locarno24 said:
It's also a question on whether the larger ship's better sensors will make a difference; I can only draw on 1e traveller, but in that, a larger ship is likely to pack a Military Countermeasures Suite - Electronic Warfare specifically is (was?) an opposed check, not a check in isolation, so breaking a sensor lock by a basic-sensor-package freighter some over-optimistic pirate has refitted with a few popguns is a whole 'nother issue to breaking a target lock by a patrol cruiser with a dedicated countermeasures suite.
Only the Military CM Suite at TL 15 is too large to mount on a EW fighter. Only at TL15 will a BB have a slight edge in hardware and only over fighters, say EW DM+10 vs. DM+8.
EW is still an opposed check, so it's still more difficult to break a lock than to establish it.
locarno24 said:
Agreed this is a potential issue - this is largely driven by the number of sensor actions each side has. If two ships only have one sensor operator to 'spare' each, then ship A establishes a lock, and ship B breaks the lock. Since A is always playing catchup, and breaking a lock (opposed check) is harder than establishing one (unopposed check), B never gets a chance to establish a lock of its own unless it accepts the lock from A.
The initiative order is as much a problem as the number of actions.
Maybe we could do something like:
1. Jamming, in initiative order.
2. Break Jamming, in initiative order.
3. Sensor Lock, in initiative order.
4. Break lock, in initiative order.
With ships still limited to a total number of sensor actions.
But that sounds too complicated...
Since most standard ships don't carry dedicated sensor operators, expanded EW rules are an almost automatic advantage to the players.