Actually I love the new weapons systems, it allows for a load of extra things that could not be done before.
I don't mind needing a secondary AMC system for rapid fire because that allows me to have two AMC's controlled by two people or one powerful weapon same goes for any other combination. It just all comes down to your design when you make your systems, with an activation block, delay blocks along with a bunch of tech beams and you have a automatic ship repair dock, switch it up and its a timed repeating fire command for your weapons. I've made all sorts of awesome automated and semi-automated sub-systems on my ships. I think in the end it helps to balance the game while adding many features with room to grow and the best direction to take...I'm glad its forcing people to do away with those massive bricks stuffed to the brim with AMC's and shielding sniping from sectors away and force people to play the game it is meant to be played.
The only thing that's lacking is proper AI to utilize it, be-it NPC or Bobby AI the more complex features added to the ships in game with less attention to AI for simple autopilot commands such as evade, circle, escort, and go-to will leave us stuck mid battle running through corridors and halls to reconfigure weapon systems should current configurations or system damage leaves us ineffective in combat...
In testing on my lan party we have found this is very easy to do when attacking someone who's ship is large and has many weapon systems but little crew for re-configuration mid battle; the ship stops when all main weapons are damaged or needs to be adjusted for better effectiveness by time they get back into the core the shields are at or near 0%. Thus head to head battles have become very short-lived and in no-way as fun except the fact we are trying out new weapons against a dying ship that can't fight back.
We now feel having escorts, scouts, and fighters are almost a must at this point or at the least AI autopilot commands to keep the ship in motion. The more balanced the weapons get the more types of ships will be needed on the battlefield and this we are REALLY seeing at this point and we are hoping battles aren't going to end up being chasing ships sector to sector for hours on end because they have no escorts (I wont say any names) but I do see the point, sometimes its just a no win situation with the type of ship you have unless you have a chance to re-configure your guns and you can't do that sitting in spot and no one at the helm without being destroyed.
The positive to this is you need to first build smaller class ships before you build a super massive ship or there would be no protection for it. The downside is there is no-one to pilot your escorts and frigates because there is no autopilot commands. For now we feel safe in the dev build as we can test the weapons but using them in battle will be at the cost of loosing your ship so we only wonder how bad things are going to suck when the new update comes and we basically loose the use of large ships because we need large crews to man them but as I see it played not many people want to be a crew of someone else's ship rather a captain in command of a fleet.
