I know, yet another limpet type, but the devs did say they were going to add some sort of limpet rack so hopefully this won't be a problem soon.
Anyway, the targeting limpet would be like a hatch breaker limpet in that you could launch it at your target and it would attempt to land on the target, except instead of trying to force the target's hatch open, the limpet just sits there, and feeds your ship targeting information on the target. This information allows your ship to maintain targeting lock on the target even if they engage silent running or cool themselves to 0%. It also increases the tracking accuracy of turrets and gimbals and drastically decreases the effect of chaff on both weapon systems.
The targeting limpet would potentially give turrets and gimbals the chance to be competitive with fixed weapons, meaning that new builds would be viable as well as ships with poor hard point convergence.
It would be balanced by a few factors. First, the limpet would have a set life time like all limpets and a new one would have to be deployed to replace it. Second the controller would have a fixed range, depending on it's grade and size, meaning a ship that get's hit by a limpet always has the option of just moving out of range. Third, PD and ECM would still effect them like they do normal limpets, meaning that if your opponents equips either or both of these, you would need to fire many limpets (and therefor use a larger limpet controller) in order to have one land. Finally, it would require at least 2 internal slots, a cargo rack and a controller.
A player using gimbals would have to sacrifice internal slots to use the targetting limpet, and if they wanted to use a lot of limpets (against numerous targets or against targets with good countermeasures) they would need to sacrifice large internals. This would create more choices and decisions for the player using the limpets, and create more build variety.
On the defensive side, players would have the option to equip ECM and PD in addition to chaff if they were going for a build optimized against turrets and gimbals (generally used by larger ships) or they could just equip chaff or maybe one chaff and one PD, or just go all SB, again depending on what they wanted to optimize their defenses against. It would make defenses more diverse as players would have to make tradeoffs between protection from all weapons, and enhanced protection from gimbals and turrets (which may end up dealing more DPS than fixed if you fly right with them). Stealth builds wouldn't be totaly countered by the targeting limpet either, as they could still use PD and ECM to stop or slow down the limpets.
Anyway, the targeting limpet would be like a hatch breaker limpet in that you could launch it at your target and it would attempt to land on the target, except instead of trying to force the target's hatch open, the limpet just sits there, and feeds your ship targeting information on the target. This information allows your ship to maintain targeting lock on the target even if they engage silent running or cool themselves to 0%. It also increases the tracking accuracy of turrets and gimbals and drastically decreases the effect of chaff on both weapon systems.
The targeting limpet would potentially give turrets and gimbals the chance to be competitive with fixed weapons, meaning that new builds would be viable as well as ships with poor hard point convergence.
It would be balanced by a few factors. First, the limpet would have a set life time like all limpets and a new one would have to be deployed to replace it. Second the controller would have a fixed range, depending on it's grade and size, meaning a ship that get's hit by a limpet always has the option of just moving out of range. Third, PD and ECM would still effect them like they do normal limpets, meaning that if your opponents equips either or both of these, you would need to fire many limpets (and therefor use a larger limpet controller) in order to have one land. Finally, it would require at least 2 internal slots, a cargo rack and a controller.
A player using gimbals would have to sacrifice internal slots to use the targetting limpet, and if they wanted to use a lot of limpets (against numerous targets or against targets with good countermeasures) they would need to sacrifice large internals. This would create more choices and decisions for the player using the limpets, and create more build variety.
On the defensive side, players would have the option to equip ECM and PD in addition to chaff if they were going for a build optimized against turrets and gimbals (generally used by larger ships) or they could just equip chaff or maybe one chaff and one PD, or just go all SB, again depending on what they wanted to optimize their defenses against. It would make defenses more diverse as players would have to make tradeoffs between protection from all weapons, and enhanced protection from gimbals and turrets (which may end up dealing more DPS than fixed if you fly right with them). Stealth builds wouldn't be totaly countered by the targeting limpet either, as they could still use PD and ECM to stop or slow down the limpets.
