Impressions of 5.0 to date

[Emperor Tekagi]

Oh boi, here we go.

Systems:

• Absolutely stunning work on new or changed visuals.
  
• Incredibly nice idea with the puzzles. Keep them coming.
  
• Gallia is beautiful but Picardy feels a bit lost in the current lane setup.
  
• Some systems are gone, however I can understand why. Glad to see where merges were made, they turned out decently.
  
• A few base models are just not my taste but.. yeah.. that's a matter of taste.
  

Story:

• I was not caught off-guard by the timeskip, so I did not mind it and consider it a relatively good approach to tie up loose ends, skip past impractical story lines and such.
  
• Personally would have loved 2-3 events featuring stuff from this timeskip (Slave Revolt, Freeport 9) akin to the old Texas VR Event.
  
• The story arcs opened up by the patch seem interesting, so far enjoying brainstorming or event participation for the first things.
  
• Seeing as they attempt to streamline and compile past lore stuff into easily understood and tracked down overviews, I got very high hopes for the story perspective. Just don't burn yourselves out ok.
  

Economy:

• Still very much WIP. It gets better. Where it aims to go is very nice.
  
• I like the 2 new types of contraband.
  
• I like the ideas for PoB integration. Still early stage too but a promising step towards a partial dynamic in the economy.
  
• People should keep in mind, normal trading averages at 75-100m/h old values and HRC commodities go up to old mining rates of 150m/h. HRC Mining is where it exists, actually better than this. Overall, you make money easier. Once we're out of early WIP, it'll be a breeze to make cash.
  

Balance:

• Gunboats are just a hell lot of fun, a tad strong but hardly broken. They need adaptation and have a learning curve, get used to it, not very hard.
  
• Snubs, yeah man. Snubs are in a good spot. Now make me able to actually crack transports in a snub and we're talking. (GBs works just fine). If snubs end up with the ability of swarming a Cruiser to death, so be it.
  
• Cruisers - Yeah uh. Not the main Cruiser guy but they feel fine overall.
  
• Battlecruisers - I don't get the hate on the BC Heavy. You're a sluggish tank who if the components aren't targeted, is quite tough to crack. The moment they know how to coordinate and sub-target, you're in for a challenge. The BC Heavy is just strong, making its limitations a necessity. BCs are probably the class requiring you to use strategy, positioning and your brain to fly. I love them.
  
• Battleships - Just as awkward as you would expect without a full rework yet. The band aid makes them not fully hopeless, although light BSs are in a tough spot for the time being.
  
• Engine Kill and Strafing changes to caps: The disappearance of WASD macro gameplay is a blessing. Strafing works just fine for aimed dodges. The Engine Kill is useful once you get used to it.
  
• Bombers - More strategic, overall still viable. They got hit hard in terms of solo or two-only performance but past this threshold of numbers? Deadlier than ever if used correctly. The latest buffs helped them to get back on their feet even solo though.
  
• Transports: Excluding Frigates here, they gained better tanking survivability. That's about it. Though they're the next in line for a larger rework :]
  
• Frigates: Lovely. Just lovely.
  
• Liners: Since Haste posts it on the Discord, looking forward to what you guys make of them.
  
• Freighters: Did they even change? They're still defensive but strong. Hopefully more often used in the near future.
  

Equipment:

• JDs are nice. The limitations are fine. The battery costs are a bit high but JDs are now late game economy anyway, so it is fine.
  
• Cloaks. Did you guys even try to cruise in with a cloaked snub on a target? You do not get uncloaked at 3k. You get as close as gun range. Transport Cloak needs a full review though.
  
• Docking Modules. Probably the most headache causing equipment we ever had. Few attempts to get them back to working properly, now we got them and they still stir up trouble with the server. When they work, they're really cool though.
  
• The other stuff: Yeah well, basically redundant atm. Not exactly cool but we'll see what happens.
  

PvE, Missions, Encounters:

• Finally got to try out one encounter. It was nice. The issue is their availability, really.
  
• Missions. Pillow. You mad lad. You made snub missions fun. Don't need mindless 200m/h pve like we had, I prefer pve being just plain out fun and challenging. I am actually sad they got nerfed again because the full hardcore mode npcs were incredibly nice (and unfair to 90% of people).
  

To summarize:
It moves into the right direction, just there is a ton of work ahead and maaaaany things to fine tune. Quite a few were swiftly fine tuned and will continuously be adjusted, so that's nice. I wish devs a happy break time some time soon, else you all end up insane like Haste and Pillow.