I'm either fighting the imperials/colonials or the tinkers, and in the first case you know its fighters/bombers/strike fighters and in the second case its the eternal arsenal of the tinkers.

I can invest in a lot of point defence, and I have, but then I'm lacking on the offence to actually break ...

Maybe if the missile cruisers had a special attack, like the fast missile racks from master of orion, double or triple throw weight but takes turns to reload.

I am not sure turns left on a build is really a thing that can be done, as construction is not an upfront cost but cost over time, so you run into issues like metal shortage that can hamstring production.

I think the issue stems from a lack of modification options.

Games of this type normally have improvements with tradeoffs every step of the way. However in most of those games the ships do not have dedicated slots or fixed numbers of items. Master of Orion would have miniaturization, where ...

My issue is there is three quadrants worth of shield wasted on a station, if there was an option to equalize shields on turn id take it.

Also can we talk about the surprising lack of a heavy weapon on any station?

the issue I think is that theres another feature of ships that is not truly enabled on all, and that's directional weapons, I think some of the ships were supposed to have more limited firing arcs but are just 360 degrees shooting. some turrets you can see would be fine in a 270 degree arc, some ...

Just to point out to zolobolo that this game is, in spirit, based on the game Master of Orion ][, and shields, in quadrant form, and station rotation was in that game.

Maneuver unit does not allow station rotation, believe me ive tried.

Its a station, last bastion of defence most the time. The normal benefit of shields does not apply, being able to change facing.

Buffing a single facing does not make sense, because its a station round as you can get. if it had a front facing maybe.

Regen bonus is not a good option, because then ...

Stations don't and cant rotate, at least as far as ive seen. This gives them a disadvantage in defending, I think by giving them a single bubble at 4x, maybe 3x, shield strength all round maybe that would be better for stations.

does this absorption scale with ship size?

I get that 1: Power is built up from damage (only shield hits?)
2: Overcharge only affects weapon bay mounts, ie not turrets, and siege mounts, and the boost is even shared across all relevant mounts
3: Does not boost missiles, point defense or fighters.
4: Profit?

What I am not getting is how ...

I swear I heard it in a news program, and now its playing in part of the Acquisitions Incorporated intro movie for 2018.

It's on the bloody store page!

"Legacies Features
New playable faction: Tinkers
New population type: cyborgs
New planetary special: Planetary Debris Rings and Asteroid Bases
Space Habitats and Re-deployable Mobile Stations
New minor faction: Arda Seed
New “Hyperspace Anomaly” locations
Technology ...

I haven't run into any yet. It looks like it's still the same Tech as before. I mean I've seen the Tinkers Forge, which has a side effect does seem to make Fighters and missiles way more viable than before at least for long fights. There's an odd propensity four ships to mount nothing but Point ...

So what will they do in the future?