View source for Urzas thoughts on ss

The way i see the state of ss, is it has some problems

Class balance
drops in general
availability of high tier gear
grindiness of leveling
lack of immediate change when getting a class
Drone users cost of death compared to other classes

Class balance is really bad right now there are some classes like seer and speed demon that arnt usually take on runs.  Snipers seem to be able to solo much more then any other class.

Part of the problem of gunner to me is im not sure what there playstyle is supposed to be, there designed to use slow and big capital ships so that means that staying at range and not moving too much is what your supposed to do, sort of like a sniper. Problem is doing that makes your missiles suck, to use missiles though you either are practically touching or are about 500 distance away.  These two styles seem to conflict with one another.
Gunners have problems in availability in gear to use compared to other classes.  Gunners seem limited in damage type compared to most other classes, if an ai is highly resistant to mining or physical gunners have a hard time.  Efficient missiles are needed for everything other then mining and physical damage.  Gunners skills could use work, the big guns skill especially as it only gives a damage bonus to mining damage, if an ai is resistant to mining damage gunners have a hard time doing any damage. 
 

Getting high tech gear is currently way too rng dependent, if you cant kill ubers or do high df dgs its hard to advance your gear.

After about level 500 or so leveling up becomes a pure grind, most players hate mandatory grinds in mmos now days especially for leveling up.  More story driven solo content is needed.

The fact that when you get a class barely changes your playing style really is disappointing.  The current recommendation i would give to new players is to ignore class skills entirely until they can put a couple hundred skill points into class skills. When you choose a class skill you should immediately get a bonus that makes sense for the skill, for example berserkers would be immediately able to mf 2 weapons.

Drone users at the endgame have a disproportionate cost of death compared to all other classes, a drone user could easily see a cost of death of 10-15 billion credits.  High tech drones need to be changed to be either expensive and durable like slaves are or cheap and disposable like missiles and fighters, the current situation of expensive and disposable turns people away from using drones at the high end.  This doesnt affect lower tech drones as much as most of them can be either built cheaply, ai bought, or mass extracted from ruins.

Dg drops and uber drops need a big look at what can be done, no one seems to like the current distribution, there has to be some medium between the 90% junk drops and gettign an mfbot every time.  There are many bps that are clogging the drop table that could be safely be bought for credits at an ai station i think, the fine tuned bps, much of the station gear bps, and the mercurian bps.  DGs and ubers drops should have tech level floors where say a tech 20 uber wont drop tech 5 gear.