[QuantumDelta]

What are these countermeasures of which you speak?
Marcov, honestly, just play multi

[headdie]

How about tabling special ships and weapons for the AI? I'm sure you could sneak some extra slide or glide without making it too noticeable. Maybe you could also give them autoaim or make their missiles more countermeasure resistant.

Kind of defeats the purpose. Aces are supposedly elite pilots, not pilots who win all the time simply because they've got better equipment.

Marcov you would expect elite pilots to have better shot placement than your average pilot so each shot would do more damage not by virtue of better weapons (though it could be expected that they have access to better weapons technicians able to keep weapons in better state of maintenance and perhaps tweak the weapons performance to better suit the pilot)  but anyway as you cant simulate this better weapons placement with the AI it would have to be done with damage scores.  The auto aim (2-5 degrees) would help simulate the better accuracy without being too obvious.  It helps when you are modding to separate reality from the game, dont think in terms of AI is the pilot and the ship/weapons tables are the equipment but instead think of the pilot and ship as an overall package and that sometimes it is more effective to implement things ship/weapon side to simulate pilot behaviour.

[Qent]

Yes, exactly.

Kind of defeats the purpose. Aces are supposedly elite pilots, not pilots who win all the time simply because they've got better equipment.

It would fall in the same category as the BALLS OF STEELE buffs; you lie and tell the player that they're flying the exact same ships as he is, but theirs are really better.

Having different equipment would actually be a separate way to make them seem elite to the player. Going back to "My Brother, My Enemy," one way you can tell that the enemies are elite pilots is that they each have very customized loadouts, including Trebuchets, which in WiH are reserved for special occasions.