Thoughts on air combat

[Thermesis]

As I've been going through the game on the latest 3.08 build, I wanted to point out, as I'm sure other's have, about the imbalance in the air weapons. 

We are early on able to produce sidewinder missiles and torpedoes for our stage 1 interceptors, and this works well at the start. As I see it too well. Later on we are given the option to upgrade to more powerful missiles that can take down cruisers and it appears just about anything out there. The problem I see it is that it's too easy to missile spam enemy ships, and even with limited fighters, say 2 against an escorted cruiser, I just shoot my missiles, retreat, reload and hit again. No damage done to my fighters at any point, and the aliens don't seem to stand a chance at all.

 

The only reason this is a real issue is because I also research and equip the heavy lasers gauss and fusion weapons and in all cases, they are vastly inferior to missile spam. The range of the other weapons is too short to avoid damage from enemy vessels. Accordingly, the alien's maneuvers against the missiles are not effective.

 

Recommending 2 things.

Increase the range/attack angles of the other weapons, and or provide the alien ships with anti missile weapons (preferably later on in the game?)

I think the best option might be to have the AI react to the preferred loadout a player uses, I.E. if they missile spam ships, ships spawn equipped with anti missile weapons only, and if you focus on close in weapons, they come equipped with longer range weapons akin to what we see normally.

 

I'm sure this has been commented on before but thought I'd offer my observations.