THIS IS NOT AN ANTI-MM THREAD I have forced myself to endure almost two days of 3.23 EPTU master modes testing and have purposely limited myself to the larger ships, Connie class and above. During this cycle of testing, I have concluded that larger ships are now in the absolute worst state they have ever been in. They are not a threat to any ship smaller than they are. Putting a crew in them provides your enemy with free multi-kills, and it seems like every new feature, change, or added ship is geared towards turning your large ship into content for smaller ships. It's not fun, and the feeling of hopelessness is one of the absolute worst feelings a player in your game can have. If you fly a larger ship, you're the equivalent of a low-tier elite mob in an MMORPG, except you're not a threat and you don't drop anything cool. Ships Designed to Punch Above Their Weight Are Bad Design Any ship designed to carry one or more S4 weapon, and to an extent, S3, is capable of demolishing larger ships with impunity. You're putting a weapons platform reserved for ships the size of a Connie and above onto a chassis that is more maneuverable and able to dictate a fight on their terms. Did it, at any point in design, occur to anyone that if you design a light, maneuverable ship to "punch up," that it will also have no issue punching down? If it can punch up and down, what, exactly, is its weakness? A Hornet MK2, for example, can close in and destroy a Corsair, and its full crew, four people mind you, in less than 30 seconds. I've tested it, I've seen it. I've done it and had it done to me. So if you have ships that can do this, why would I bring ships such as the Ares or Eclipse, two ships mind you that also never should have been designed, to do the job? The Ares and Eclipse cannot punch down, they can only punch up. You don't bring them. And lo and behold, nobody does. Anything the Ares can do, the Hornet or ships like it can do, either equally or better. Arguably better because they can swat other smaller ships away too since they are not any less maneuverable. You must understand that by allowing this, you are cutting out the value of dedicated anti-large ships while also making the large ships unable to defend themselves against the more maneuverable fighters that, for whatever reason, now come equipped with large-caliber weapons. Any Change to Small Ship Maneuverability Will Only Worsen This There are many calls for smaller ships to have more "push" power, but I don't think anyone is considering how this further widens the gaps between larger ships defending themselves from smaller ones. They already, in the current version of MM, cannot reliably hit and destroy a smaller ship before it gets around its gun and turrets. Turrets still suck, by the way, but I will address that later. But once the smaller ship is around the front of the bigger ships, where the guns are all located, it has no choice but to nav mode up and fly away, hoping its hull HP holds. Is this what you want? If so, tell me now that you intend for big ships to be food for smaller ones so I can appropriately set my expectations. I am not going to dive into the debate of small vs. small push and pull, tug or whatever you nerds call it. I'm going to "stay in my lane" as they say. But if the design is that I can never get my guns onto a smaller target before it gets around me then I expect to be neigh invulnerable to a smaller ship. It's only fair. Otherwise, like I said earlier, why would anyone bring the dedicated anti-large ships? Is armor going to fix this? If so, how? By extending the futility of my existence until they get bored and leave, or until they bit by bit dismantle my ship and attempt to board? What fun and exciting gameplay. Manual Gimbals Suck Too Much I get that some of you hate manual gimbals. They work best on larger ships, in theory, because your platform is more stable and you need them to have a chance to counter smaller ships closing in on you or flying around you. But the lower ROF, which translates to lower DPS, makes them worthless. But they're also your only chance. So you're forced to use nerfed versions of weapons lighter ships have. They're nerfed versions because smaller ships can also equip size 4, and in some cases, S5 cannons. They don't need the gimbals thus they get all the benefits of extra DPS with none of the downsides when facing a larger ship. At this point, I would completely remove the gimbal weapon penalty on larger ships. I don't even care what you do with the smaller ship gimbals, leave them as is or remove them if you hate them that much. But gimbals strike me as something only a larger ship should have because they rely on them to make up for their poor maneuverability and have the mass required to support the necessary actuators and equipment to use them. Precision Mode Reinforces My Belief That Big Ships Are Content For Smaller Ships You've got an entire dedicated targeting system