ngl, if that's the Lancer, I feel it lost a bit too much of its silhouette. It's looking very basic arrowhead shape there.

You know what, I seem to have put the hint in the wrong line of my csv and will kindly jump off a bridge now :)

Odd. I specifically had the issue with a ship that has the hint, but doesn't evaluate as true on hullSpec.isPhase(). I'll have to test again

Threat are probably not the best benchmark either. While they have high baseline armour values, the lack of skills is very significant due to how strong armour skills are.

I see it as a matter of mount economy. With the gaze, you have to dedicate other mounts to dealing with shields as it will need the help, forcing the gaze to carry at least a significant load of the anti-armour efforts.

Pretty much what I was thinking. I would say, though, that it makes quite a few sacrifices compared to the plasma cannon so I can't really agree that it's outright superior. Less due to hard flux and more the anti-armour performance.

I love the thing, though

though I may be dismissing some of the other benefits too much. AoE blasts being able to catch unguided torpedoes and trigger thunderhead is certainly good, but it is a premium-priced beam. It's certainly not that I think the beam itself is too weak and more that it is very expensive to mount.

I find with the bug fixed (did a makeshift fix myself) it doesn't actually offer much over a cheaper HIL. The EMP is great in theory, but like most EMP weapons without arcing, it struggles to effectively apply that EMP damage if it also wants to focus one spot on target to break armour.

Will the fun beam get a buff in return? :)