A suggestion for wing gameplay.
Lets say you are a trading wing hitting the CG and have 2 combat ships and 2 trade ships. A bunch of pirates or gankers or miscreants of whatever description attack and interdict the trade ship, the combat ships navlock and by the time they arrive the trade ship is already taking heavy fire and shields are failing. Despite the combat ships doing their best to destroy the ship attacking the trader the attacker does not switch targets and kills the trader outright before fleeing from the combat protectors.
This is the current scenario as it plays out in the rare occasions people have combat ships and trade ships in a wing for protection. There is no way of protecting the trade ships in supercruise, except guessing who is an attacker and interdicting them before they can interdict the trade ship. In short there's not that much gameplay beyond "stick close to trade ship" until it gets to local space.
My idea is for an "interdictor inhibitor" module that protects wingmen from interdiction provided you are in a certain range. This could work by either stopping wingmen from being targeted or preventing enemies from interdicting them. However, it puts a big "attack me" flag on the ship with the inhibitor and having an active inhibitor prevents other inhibitors taking effect (no wing can make itself invulnerable). The inhibitor itself could take a lot of heat/power to run or have whatever other downsides.
However, it'd be an interesting defence strategy and promote some supercruise thinking/gameplay and escalation. Pirates come in pairs so the first one takes the inhibitor down and the second one engages the trade ship. Then the defence wing brings 2 inhibitor ships and the pirates have to work in 3s to be able to attack.
Sure the idea could be embellished and would need balance but it strikes me as a fun addition bringing more to supercruise and defensive/wing gameplay.
Lets say you are a trading wing hitting the CG and have 2 combat ships and 2 trade ships. A bunch of pirates or gankers or miscreants of whatever description attack and interdict the trade ship, the combat ships navlock and by the time they arrive the trade ship is already taking heavy fire and shields are failing. Despite the combat ships doing their best to destroy the ship attacking the trader the attacker does not switch targets and kills the trader outright before fleeing from the combat protectors.
This is the current scenario as it plays out in the rare occasions people have combat ships and trade ships in a wing for protection. There is no way of protecting the trade ships in supercruise, except guessing who is an attacker and interdicting them before they can interdict the trade ship. In short there's not that much gameplay beyond "stick close to trade ship" until it gets to local space.
My idea is for an "interdictor inhibitor" module that protects wingmen from interdiction provided you are in a certain range. This could work by either stopping wingmen from being targeted or preventing enemies from interdicting them. However, it puts a big "attack me" flag on the ship with the inhibitor and having an active inhibitor prevents other inhibitors taking effect (no wing can make itself invulnerable). The inhibitor itself could take a lot of heat/power to run or have whatever other downsides.
However, it'd be an interesting defence strategy and promote some supercruise thinking/gameplay and escalation. Pirates come in pairs so the first one takes the inhibitor down and the second one engages the trade ship. Then the defence wing brings 2 inhibitor ships and the pirates have to work in 3s to be able to attack.
Sure the idea could be embellished and would need balance but it strikes me as a fun addition bringing more to supercruise and defensive/wing gameplay.
