So I’ve tried several games with my 3 slots taken up by interceptors. I have to say I’m feeling the Recon ships need a bit of love. The Microwarpdrive is a very cool special, but it seems once I get my Recon ship to whatever exciting place I want it, I can’t really do much once there. I can capture unattended beacons, but if any ship is defending it I usually lose to them or stalemate. Being able to inhibit enemy cloaking near a beacon is kinda nice, but now that only tacklers and recons can cloak it’s not really enough to justify taking a Recon over an ECM or Covops. The scouting element of the micro-locator is pretty meh because it’s quite short range, so about all you can do with it intel-wise is stake out a beacon, but they’re not that hard to keep eyes on anyway. The spy drone debuff is also kinda nice, but its main use is ganking Engineering frigates and if I want that I can take a covops and cleave them in two with a plasma arc (since death is a superior debuff).
Some ideas for buffs that hopefully wouldn’t make them too OP in combat. Some more crazy than others:
* I have noticably more problems with hull tankers than shield because of the Parasitic Remodulator. Homogenise it by making Parasitic Remodulator damage hull as well as shield, and reduce damage to balance (but keep it only regening your shield, no need to make it a hull repairer).
* Lower cooldown on MWD for more mobility. Then if a beacon turns out to be defended I can slink off with my cloak and try another one in a short time.
* The craziest one: Add more utility by making them mine clearers. Add a new active module, or buff the micro-locator to disable mines in an area (possibly temporarily stop them from going off rather than clear them). This would simultaneously add a ton of utility at beacon scrums and make Recons more effective at hunting frigates by depriving them of one of their major defenses.