Calhoun
Part-time God
Here is your post synopsis:Initially I did assume that the consensus was that large ships were the trump all, but every rebuttal I've given explanations, details, examples, strategies as to why I believe what I believe. Why on earth do people insult, talk down to, and belittle people they disagree with? Even if I'm blatantly wrong there is no excuse and it serves no purpose. When encountering someone you believe to be informationally or intellectually more disadvantaged than yourself there are only two courses of action: You either don't waste your time explaining things or you do me the incredible favor and educate me. Belittling people who are incorrect only serves to discourage people from asking questions or making statements for fear of being wrong.
1. Small ships will be able to defeat large ships.
-They already can, and do.
2. Armor would be useful
-Why exactly? Weapons would still be far easier to scale up without the disadvantages.
3. Cloaking would be useful
-a) It already is, b) Why?
4. Repair beams would be useful
-No, they wouldn't. Your proposal has them buffing the regeneration, but that still requires you to purpose build a ship when you could just wait or use a shipyard.
5. Shipyards would be useful
-They already are. The only thing that stops people from using shipyards more is that they're stupidly buggy.
6. Character weapons would be useful (I'll explain)
-This point is dependant on the next few points, see no. 9
7. Ship to ship boarding would be a thing (I'll explain)
-see no. 9
8. Interior ship defenses would be a thing because of boarding
-see no. 9
9. Ships with large crews of players would be a thing (I'll explain)
-You might think so, but no they won't. Removing shields actually makes boarding less useful, because you'll be able to blow the ship up far faster than you could disable it with handheld weapons. As for stealing ships, that would only work if the player wasn't online, and can already be done.
10. Ship design would make a difference
-I'm stupefied that you're insinuating it doesn't already
11. No more massive sloppy borg cubes
-Why? Would cubes suddenly implode if this was implemented?
12. It'd still be easy enough for the casual players/noobs
-This isn't even a point
13. People who don't enjoy building ships would play this game
-Why? Points 10 and 11 claimed that ship design would matter more, not less.
Tl;dr the only 'evidence' you have provided is an opinion which is incorrect.