Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Planet Search Overhaul (07/13/24)
In terms of filling a weapon niche, so far as I know, there are no kinetic weapons with a range similar to the HIL. Since missiles only do 50% damage to shields, lasers seem to be able to be the answer to the category of long range all round damage dealer.
As for saying Command Points is on par with allowing an AI to cheat... I have that hard to believe. The AI is simply using the same AI your own fleet will use sans-orders if I'm not mistaken.
They wouldn't actually fit though
Whether you let the player do something while paused is another question - but if you don't, they could still pause to think, and then unpause to very quickly execute, so not letting the player do stuff while paused would simply be annoying. It seems more appropriate to reward thoughtful consideration, anyway.
....if you're willing to use your imagination.
....During this time, you would have some sort of penalty, the first one I can think of being that your ship idles, or is controlled by your first officier (the AI). It could also take a few seconds for them to receive and react to the order, making "micro" useless and impractical. Either that or add a separate cooldown to each unit on how often you can give them an order, on top of the transmission time.
2) Another possible alternative would not get rid of command points but instead make it so that 1 command point allows you to give as many orders as you want at a specific moment. For example you pause, send Bob to retreat, Joe to capture the sensors and Alex to clean the toilets. This is 3 orders but you give them all at once with the game paused so they cost only 1 command point. With this method, each command point represents an entire "decision" or an entire "change of plan" or "next phase of the plan". I think this would already be much better because let's be honest, sending 2 fighters wings somewhere seems petty but costs 2 command points while sending the Bis'mar somewhere is a huge tactical decision that only costs 1 command point. With this method each command point deserves equal thought and is significant, and the amount of command point could be balanced to reflect this.
It'd be like you, as the commander, get on communications occasionally to update your orders for all members of the fleet.
3) Nothing Personal - I found the best was to set the carrier up at the left hand side bottom, and assault the point above that. The problem is that while I can take care of all the fighters, I can't get my bombers to attack the cruisers in a concerted manner. So I end up falling to a tide of cruisers. Going right (set carrier up bottom right and assault the comm relay) doesn't help, because they'll get the comm relay first, and use the 30 points to steam roll you, meanwhile, you might have had the comm relay for a couple of seconds, enough to bring the majority of your troops in, but still not good enough to counter the cruiser tide.
