The Brawler sucks. It really does. So I've been toying around with ways to improve it and I've come up with the Brawler MK II.
It's my first "Mod" and pretty basic, but so far I've:
Changed the color of the sprite a bit so it doesn't look TOO much like the standard brawler
+Increased the Flux Venting by 20 (180-200)
+Increased the Max Speed by 40 (80-120)
+Improved the Shield's Flux/Damage to 0.8 (1.2-0.
+Added 2 OP so it can have Resistant Flux Conduits basically for "Free" (45-47)
-Doubled Cost
The difference is pretty amazing. It's still slower than a Lasher, but can keep pace pretty well and actually has the speed to chase things down. The shields are efficient, but still forward-locked. It really makes the ship more effective at charging in with guns blazing like it's supposed to, being a Gunship and all.
I'm still gonna work on a few things with it. There's a lot of tweaking, but so far, it's made the Brawler into a usable ship.
Stuff I might tweak:
-Cosmetic changes. Probably changing the Engines and Shields to High Tech instead of Midline, so it looks like the engines and shields are actually different from a standard Brawler. Maybe making the engines' thrust look larger.
-Adjusting OP, either back down to 45 or up to 50, depending on how it affects things.
-Possibly adjusting speed either up or down. Need to test with Augmented engines before any changes. The current speed of 120 seems about dead-on from my tests so far, though.
-Possibly adjusting maneuverability so it can turn a bit faster.
-Adjusting Cost. Possible decrease, but not by a lot.
-Adjusting FP. Probably an increase.
I've made a basic mod that starts you in an Assault variant of the Brawler MK II and puts a few for sale in the Hegemony station. Link to the mod below:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/71356504/Brawler%20MK%20II.rar