I've not played anything older than .8-ish, so I wouldn't know how the Gladius or previous versions of frigates changed since then.
Retry: in older builds of Starsector the original Gladius had no flare launcher, and I welcomed its inclusion on the modern Gladius.
Of far greater importance, each individual Gladius was formerly equipped with one Light
Dual Machine Gun and with
TWO IR Pulse Lasers! After game versions 0.7.2a-RC3/RC10, that turned out to be a tad too spicy for Alex's taste and said weapons loadout had a traumatic encounter with the nerf-bat. I understand why it happened, but on occasion I do yearn nostalgically for the old loadout's ROFL-stomp nature.
Back then, the physical location and type of the gun mountings were generally the inverse of today's Gladius spaceframe. The IRPLs were mounted in the narrow line-ahead hardpoints on the wings. The single Light Dual MG was in the front-facing central turret, enjoying 135-degree traverse. Situated thusly, that LDMG excelled at swatting down incoming missiles and causing stress for pilots of shielded enemy fighters, albeit only at close range. I remember enjoying that.
Gladius' relatively un-maneuverable nature made the
then-hardpoint-based pair of IRPLs somewhat sub-par when trying to engage enemy fighters. That was not an obstacle when engaging enemy *ships* of destroyer size and larger. If you could line up an enemy frigate in your cross-hairs, a Gladius wing would soon do a credible imitation of a diamond drill-bit going through a cupcake. Visually, the IRPLs' spinal mountings made an individual Gladius handle like a tiny imitation of an Onslaught trying to bracket a hapless foe with its mighty Thermal Pulse Cannons. It was intriguing.
Formerly having 300 flux dissipation and 1500 (!
) maximum flux to work with, Gladius wings frequently were brutal to their foes. But with two IRPLs to feed, the threat was too often of frustratingly short duration even with so much flux available. The secret No Weapons Flux fighter-hullrefit did not exist back in the heyday of the two-IR Gladius, so it had to accomplish its mayhem with its high base numbers for flux handing.
As an aside, I've previously done experiments with trying various
shipsystems aboard a Gladius in addition to its guns and flare launcher. I don't recall specifics right now of any of those performance trials (they were at least two years ago; sorry) aside from that I had found them encouraging. Perhaps that is an angle you'd like to explore for yourself? "Chacun a son gout!"