Yes and no.
I think we need both, and hopefully some objective returns from both.
It's hard though, a lot of people seem to take this subject on a very personal stance. Thus come the disrupting comments, possibly driven by over-protection "don't touch my toy" (python owner) or jealousy "I don't have your toy, so I don't want you to enjoy it" (gelly dude).
It's hard because it "hides" the good number of righteous claims that are made, from both sides.
So please, refrain from taking this matter too personally (we're all humans, but... at least try !)
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That said, I drive a Python for now. After looking at current shields sheet-tables (even if they're a bit wrong, according to Mike), my opinion is that there was a problem. Python too good. Too strong. So I'm fine with a bit of tuning there, but please, do not call it minor though. This seems warranted, but definitely not minor.
Regarding the manoeuvrability, well maybe it's warranted, I didn't fly it long enough, nor with the best modules, to really know. It's just that... that's a bit much to hear, when you finally managed to grind your way to buy shiny Python. You know. All those hours. The drool. And when you get it, BAM. Human thing, still a tad bitter.
Now what I'd like to add, or comfort, is the price of the ship. I made a long post about it somewhere in the shield cell banks thread, but in a nuttshell : the Python has insane prices. And I was lead to think that it WAS his drawback. It will cost you an arm to maintain.
Rebuy cost, Repair cost and, to a certain margin, Buy cost are very high. And that's something you can't really know, or feel, if you never had a Python. One would think : "we all have rebuy costs and repair costs, what are this bragging Python owners crying about, again". But no, it IS very high. As in, hours of farm just to secure rebuy cost. A 250M Python will have a 12.5M rebuy cost. That's 5 hours of continuous farm on a good route.
So yeah, obviously the devs will do what they see fit in the end, but I'd like people that didn't fly the Python to realize that, when considering balance. The cost is real.
And no, for the sake of clarification, I do not think that "because it's expensive it should be crazy OP", nor that it is "balanced" now, but still, when considering balance, I'd like people (forum users and devs) to keep it mind that there is already a significant drawback in the freaking credit amount (= hours doing... "trades", and we all know how much fun that is) that this snake will cost you (buy / rebuy / repair / outfits).
