Main issues with weapon and ship balance

[cool_lad]

I think that, with respect to weapons and ships in the game, there are a few issues which really drag down the whole system; these are:-

1. Lack of limitations on missiles (especially heavy missiles) leading to missile spam using M turrets and S ships, since all ships and turrets can fire off all kinds of missiles; whether it be heavy or light missiles; this also makes missile spam a near OP level tactic in combat due to the sheer amount that can be put out and the large damage per missile.
2. Treatment of forward facing weapons as "main" weapons and turrets as "secondary" weapons; this forces each ship to fight like a fighter, even though turrets are far more important in practice for any ship of size M and above. This also creates issues for Destroyers and Frigates which are going to rely a lot more on their turrets in practice.
3. Chassis not having any effect whatsoever on firepower; which means that there's no real difference in firepower between most Frigates and Gunships, since they all have the same number of turrets and main weapons and can mount the same weapons. The only real difference in firepower for most ships is the placement of these turrets and even that doesn't count for much. This also means that the ships that have more hardpoints can easily become almost broken levels of OP in a fight (such as the Nemesis and Odysseus).
4. Lack of differentiation and balancing with respect to firepower and other stats; most ships tend to have the same amount of firepower, limited only by the number of hardpoints for main weapons and turrets and weapons are not limited in any other way. Variants of the same chassis (such as Mokosi vs Veles) offer only infintesmal differences between them and seem more like minor cosmetic differences than actual variants. Faction balancing is also off, with Paranid for example having all round better equipment (faster tracking turrets, more weapons on ships and faster ships) without much if any loss of other stats.

These IMO are some of the more serious issues with the ship and weapon balance in the game and should be addressed as soon as possible.

[Wultan]

Can't second this. Except the issue that every ship have two variants with "infintesmal differences". This is superfluous and stinks of laziness (Sorry Egosoft).