Retargeting Fighters

[Tony Christney <tchristney@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Everyone,

A while ago Noam requested that fighters be allowed to
change targets during the combat phase. I slaved away
at making this work but have come upon a major problem.

Say fighter group A is within range of ships B and C. The
server sends the game file to both parties showing that
A is attacking B. The owner of A changes his target to C, and
the owner of B targets his PDS at A. Now the problem is
that A is able to attack C unopposed, since C did not know
that A is attacking it. Also, B now has wasted its PDS fire.

The truly exploitable hole comes if the owner of A has another
fighter group D initially targeted to C. If the fighters simply
are able to switch targets, neither B nor C can defend
against the fighters, which are able to use their full attack
power without danger of retribution!

I am about ready to abandon my efforts unless someone can
think of a brilliant solution to this dilemma. Any ideas?

Tony C.