I think the dodge % needs to be rethought, especially once ship optimizations happen. With that you could have a 75% chance of dodge which is just unrealistic. It has totally unbalanced coms missions. Waiting 8 hrs 2x to tackle a coms mission is just crazy. I had one mission where they dodged nearly 50% of the time with only a 35% chance. I can imagine how much worse it would get with a higher dodge %.
To be realistic, a laser attack (speed of light) would be d**n hard to jump out of the way. Still need to open the wormhole and pilot in, that would take more time then the laser would to reach you. Same goes with rails. With vipers...it makes more sense.
Maybe the dodge should be more of a your ship gets either grazed or missed thing... say 70/30 weighted to being grazed. If it takes 8 hours to move into position to attack then you are pretty close and attacks would be near instant...no chance to move.
The 1 shot per a battle also kinda sucks, why cant we shoot again? maybe less powerful? Not enough time for full recharge so we shoot less powerful. Right now with the changes I see the future as building a mix of shields & armor on a titan entirely filled with mk500 marines since they cant miss
I admit the dodge is a bit out of control but for the most part I like it. It is just annoying having to start a COM over again though just because they keep dodging like crazy. BTW Aysle as for how they dodge. These I think have more to do with the Combat Missions then wormholes. The ship's maneuverability is what allows it to dodge. Like it or not this is just more realistic. Though dodging lasers does seem a bit of a stretch, considering it is done in pretty much every scifi out there, I can't see it as too big a deal. Perhaps they got sensors that help them to detect weapons lock and stuck and they maneuver out of the way just as our guys are pulling the trigger. I do think for COMs this is the most annoying thing every. Though for regular battles I consider it a much needed improvement.
As for firing weapons only once per battle. Yeah I don't really like that either. If this dodge thing wasn't here it would be ok. But with dodge, I can't see any reason why these weapons wouldn't be able to fire more then once per battle. Viper squadrens could easily have refueled and taken off again by that point. Lasers batteries should be able to be recharged or at least partially recharged by that point. I can't just see the energy cells in them completely drying up after firing only once. As for Railguns. Considering ammo for them seems unlimited, I can't see a reason they can't be reloaded and fired again. If pirate ships could do it with cannons back in the day, I am sure it could be done here. Smaller ships would still be able to swarm larger ones if this had been left in. The smaller ships would have been dodging like crazy making it harder for the larger ships to even hit them.