It seems to me that the asteroid fields and obstacles don't seem to really do anything but keep you from jumping to high speed. They just about never seem a factor in combat.

If the asteroids could block target lock, a lot of interesting tactics become available. Hiding behind asteroids for an ambush, dodging into the thick of a field to play hide and seek and lose a pursuer, etc.

Since most detection technology relies on some energy emission from the target, or reflected energy from the sensor itself, it certainly makes sense that asteroids, bases, maybe even wormholes and such would block the target lock, or break it if it was already locked on.

As I've said before, Jumpgate had asteroids that you could hide on if you snuggled up really close and I think Vendetta could only profit from blatantly stealing the idea from them.

I think it would be neat if you disappeared from radar when you hugged an asteroid. It would make ambushes great.

But it's only really useful if Bots can't see you either. I think there's a thread on Stealth floating around. It's huge, I haven't read it yet, but that might have something akin to this.