Those silly satellites...

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Missiles suck in the middle/late game. In the earlygame they can be quite powerful, but once everybody has PD they just become utterly useless. A high-lev PD gun can shoot down any missile with a single shot. PD is your friend and enemy.

Stock PD is simply way too unbalanced. It's too powerful at too low a size and cost, both in build cost and in research. Even Escorts can be effective PD escorts, you can mount three guns on them, and if you keep them in formation you'll be completely missile-proof. PD is simply too overpowered, since it can fire on all units,so they also make fighters, sats and drones useless. A lot of mods have altered PD so that they're more balanced. In Capship I modified PD so that it can only fire at missiles, and created a "new" PD to deal with other threats. Also, I've got one or two missiles which need at least two PD shots to be destroyed, and I'm planning on adding Cluster Missiles which are really small and weak but can be launched in flights of perhaps hundreds of missiles on larger ships.

[Suicide Junkie]

PD definitely needs shaking up. I went about it by removing PD cannons entirely, and forcing players to use small, normal weapons to try and shoot down missiles

Even with overwhelming numbers of defense ships, you have to get dangerously close to missile swarms in order to shoot them, and the missiles that end up just out of range are liable to move in and hit before you have a chance to shoot them.

Combined with leaky shields and armor, everybody gets damaged on both sides of the battle, and it works great!