.5 hz is more than sufficient to guide a torpedo to a target. It's been done.
Remember we used to do this shit back when the most advanced computers were damn near that slow - and primarily we did it by ruthlessly optimizing or delegating more to mechanical devices than to code or processors.
Yes, but you are not talking about 500mph Cruise Missiles here but 26kts slow Mk37 Torpedos in an environment that was limited to 40-50 kts maximum speed. Also, we don't have a lot of mechanical devices to work with
Perhaps I have a faulty perspective on torpedos here though. They aren't able to lead and pursue targets on their own anyways since they lack sensors to generate Information on their own. Probably, they are actually intended for the really big ships that do indeed not need much more than 5 Hz.
Like for example, that automated mining ship that takes a ridiculous 30 minutes to mine an asteroid could accomplish pretty much the same task in 5 minutes or less by:
A) Not attempting to find the absolute closest asteroid No auto-miner project I saw did that.
B) Making a mining setup that doesn't try to exactly efficiently mine an asteroid and instead use an array of lasers and drive over it slowly. This is not the core of the problem.
The real issue is navigation. You cannot really navigate very accurately in an automated system with 0.2 seconds delay if you want to make it fast. You are pretty much forced to use minimum thrust to minutely adjust your course and nudge your ship in the right direction just that tad bit more. This is what takes really long. Especially because your ship doesn't always fly straight when you accelerate which adds to the problem and it adds a lot. Finding an asteroid, that's not a big concern, nor is mining. The act of getting from A to actual B is what kills it here.
More computing power would speed this process up. And binding higher clock speeds to an exponentially increasing energy and/or heat cost would be a compelling aspect of trying to squeeze maximum use out of an automated mining ship. More computing power means possibly much more complexity which is almost always a welcome aspect to sandbox games at least as long as it does not completely go out and beyond the capabilities of the standard player. I am not talking about Harvard University stuff and I am not trying to advocate for Silicon Valley type of systems here but please let us have the possibility of speeding up the clock, at least somewhat decently.
.2 seconds is actually a totally fine delay for almost anything except for advanced weapons systems, which I think is probably the design goal here - if it were much faster, auto-aim for turrets would be somewhat trivial to do. That would get really bad - allowing the computer to aim for you makes games not fun VERY fast.
That is the reason why high computing power must be bound to a very steep energy demand. These kinds of weapon systems would only be feasable on larger ships that really can provide the power for that. Yes, that would mean that it is very hard to attack and you actually need to think about what you are doing if you do not plan on zerg-rushing it. On the other hand, it is a very easy target since it is really big and one precise strike on its power banks would already cripple it severely. You could also think about tactics like focussing fire on one spot to create an opening or deploying long range weapons to pull some of its teeth from afar. Also, having to invest a lot into power supply means that you are shorter on other things like speed for example.
It would significantly impact the meta game, no doubt about that, but we cannot say yet if in a negative or positive way.
To not try it out (once enough players are there to actually have a metagame) would be a wasted opportunity though, imho.
