Well said. Im fairly new to ED (Viper/Cobra owning Bounty hunter at this stage) and I Like the approach they took to balance. Having to choose Weapons based on the kind of fights and prey you prefer, choose optimization or versatility. If your really good at flying and max out the handling of your ship, you can go fixed for that edge in damage, or you can choose gimbaled for more time on target. Managing the loadout constraints are a vital part of that too, and it should stay that way.I think the vulture is a beast when you tweak it to cut out all the necessary modules on deployment of weapons (put everything not needed in a fight, including frameshift drive, to priority 2 or more in the module panel - you can simulate this by switching them off while parked in space station and checking the 'usage' percentage is below 100 after deactivation). Also, after hours of messing with configurations and weapons combinations, I have found the best way to take down an anaconda is not necessarily weapons versus shields (as mentioned above), but gimbled beam and gimbled frag cannon as the frag cannon is not disabled as much by the power drain of the beam laser (although I'm aware this is subjective). Furthermore, I reckon the vulture is already in advance of the cobra and viper as a fighting ship, which creates a paradox where people who have played longer have stronger ships and can shoot up new people more easily, however, I think Elite is as much about picking your fights well and avoiding certain situations until you have the skill and money to enter them, so I'd rather things were not balanced or nerfed...just my opinion
I would actually like to see even larger ships then the 'conda introduced. perhaps even player capitals! it would give those who enjoy RPing one faction or another something to work for as well as a something for advanced players to work towards! I'd really like of you reached max rank in an empire you could gain access to their capital ship for a ludicrous amount of CR (and make modules for it equally expensive). Some interesting things could be done with this, Such as allowing capitals to transport other player ships docked inside them for extended jumps. Obviously capitals would be huge and easily detectable... they could even become a sort of roaming event every time they drop from a jump or SC leaving a lockable signature visible to all within a set distance.
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