I've given it a few days of thought, and read the entire thread, before replying here. Most of the things I'm not too keen on (except the final section) boil down to the 'Feels good, with high verisimilitude/fantastic immersion and mostly excellent balance as is, with tons of refreshing and complex nuance rarely found in games these days' mentioned by others.
I think that these little bits and bobs are solid gold, and it's heartbreaking when they get tidied away in the name of efficiency.
It's largely this tidying away that made me pretty much stop playing new computer games a few years ago, and the lack of that tidying away that made me pounce on Starsector like a starving man when I discovered it (HuntrBlackLuna's let's play on YT):-
Flux bonus removal to energy weapons: Gives an additional level of tactical options/play, but for me mostly just feels heroic. Kind of a 'Back's against the wall, last ditch chance to shoot hard and avoid disaster... or go down fighting' sort of thing. Since immersion is a big deal for me, it'd never occur to me in a million years to cheese it by firing at nothing to get flux up (and my builds already run pretty hot, so the last thing I'd ever do is deliberately raise flux!); and I hate that 'reduce to the lowest common denominator' nursemaid curse of our age, where I get an option taken off me because somebody somewhere [chances are a person I would really dislike, just as an extra bonus] abuses it.
If the AI can't use it, then these things happen in the overall balance of the game... of any game; humans and computers 'thinking' very differently, with different abilities. It annoys me slightly when the AI 'cheeses' its Phase Skimmer Wolf/Medusa to dodge my Plasma Cannon (and even Antimatter Blaster) shots, fired at absolutely point blank range. Not only that but it also jumps perfectly to where it needs to be, with exactly the right orientation: No human would have that reaction time/perfect control, and certainly not me
, but I take it as part of the balance of the overall game between the human that I am and my AI adversary. If I get a bit of extra flux power in my energy weapons in exchange, when it doesn't, then fair enough.
And if it is going to be removed, and that's that, then why do only non-beams get the extra base damage compensation... when beams need it far more than my mighty blaster type weapons do?
Ballistic ammo removal: Again feels heroic and exciting taking out your final enemy with only a few HVD (for example) rounds remaining - yes! Rounds remaining is also an excellent metric of how well I built and fought, which sharpens my skills. I used tight, disciplined fire and prevailed - or I succumbed to the temptation to spray and pray a couple of times [usually at a pesky Wolf!] and rightly got punished. The CR timer won't replicate this, and will actually be more likely to reward the spray and pray (flux allowing) than the discipline?
Even if it was never intended to be a major part of weapon balance, it became so and is a very good one. It's my view that if something that was never intended to be a major balancing factor is, and feels good and right and 'real'/intuitive despite that; then this a testament to how sound the core game and its balance are... don't mess with it....
Beam range: The above two are more about 'how it feels', so a pretty subjective judgement call - and as such I might be wrong... inasmuch as there is a wrong or right about feelings *shrug*. This one is more solid, nuts and bolts game mechanics stuff; and therefore is the one that I'm most concerned about.
Beams should have different ranges, according to their size/how numerous they are and role. This is the case with other weapon types in the game and is one of the many things in this game that makes it feel just so right - especially for those who are fans of naval design and naval history. Yeah, folks can sniff at realism, and say 'It's just an abstract set of rules in a game': But realism = immersion and mostly how intuitive the game is. Ditch realism and it becomes lame pure fantasy (where anything goes because magic).
From a gameplay PoV: Any 'no-brainer' build/bit of gear is generally considered to be a bit of a problem in game design. For heavy beam mounts, the TL is usually that no-brainer weapon. Cap ships without Augmented Engines (AEs) simply can't catch faster units unless they use TLs, and even then they're chasing ships all round the map forever. If you like a clean sweep, then you pretty much have to use TLs on your sluggish Cap ships. [Yup, the new CR timer on everything from Cruisers downwards will help there, but I'd rather kill the enemy with my own weapons than wait for some gamey game mechanic to save the day.]
I find this particularly in simulation mode, using an Odyssey with no AEs, when up against a big fleet leaving only the Falcon Ds alive - they just back off at extreme range forever - if you want to test this. The Falcons behave differently if you have just Falcons, so you need to take out their team mates first for this to happen.
This makes the TL compulsory. If you have an Odyssey with AEs, then you can just about catch the Falcons with a HIL - but usually not in a Paragon with AEs. So that's one niche where you might take the HIL - but only with its range as it currently is. What it needs is longer range, not less: Less makes the TL the uber no-brainer, even more than it is already. It needs to be able to compete with the TL as a viable choice - bit less range than a TL (but more than the HIL has now) and cheap and cheerful... but still substantially outranges and outguns medium beams... with it being a heavy weapon and all....
Other places where you might use a HIL, but don't: Apogee (Plasma Cannon/Pulse weapon is Just Better); Sunder - awesome ship, that is being improved further
and works very well with a HIL... except do folks still use the Sunder in endgame, when they're up against Onslaught bounties and stuff?.. so does the HIL actually get used much there?
I say all this actually liking the HIL pretty much as is - but it's just completely outperformed most of the time. It needs to be better, not worse. Even if the HIL was only one OP, I'd still take the TL for Cap ships and Plasma Cannon for Apogees.
Continuing that hierarchy downwards, medium needs to be able to substantially outrange and outgun small (and be less than a HIL by a similar margin). Here you can imagine a head to head fight between a beam armed Falcon and beam armed Hammerhead; all weapons cancel except the two forward energy mounts (2x medium vs 2x small). The Falcon should be noticeably superior in damage output (not just tanking ability). Will this be the case with the new Tac Lasers with identical range, and which also have superior PD ability thrown in vs the Grav Beam and Phase Beam? Personally, I already find the (beam armed) Falcon and Eagle incredibly lackluster, and this will make them relatively even worse.
Re the synergy point: Not for me. I like graduated range and numbers of weapons firing. In terms of realistic but also logical. I like my shield-breaker beam to fire before my Phase Beam and then Tac Lasers do, since this keeps the optimal weapon the only one firing, and reduces flux. Then you can move in and get the lower tier of weapons contributing to melting armour/hull... and pull back if you get too hot - and so on. I find the lower range of Tac Lasers (and Antimatter Blasters), all of which I tend to have on Autofire, to be a boon - in terms of flux management. If all my Tac Lasers start opening up at 1000m then my flux curve's going to go crazy, way too soon.
This will probably encourage 'exploitative' kiting, rather than doing a bit of that initially (to soften him up a bit) then getting stuck in - as mentioned by others in this thread. Or people will use Tac Lasers even less than they do now, in many builds. Eg, I already use only 4x LRPDs in the side mounts of my lovely Apogee, since the flux of even a couple of Tac Lasers (which I would otherwise actually prefer), even at their current range, is just that
bit too much.
If it is considered desirable to have a 1000m small beam, then it'd be nice if there was another beam type added for this purpose, and leave the ol' Tac Laser pretty much as she is. It'd give us another beam colour too: taste the rainbow!
I only say all this because I care, and consider myself unusually blessed to have found this awesome game: breath of fresh air, in a stale industry, that it is. That said, things always seem different when actually playing (play testing?), so it might turn out to be all good. Eg, beam mounts might become so much OP cheaper that you can afford other stuff to offset the changes, and so on. We don't know yet.
Cheers all.