Makes sense. I look forward to reading the wrap-up - it's an interesting experiment. That'd be a reasonable change, perhaps coupled to increasing the protorp capacity or reducing lock-on time. While it took some time to adjust, I think the present meta is much better balanced than the old. GSF mechanics and ships are generally in good shape. Just tossing ideas around, but when I made the comment I'd been wondering about limiting a ship build to 3/5 and 2/3 upgrades on components. Sub-optimal builds still have their uses within a play style, but it'd be interesting to see what ship limitations bring a good pilot down to the level of, say, the veteran fully-outfitted average.

Interesting thoughts on Star Forge (on which I play exclusively, these days). Using focus to loosely qualify quality (and I know it's not the only factor here) warrants further discussion. I took a long break from gsf (and swtor) largely including the strike upgrades. Modestly-upgraded strikes are, in my opinion, a much more consistent threat to a strong player than the middle-range loadouts used to be in the gunship/battlescout wars earlier in gsf. Between this and the added population with Seasons, it's hard to pick out threats from the team rosters. Moreover, it may not pay to focus good pilots either in DM (because it may slow your kill rate) or in TD (because it may distract from the objective) unless they are focusing you. A strong pilot on any server is going to have a lot of success unless they artificially select the best 5% of the population (or are selected by that minority). I wonder if another useful test of server quality might be to limit ships to mediocre builds.

Unhappily, I'll be missing this one due to holiday travel. I hope it's successful enough to inspire another clarion night in the future

((Sets aside glass of whiskey)) "Panic"... yeah... that's why I did that. To avoid suicide assists, attack sober targets

Yesterday, Marttell, Gat'or'ade and myself were in a pub side group that won a domination map 1000-1 against the imperials. Predictably, the queue stalled... so we switched over and grouped on the imperial side, and got a nice set of 4 matches (give or take) with regular pops and decent balance. The vets have such an impact that a bit of simple planning in chat can go quite a long way to playing a better game.

Perhaps I'm overly jaded from ground PvP... but the matchmaking problem in GSF could be much worse than it is (for all that I gripe about it, myself). It's also, in some ways a good problem to have. Having large teams packed with veterans is fun while it lasts, but not particularly sustainable or promising for the module's long-term health. Having less experienced pilots diluting the pool also gives veterans good opportunities to... Change ships to weaker builds and maintain some level of challenge. Teach the less experienced crowd. Take a breather from the more intense matches. Switch factions to re-balance the queue. The problem is, after all, what we make of it. For myself - being obliged to queue mainly at off-peak hours (server time) - population is a much greater concern than the occasional mismatch. On that note, a brief shout-out to Averann for choosing option 4 some weeks ago, resulting in about a 50 point game-to-game shift in deathmatch.... though that certainly proves Saevius' point to some degree.

Ugh.... I think that was the match where all but 1 or 2 ships decided they really, really wanted A at the start. We couldn't last long enough to dislodge your defense thereafter without leaving something hanging. GG

'Under the radar' is a good place to snipe.

depending on choices made in the course of the game...  if the reasonable setbacks the empire has faced are too much for you, you may not be happy with its eventual fate...