Suggestion: targeting the hardware

[Lestibournes]

It's nice to be able to take out the control systems, but what if I want to take out not the weapons control, but the weapon itself? Right now we can only disable systems, but what if I want to destroy the shield generator or the engine, rather than the computer that controls them? I think there is merit in having the option. I can see myself trying to permanently disabling a ship's weapons by destroying the weapons themselves, one by one, and they can't be repaired or replaced, as they would be a pile of wreckage embedded in the hull, and would require external access to remove the destroyed hardware and repair the hull before a replacement can be installed.

On a side note, it always bothers me how battles in Star Trek seem to be more about damage to the computers than about damage to the ship itself.

[Gorlom]

It's nice to be able to take out the control systems, but what if I want to take out not the weapons control, but the weapon itself? Right now we can only disable systems, but what if I want to destroy the shield generator or the engine, rather than the computer that controls them? I think there is merit in having the option. I can see myself trying to permanently disabling a ship's weapons by destroying the weapons themselves, one by one, and they can't be repaired or replaced, as they would be a pile of wreckage embedded in the hull, and would require external access to remove the destroyed hardware and repair the hull before a replacement can be installed.

That would be too powerful against enemies and too devastating when used against you as a player.

On a side note, it always bothers me how battles in Star Trek seem to be more about damage to the computers than about damage to the ship itself.

That's because it's a TV show. There is no immersion if the actors has to yell out "oh nay! The phasers took a direct hit, we can't use 'em any more cap'n", "Sir, the comunications array was melted to scrap by the enemy photon torpedo." etc, without any visual ques (like the actors thrashing about or consoles shooting sparks) for the viewer to indicate that they are beeing hit. I mean imagine if we got to hear this from Will Shatner and Lonard Nimoy:
"Mr Spock, give me a situations report" "It seems like the whole ship has been destroyed... only this room and it's computers remain intact Captain". Wouldn't be that fun to watch compared to at least something in their room exploding?

[Lestibournes]

It's nice to be able to take out the control systems, but what if I want to take out not the weapons control, but the weapon itself? Right now we can only disable systems, but what if I want to destroy the shield generator or the engine, rather than the computer that controls them? I think there is merit in having the option. I can see myself trying to permanently disabling a ship's weapons by destroying the weapons themselves, one by one, and they can't be repaired or replaced, as they would be a pile of wreckage embedded in the hull, and would require external access to remove the destroyed hardware and repair the hull before a replacement can be installed.

That would be too powerful against enemies and too devastating when used against you as a player.

On a side note, it always bothers me how battles in Star Trek seem to be more about damage to the computers than about damage to the ship itself.

That's because it's a TV show. There is no immersion if the actors has to yell out "oh nay! The phasers took a direct hit, we can't use 'em any more cap'n", "Sir, the comunications array was melted to scrap by the enemy photon torpedo." etc, without any visual ques (like the actors thrashing about or consoles shooting sparks) for the viewer to indicate that they are beeing hit. I mean imagine if we got to hear this from Will Shatner and Lonard Nimoy:
"Mr Spock, give me a situations report" "It seems like the whole ship has been destroyed... only this room and it's computers remain intact Captain". Wouldn't be that fun to watch compared to at least something in their room exploding?

If you can only take out one weapon at a time, and if they are much sturdier than the circuitry of a computer, and if you can't target them when they are not deployed, then what exactly is overpowered? Take out the entire weapon system temporarily, or take out 1 weapon permanently. It's a dilemma.