Prawn claw isn't OP though. The fourth Aug and MF is the problem. Not the claw.

Not really... no one goes for a prawn because they're like, "damn, that claw though..."

Prawns are ridiculous for their 4th aug and ability to power while MFing (because of the 4th aug). The claw gives -10% resists, which is not a huge deal considering gunners give -20% resists, and FCs give +36% damage from an AI base item, and RP ships drop like -50% resists from their super, and don't even get me started on amp devices. You better go nerf all that shit first, if you're telling me the Prawn Claw is a problem. The Prawn claw is not a huge factor, the only thing it does is allows FCs to play with the ship, and that is not a bad thing at all.

Sure. Make it unequipable and sticky to ship and I'm fine with it.

Hull: 750
Speed: 70
Aug slots: 4
Wep slots: 4
Weight: 1.4m
Size: N/a
Resists: 24% to all but Trans
JuiceGen: 100
Vis: 50
Reflect: 300%
AugMods: Shields +50%, Range -20%, Tracking -40%
Prawn Claw launches Fighters and Missiles, +20% damage to either.

Something like this work?

Nah cause its keeping the 4th aug in your design which is just a straight up bad idea. I've already started working on a 3 aug redesign.

Shawn, the -10% vulnerability aura (-17% for FC prawns) affects it's friends and gives them +17% resistance to all damage types, it doesn't make enemies more vunlerable. The inbuilt prawn aura isn't overpowered or underpowered - as shawn said no one actually says "I'll make a prawn fc because that aura so OP I must have". While beginner players don't have any use for the prawn aura and don't have enough resources to "waste" them like this, the 'endgame' players in large teams do have use for prawn FCs. The main issue with prawn is how much DPS players can get with it and that's what was supposed to be nerfed, the prawn claw was one of the drawbacks for using the ship - the player was stuck with an extremely slow zerker ship that couldn't equip a travel field to go faster. I'd like the prawn claw to remain as an inbuilt aura generator, or at least gives FCs more auras because as it is now a squad can have only up to two FCs for two different auras - a third FC is almost completely useless because the third aura would have similiar stats to the other two and they don't stack. Prawn claw expands the limit to 3 useful FCs.

Or, give FCs auras that affect their enemies.

http://wiki2.starsonata.com/index.php/Equaminizer
http://wiki2.starsonata.com/index.php/Shrimp
http://wiki2.starsonata.com/index.php/UrQa_Suqqa_Ukuk
http://wiki2.starsonata.com/index.php/Scrupling
http://wiki2.starsonata.com/index.php/Paxian_Selenologica
http://wiki2.starsonata.com/index.php/Hephaestus_Machine
http://wiki2.starsonata.com/index.php/Paxian_Battle_Frigate

Nerf them too, then.

With exception of the Paxian Battle Frigate, they're all four aug slot ships and perfectly balanced (so the admins say the HM is). The PBF is a 3 aug capital ship.

While I'd argue that the Mini-Izer and the Ukuk are balanced because of very low hull, neither of them have negative Tracking 'bonus', which at all stages of the game a very hard stat to get back and still keep your high DPS status. Your best bet at T21 is a Markswoman Augmenter, which is pretty crippling when you consider it was a Nightfury Anger or The Emperor's Augmenter before. The purpose of negative Tracking is to hammer MCers.

Update: We're most likely going to leave it as it is right now for another universe. The work involved in rebalancing T22 content, reworking T21 heavy fighters and compensating Recon Focus classes appropriately for the upcoming changes to MF2 are going to take quite some time from the volunteer devs. I'm not very confident we can pull it all off in 2 weeks time, especially with colleges starting back up, but we will try our best. If it does seem like we're going to make it before reset I will of course let you all know.

Current plans for the T21 heavy fighter rebalance:

So to get 1.2x DPS we need to sacrifice DPE and Range, while for more DPE we sacrifice nothing, and for Range we also sacrifice nothing. Sounds like the worst balancing ever done .

In before enkelin goes apeshit about me forcing my opinion on others.

DPS is a far more valueable stat than range or DPE, that is why we've done it this way.

Ya, for damn sure. Then you get a -40% Tracking in the end because DPS is more valuable too. It's not like to PvB you need to have 10k range to actually survive, nor do you need alot, and alot of DPS to dent kits; but ohn wait, PvB is non existent next uni, so who cares.

We haven't made a decision yet on -% Tracking. It will take playtesting first and we haven't had time to do that.

Commonly best DPE translates into best DPS so I wouldn't be so sure about that.