Thanks for explaining the reasoning, now that i think about it i never had any problem with kinetics, so i guess it just feels like the medium energy slot lacks options in the 1000 range or beam category, and while it could be fixed by slapping a medium tac laser, it could also be fixed by adding something else entirely that follows your philosophy.
Yeah, hmm. Not sure what that option might be, though, without being either "larger tac laser" or "smaller HIL". At 1000 range it's to be a beam, and, per the previous, there are somewhat less easy options for making them distinct. I suppose a fragmentation beam *might* be interesting...
Does the speed penalty for exceeding the ship limit apply to AI fleets too?
The question doesn't come up in vanilla since AI fleets don't exceed the cap. If modded fleets exceed the cap, they will not have the penalty since presumably those fleets have a reason for being so large.
If it's supposed to be caused by asteroids i don't think it's bugged, or at least not that i've ever experienced bugged behavior, (i've never seen it affect every ship like SCC describes) and i think making it ignore those tiny asteroids will go a long way in solving any annoying/unintentioned behavior.
Re: Ship burn drive at combat start. It happens quite often to me that the burn fizzes out early with no obstacle there, or that the burn continues and plows through a small asteroid. Out of the two, I definitely prefer the latter and wish the detection system wouldn't exist. Could also just give the ships damage immunity until the initial burn ends, if that's not too game-y.
Hmm - I'll keep an eye out for it happening unnecessarily; it's possible that it's over-sensitive in some cases. And, you say that - and I'm sure it's true for you! - but just in terms of overall volume of feedback, "ships occasionally dying or taking damage" felt like it generated *a lot* more of it. Damage immunity, hmm - I don't mind the idea on principle, but that could get situationally very weird if say enemy ships near your burn-in area, etc.
I for one hope you'll never lose sight of this design choice no matter how often it's brought up. The biggest problem i have with all the weapons that most mods add to the game is that they fill every niche which imo really takes away *meaningful* choice by adding too much choice.
100% this! Keep the weapon selection mean and lean and force people to make choices. Having 5 different weapons that all do the same thing with a minute 2% difference for every single role is the worst.
*thumbs up*!
Are wars between factions going to be possible at some point? That's one thing I always wanted to see in Starsector.
Honestly, I don't really see doing that - that's veering into straight-up 4x territory, and the game isn't really designed around that / it's not a direction I want to go in. I could see something more event-driven happening along these lines, but not for example a fully dynamic situation where colonies are changing hands left and right and so on.