Since weve been discussing tactics, rates of fire, movement systems, and the like, I've been thinking about the ability or inability of ships to influence one anothers movement.

In SFB one of the major things giving the game richness was the ability of many races to use drones or plasma to influence the movement of other players... area denial, threat weapons.  These weapons were marked by the fact that they could be avoided or ameliorated with manuver... and you really, reallly wanted to do that, because wading through plasma torps was rarely a good idea (sometimes, but rarely)

We can do some of this in SMX, but 'throwing' a minefield can be expensive, drones are really a flavour of fighter.  And I really dont want to try to invent another weapon modifier that reduced a weapon to a moving counter.. adding alot of moving counters on the map with their own special rules can be troublesome.

So... I thought of ridiculously deadly, one-shot, relatively slow strikeboats, called 'Plasma Torpedos'.  Give them a R3 3/1/1 Range-Based-Everything weapon, preferably 360 or with some kind of gross AOE modifier, stealth or shields or something to make them harder to hit on the way in, and suddenly your opponents have a reason to plot a course other than straight at you with their AB arcs facing you.

Their pretty cheap, too.
In using them, I'd 'remove' them the turn after they fire (or are destroyed)... and I'm cool with giving the other side the victory points for them.

But... how to 'carry' them?  Would vehicle bays be reasonable?  Put a dedicated 'Launch Bay' on your ship, indicating that it can launch one of these little suckers every turn?  Maybe attach that launch bay to a big enough cargo or vehicle bay to 'carry' the little sucker?

IN THE ALTERNATE:
If someone wants to suggest a 'seeking weapon' modifier, that states that rather than hitting, the weapon gets a counter,  moves at a certain speed, and 'attacks' when it gets to its initial target, with range treated as 'however far it moved to get there', I'm pretty cool with that too.

Ive just got no clue how much of a price break you get for turning a 'shot' into a little counter that (provisionally) must move towards the target every turn at speed X, and doesnt get to roll to-hit till and if it gets there.  Would have to be pretty steep (delayed effect, increased chance of being simply run out of range, etc.)

Thoughts?