Here is what I had written in the other thread:

I haven't had a chance to try fleet ops, but it looks much harder to abuse than Starmada.  We're currently almost done a campaign, and there has been a big disparity between ship designs.  Based on our experience here is what I'm thinkign of banning for the next session (which in my mind is similar to what would work for a more generic "balanced" setting):

-No tech (lets you put an abusive amount of weapons on a ship)

-None of these weapon traits: Ignore shields, piercing 2&3, increased impact, repeating, continuing damage, increased hits

-Point limits for fighters, strikers, seekers etc (this stops them from getting super powerful but still allows customization - have to trade off - not sure how you would handle dual mode fighters in that environment)

-No 2+ accuracy or ranges above 18 (in most space games I've played weapons either usually take a HUGE penalty for firing at long range OR they have reduced damage over range - on the standard sized map for Starmada with 2+ accuracy and range 24 you can really reach out and "touch" someone very badly on turn 1.  If they don't also have range 24 they are in big trouble)

-No "G" arc (or at the very least replace it with something like the Bow arc from fleet ops - its just too nice a discount for forward firing weapons).

-Don't allow (or reduce) fighter flight launch while performing evasive action - same goes for boarding via teleportation - should be a penalty to hit or something.

-No ammo - people can take slow to simulate reloading

-no starship exclusive (its generally just a 30% reduction in cost for a weapon that you would never bother firing at a fighter)

And this is just something I think would be nice in general:
-It would also be great to allow anti-fighter batteries to fire just prior to the ship being attacked by a fighter flight.  If this makes them more expensive so be it, but its very hard to deal with seekers/strikers.

I'm sure there are others with more suggestions

Maybe after a week or so I can take all the suggestions and have the members of the forum vote on what to keep and what stays.

any thoughts?

Yeah, part of that is that we're a bunch of primitive savages who use naval movement here.  Newtonian is too complex for our simple ape brains.   But on the other hand, having a ton of engines to turn into extra evasive maneuver defense is pretty durn nice, regardless of movement system used.

@Nomad

I think the example of your Eldar is fine, but I also suspect you are not breaking that as bad as it could be because you are emulating the Eldar.  My problem with Tech is that it allows you to conveniently break the ship design limits on a whim.  Why even have them if you can just break them because you feel techy?  You can fit ungodly big weapons on a ship with max tech, and if its long range enough your opponent is hosed.

You can still make ships that are light on defense and have more weapons without tech, you just probably have to compromise your weapons a little more than you'd like.

As for half shields - I feel that people should have a better way than piercing 1 to get past 5+ shields - otherwise 5+ shields becomes the new cheese.  Right now nobody in our group will touch half shields because it is slightly worse than piercing 2.  So I was thinking since it isn't as aggressively priced as piercing 2, why not make it the top dog in shield defeating?  Also piercing 2 is kind of broken combined with increased impact (if that stays for example), but half shields isn't. 

-Tim

But using Tech, makes you ships more fragile right?

If you cram enough weapons/systems that could fit into a size 10 hull into a size 5 hull, the combat value stays the same, but your ship dies after 5 hull hits rather then 10.

Sounds like it evens things out a bit.