designed to help you pick apart larger ships. It highlights all components, turrets, and whatever other doodads larger ships have and lets you feel awesome as you disable their turrets, engines, and other components with impunity. How does precision mode benefit me in a larger ship when facing off against a smaller one? I cannot hit them in the first place, they don't have components I want to hit, and even if they did... the ship will be dead before my precise aiming shoots off an engine. I get that SQ42 is a single-player experience designed to make the player feel like a hero. But I don't appreciate being turned into, again, the equivalent of an NPC for smaller ships to pick apart so they feel awesome. Cannons Have No Trade-Off These weapons dump on anything big or small and are the only weapons worth using. Usually, when you decide to up gun a vehicle, it comes at the cost of maneuverability. No such cost is present in SC. A lighter S3 repeater apparently weighs the same as a larger S4 cannon. If smaller ships took a performance hit for equipping larger weapons players might think twice about throwing them on. Sure, they would have power and more punch but they're going to be more susceptible to more nimble fighters and have a harder time getting around the bigger ships' guns. Consider it. Size Three Shields Mean Nothing 3.23 S3 shields are about the equivalent of 3.22 S2 shields in terms of TTK. They're an absolute joke. The proliferation of cannons with higher damage, accuracy, and velocities on smaller ships has made them all but useless. Cannons were always powerful, but since they couldn't hit small ships other small ships players would not take them because by doing so they were vulnerable to smaller ones. Why bring an escort to protect you from cannon-wielding single-seaters when your escort will be just as, if not more vulnerable to the new and improved cannons? It makes no sense. S3 shields need to have either an HP buff or a constant regenerating effect even when under fire. Ideally both. It used to be this way, by the way. I don't know why it was changed. Do you want Bombers to be needed to kill big ships or not? The Planned Changes To Multi-Crew, Such As Engineering, Make Bigger Ships Even Less Appealing In the future, if I want to operate a larger ship with a crew, my turret gunners are going to have to play a mini-game of switching out fuses, putting out fires, and flushing toilets just to keep the ship operational. It won't be fighting during this time. The smaller ship doesn't have to worry about any of this. The smaller ship is just going to keep starting fires, circling the larger ones, and destroying components while my crew runs around dealing with it. Do you really think anyone but the most hardcore role-player is going to do that in any serious capacity? Serious players are going to avoid that nonsense and just bring even more smaller ships that can "punch above their weight" and ignore all that. Engineering is a really cool thing that sounds awesome on paper but in practice sucks. You're placing a tax on players to make a larger ship work when even when such a tax isn't currently present the larger ships don't work in their current state. What is going on here? Turrets Still Suck Nothing has changed. Their HP is low, they get shot off immediately with or without precision mode, often dying through normal combat operations without precise targeting. They cannot hit anything, their tracking sucks, the gimbals lower their ROF thus reduce their damage, and more importantly they're just not fun to be in. It doesn't help that every single turret in the game on ships larger than the Hurricane/Scorpion is poorly designed and has terrible fields of fire. Even with the lower speeds, the window of opportunity you have to fire on a target is extremely limited. And, since you are FORCED to use the gimbal to hit anything in the first place the effective fire you have during that small window is even more insignificant. You Can Still Be Rammed This also, once again, has not changed. It doesn't take a long explanation. The only time I managed to get a Hammerhead with a crew ended in it being rammed by an Arrow and it exploded, taking myself, the Arrow, and our gunners with it. Fun. Conclusion SQ42 may be a single-player hotshot pilot experience but SC is aiming to be an MMO. You cannot transplant design, theory, and balance from a single-player game into an MMO and expect it to work. Multi-crew gameplay is a bigger joke now than it ever has been. Cannons on smaller ships, larger ships being unable to put fire on smaller ships, or withstand any incoming fire from them. It's a mess. A total mess. Is this a "wait for armor" thing? Alright, cool. But is armor going to impact the constant additions of smaller ships designed to "punch above their weight"? I get it, those sell and make money, but you have other customers too not just those interested in single-seat fighters.