Guards are now basically the slowest ships in the game simply because they have no reliable method to travel long distances efficiently.
Intys have warps and sheer speed. Fighters have warps and overdrives and cruise engines. Engis have warp gate and speed. LRF has teleports. Destroyers have speed capacitor and wormhole.
Guards have a temporary speed gradient increase that vanishes if you take damage and consumes hella energy and de-phases your shield.
They really should have some method of getting around that doesn’t rely on being outside of battle and actually provides a stable speed boost. I was originally thinking of some form of warp, but I’m not sure about that. What they really need is something like cruise engine, but maybe not quite the same. Maybe a “double tap to activate” mod that allows them to greatly increase their speed at the cost of firepower or something.
Anything to make them not slow as a constipated s***.