaviour, and have them not use FSD Interdictors at all and start just ambushing.
Or, we can keep telling the "it's skill issue" lie to ourselves, as if any evasive tactic can't be countered by a pilot of equivalent skill or intelligence, until the heat death of the universe. And as bonus, we keep the meta stale, like some really good raisin cookies that have been left in the pot forever because they were willingly forgotten.
The proposed module doesn't change the balance for Power Play, since the majority of activities done for Merits result in running multi-purpose builds being more merit-efficient over single-purpose builds. Went to grab some escape pods? Shot those PP enemies for even more merits. Hacking some holo-ads? Look, that guy is worth about 3 holo-ads, and can be dealt with while the hack goes on, juciy multi-tasking. PP is balanced towards multi-tasking and mixing activities, including combat. Having a new defense/evasion module impacts very little, especially since you might want to attack more than evade. PP so far is showing a great balance on this aspect, beacuse even if you find the odd P2 triplets, if all they are doing is PvP, they are hurting their side more than doing good if they only acquire merits on the rare occasion someone shows up, instead of more constantly doing some activity.
Attackers only need to give up on one module slot to play their role, the FSD Interdictor. Everything else on the build is intended for the job.
Defenders either underperform heavily in order to survive/fight back, sheding internals and modules for extra defense and losing jump range, speed and/or cargo capacity in the process, or accept being sitting ducks.
Regardless of the attacker success, defender always loses: either they underperform to survive (partial succes for attacker), or straight out don't survive.
Now, just give the defender the option to shed a single module that will give them a quick escape without needing to jump away from the system (and thus losing time, which is a partial attacker success). Attacker only shed one module to attack and has the advantage of suprise factor, defender can shed one module one to counter.
And it's still a cat and mouse game: attacker can add that module themselves, sheding extra survivability, at the cost of becoming a juicer target for bounty hunters. Either that, or they play smarter when they know the defender force emergency drop on both and will escape faster, and instead ambush them at point of arrival. That could also change attacker behaviour, and have them not use FSD Interdictors at all and start just ambushing.
Or, we can keep telling the "it's skill issue" lie to ourselves, as if any evasive tactic can't be countered by a pilot of equivalent skill or intelligence, until the heat death of the universe. And as bonus, we keep the meta stale, like some really good raisin cookies that have been left in the pot forever because they were willingly forgotten.
The proposed module doesn't change the balance for Power Play, since the majority of activities done for Merits result in running multi-purpose builds being more merit-efficient over single-purpose builds. Went to grab some escape pods? Shot those PP enemies for even more merits. Hacking some holo-ads? Look, that guy is worth about 3 holo-ads, and can be dealt with while the hack goes on, juciy multi-tasking. PP is balanced towards multi-tasking and mixing activities, including combat. Having a new defense/evasion module impacts very little, especially since you might want to attack more than evade. PP so far is showing a great balance on this aspect, beacuse even if you find the odd P2 triplets, if all they are doing is PvP, they are hurting their side more than doing good if they only acquire merits on the rare occasion someone shows up, instead of more constantly doing some activity.
