Chameleon replacement

[Redon]

Hello, time to listen to me complain again.

I only noticed now that the old Chameleon was replaced. And... What happened?

The old Chameleon was a heavy fighter, and a very elegant one at that. It was fast, agile and pretty. It had fantastic gun placement. It probably was my favourite ship.



This is how it's infocard (still!) reads:

Finding themselves increasingly squeezed by the heavy BAF presence in Leeds, hostile Mollys in Dublin, and the encroaching Gallia in Orkney, the Gaians locked their best engineers in a room and fed them only bread and water until they produced a new proprietary heavy fighter design. The Chameleon was designed with its main opponent, the Paladin, in mind, and succeeds at besting its agility, although not its armor rating. This suits the Gaian combat style just fine, since they prefer hit and run attacks over direct, sustainable assaults.

Then, when update 7 came along, this happened:

New Corsair Train, Gaian Bomber & Bretonia Carrier by Jinx.
Added Crow, Virage, Wasupu, Blossom, Chameleon & Civ Freighter replacements by Jinx.

This is its replacement:



Its description it still the same, as I said. Its name is the same. Gaian "Chameleon" Heavy Fighter.

These are the stats of this "Heavy Fighter":



Yep, it's turned into a VHF. And with a turn acceleration worse than a Werewolf, it feels like one of the slowest VHFs I know.

I always like seeing new ships added. I think the new Gaian bomber looks really nice. But I don't understand this decision. The new Chameleon doesn't "replace" its predecessor, it's a completely different ship. It goes against the lore of the Chameleon that has existed for years.

The Chameleon was designed with its main opponent, the Paladin, in mind, and succeeds at besting its agility, although not its armor rating. This suits the Gaian combat style just fine, since they prefer hit and run attacks over direct, sustainable assaults.

The new Chameleon is not a ship for hit and run attacks.

According to the wiki, both old and new were modeled by Jinx, so is there really a need to remove an existing ship and replace it with something that doesn't match its former role in any way?


Why can't the Gaians have both ships? Their ship line consists of three different ships right now, I don't think they're about to drown in them.

Keep the old Chameleon, keep the new VHF, but give it a new name. Don't try to force it into the role of a ship it never was and never will be. Pretty please.

And if it has to be one or the other, I honestly think their old, agile HF fits them better than just another slow VHF.