Trouble retrofitting a ship designed for different system mechanics while keeping the exact same abilities really doesn't seem like a strong argument to me.
I am comparing the old system to the new one. I don't how else I would be able to do that without refitting previous designs. Building a new ship takes me a LONG time. I put a lot of planning and effort even just into my fighters. To test the new system effectively I need to have a point of comparison. I'm not testing new mechanics, it is essentially revisions to old ones.
I don't mind not having the same capabilities. If I merely had to choose new abilities in the place of the old ones I wouldn't mind. Instead I am essentially gutting my ship as much as I can to get ONE aspect of my ship to work.
How long is the longest axis on your interceptor?
2000 e/s can power enough thrusters for almost 1600 thrust (that's a lot better than "literally can't move" on a 700 mass ship).
Right so the 1750 thrust I need to maintain my 2.5 TWR on my
INTERCEPTOR requires more power than what I produce. That means that this ship can't perform its basic function. I'm not going to turn my beautiful ship into a stick just so I can make it do ONE of the things that it previously could. This thing felt great to fly and performed its role exactly as I wanted it. It can no longer do it by a large margin.
You can put it in the middle, but every decision you make (like putting your reactor in the middle) has both pros and cons associated with it, I.e. it's always a compromise between something you want and something you don't want, which in my personal opinion is excellent, because it makes design truly interesting.
Every system is about trade offs. The old system had this too but the difference was I was making trade offs on what systems i could and couldn't put in my ship. If I my weapons were too big I wouldn't be able to support the TWR that I did. I had to forgo jump drives simply because they would have added too much weight. I had to balance regen and capacity so that I could use lock on missiles. I was still forced to make plenty of decisions but they were interesting decisions.
To me any combat ship would want a well protected reactor. It is literally what decides of your ship lives or dies. The only option I have if I also want power generation is to put the two most vulnerable parts of my ship at the front and back. That's not a realistic trade off. It's forcing me to figure out how to minimize the impact of a decision I didn't want to make. There are no pros to putting my reactor in the middle of my ship. There is no reason to do it if it can't move as a result. Quite honestly I don't know who would want to make a ship like that. It makes zero sense from any logical standpoint.
Also, don't forget that not having your one ship being able to jump, cloak, mine, shoot, and win the Indy 500 all at the same time is one of the stated goals of these changes.
Did I say I want my ship to do all that? I'll repeat, "I could inhibit, scan, jam and shoot while moving and still have power flowing." Those are to me the bare minimum of how my interceptor should function. It's meant to fill a role, not perform a singular function. Its made to find an enemy cloaking ship and not let it escape. Its an anti spy ship. Now its anti-nothing.
The issue is, if you choose to make a ship that isn't long and skinny, it's both going to have a lower maximum power output relative to how big it is, and it's going to inevitably end up with a lower TWR because it needs more blocks per power to try and reach a decent level of power generation, where a long stick thing will only need a few stabilizers to make itself work optimally for its size.
I'm cramming it full of stabilizers just to get that 2000 power even to work. It is specifically a shape that many said would not be viable. Until I can make it viable I would say that the current system is a failure. It is a fundamental flaw that people have been pointing out since before release. It seems instead of fixing it, the goal is to convince us is it is just a better system. I can only take so much bullshit.
