Can we have a new non-roaming support fighter now that both of them suck? It's either 0 dp for a mining pod, or 18 for a xyphos. Would be nice to have something at around 9.
Hmm, yeah, that could be fun, actually. I remember trying for a Vulcan PD platform type fighter at some point, but I forget what about it didn't work out - something didn't, though. I still like that concept, though; might be worth revisiting!
It seems to me that the "can't s-mod it" was very forceful, very heavy-handed to fix it. You already have a precedent of mutually exclusive hullmods. AO & HSA are now mutually exclusive. ITU & DTC always were. Technically, Phase Field(the hullmod) & CH always were. Assault Package & Support Package were.
So why not make Shield Shunt & MSG mutually exclusive instead of banning one of them from S-mods?
Agreed, this seems reasonable on its face (put another way, I didn't feel like thinking about it too much). Adding more illogical kludge fixes instead of addressing the underlying problem is just another paved road to hell. Don't get me wrong, it's easier than fixing the underlying problem... it's just also subject to compounding said problem/issue in the long run. Only downside is that there prolly isn't necessarily a simple and easy solution to fix said underlying problem. Either allow s-modding for every hull mod and adjust benefits for hull mods to balance system (tedious), or ditch system entirely and live with your wasted life (prolly shoulda thought this one through slightly more!).
This is an extremely simple, limited fix that has no real downside. And in general, "some hullmods can't be s-modded" is also a clean way to handle certain things. The idea that the system ought to be ditched because the base "rules" need some exceptions - at best, that's an extremely unrealistic way to look at things. But going beyond that, oftentimes, the exceptions are what makes systems more interesting.
That said, I don't have anything against the "make MSG and Shield Shunt mutually exclusive" approach, either; the only downside I can see is that it wouldn't handle modded versions of MSG (with perhaps different stats etc) out-of-the-box. But it's not a big concern and I'm not sure those types of modded hullmods even exist. I just feel like calling the "can't build it in" approach "heavy handed" is making a mountain out of a a molehill - like... it's not something you were going to do anyway, except to accomplish the thing the change is explicitly meant to prevent.