Spoiler
The second interpreted paragraph meant that in reverse. Not enough buffs to fighters and bombers means they will become even weaker in the incoming patch when PD Lasers of various kinds will get significant buffs
Understood. Outside of Paladin, I thought PD lasers are just getting a range and OP decrease buff? Fighters tend to stay in range of PD lasers currently, so this shouldn't have any effect on the fighter/PD balance. It will have an effect on Salamanders, but it needed to as it was absurd that two to three PD lasers would reliably fail to shoot down one Salamander, assuming they were mounted on a frigate or destroyer.
I've already said in the thread I made about the Anubis that I feel Paladins are using too little flux and may need a nerf from the proposed change.
Spoiler
In response to third interpreted paragraph, I would like to state that Mercenary carrier fleets are a joke. They are incapable of achieving anything. And are easy prey if it comes to mercenary fleets. Easier even than their phase ship-based fleets. Bombers and fighters on their own will generally get just freaking shredded even by the current incompetent PD grids. And Low Tech will just *** dunk them. Unless your fleet is entirely made of Light Cruisers or Hyperions. Then... Like... Whatever... (though even then bubble shields hard-counter them as well. It takes ages to kill a Radiant with Warthogs for a reason. Even though Radiant is on paper hard-countered by fighters because it has almost no PD)
They are a joke if you have adequate PD. If you're running a fleet that is light on capitals and heavy on frigates (wolfpack+SD) they can be a problem if you lean towards High-Tech. Phase fleets are in general way more concerning due to near min-maxxed Doom loadouts.
My favorite fleet, SD Nova, I tend to have the least issues with normal Elite Mercenary fleets, and the most with pure carrier spam or Dooms. The reason why is fairly obvious, Novas have 0 PD, a low shield arc even with s-mods to improve it, and have no medium or large offensive turrets to shoot at fighters on the way to a target.
I partially fixed this weakness with Shrike PD escorts and Heron PD support. It's not great but it works okay. The Anubis does both of their jobs better for slightly less DP.
Spoiler
I think a heavily shielded mobile Cruiser with 2 Velociraptors, 2 Guardians and an Autopulse Laser with TEMPORAL SHELL which is the strongest system in the game only restricted because Scarab is generally using comical Mr Bean weapons 9 out of 10 times. Does equal to a ship at value of 30 DP by High Tech standards. Aurora for example is 30 DP... Aurora... 3 Medium energies and a bunch of missiles is 30 DP, cause it has a slightly better Manoeuvring Jets and a bubble shield. This is because it has the mobility of competent kind. Unlike say Dominator. Which doesn't wait for enemies to align. It waits for the planet to turn.
And knowest thou not that Anubis shall be equipped with no less so potent ability to manipulate its non-subjective position in reinterpreted reality?
You can only achieve that loadout with a level 6 officer and three s-mods, and even then, you're going to be running hot with the AI keeping the Anubis at 80% soft flux and firing in bursts as it can't actually sustain that much flux. Due to how flux heavy the loadout is, the AI will also rarely use its system.
Aurora has way more dissipation at its disposal and doesn't double the flux of energy weapons. Plasma Jets is also flux free. It has 0 missile mounts, everything that isn't energy is synergy. In total is has 2 medium energy, 2 medium synergy, 5 small energy, and 4 small synergy.
Currently, the biggest balance issue the Anubis has is its insane OP budget. 170 OP for an 18 DP High-Tech Cruiser is just nuts. I should probably make a post about that since I forgot to mention it in the thread I made.