Thank you guys for all the good read and classic informations!
20 hours ago, niripas said:
As far as I remember - there were from OBT definitely, dunno if earlier.
BTW: in case I forget: check those patch notes:
looks like ships had multiple missile slots of different sizes. If you are curious, you could dig deeper how was it back then 
 very interesting, ty!
17 hours ago, niripas said:
… Ellydium ships dominance is long gone. UFO is meh. … Fleet is currently being fully rebalanced …
Yes that’s the case, my beloved and expensive Waz’Got has a hard time against Guards, now! It feels slightly underpowered now  - but its ok. I hope full fleet rebalance will come after Frigate:Engineers get some good stuff, too (and also the 2 remaining interceptor roles)
5 hours ago, Koromac said:
… Waz’Got is the second worst healer, right after Phoenix. The ship is only good because of two modules, nothing more. Mutation limit is set at 1250 points, but it could be easily set to 1500 points.
Waz’Got is crappy otherwise, compared to Octopus, it will die twice as fast and it heals 50% less than Brokk does with its healing beam, not to mention that it has low energy potential.
…
All three Ellydium ships cost a FORTUNE! Believe me, … They are not broken now, they are on the verge of being underpowered if any further nerfs are made to them.
Yes – absolutely. I was hoping that with r16 and r17, Waz’got would get 1500 points in r15. There are so many combinations, I cannot build because of Waz’Gots limitation on 1250 points. And remember, the Wazzi never had that super-OP phase that the Tai’Kin and Thar’Ga had.
3 hours ago, g4borg said:
at release r13-r15 was not available, but already visible with “question marks”.
r10-12 was mostly unplayed by the greater public, simply because farming the ships there was a lot harder back then (credit income, no synergy boost for fleet, and most of all: purple items dropped in loot, so the difference to beta players with r12 ships using mostly purple modules was cruel), and it was basicly in the hands of the earliest dedicated players. but even those usually rather queued in t3, where squads would get fast games.
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the big wave of people in march 2013 mostly got stuck in t3 for the more hardcore, and in t2 for the more casual players, and this ecosystem continued well into the t5 timeframe.
tournaments were held in t3 and were one of the big attractors for early teamplay, as well as the early dlcs which mainly featured r9 ships, so many who “bought in” were right in the most populated tier.
generally t5 was also a lot less balanced early on, with some ships dominating, and featured very little difference to t3, until some of the modules were removed from t3 (inertial stabs, target tracking coprocessor, submatter shields, etc.) into r11+. at some point, t3 dwellers, who actually already had t5 ships but still kept playing t3, were slowly persuaded to move up to t5, yet again making t4 a bit of a no mans land, but now for other reasons.
inbetween there was a bit of a “dedicated t4 fanbase” aswell, especially in times of inbalances (which logically were more feelable in t5, because you could minmax extremes), however i myself was a big fan of the t3 meta, and stayed there until almost everybody moved away, or were forced to by the introduction of mixed tiers, so i wasnt aware of that more than through forum. i did play t5 early, but only as solo player, while most “playing together” happened in t3.
thats just the history from my perspective. i do think, releasewise, the game was balanced mostly until r12, with r13-15 to be thought as “later additions”; especially since it took a while until some modules became exclusive t4/t5 releases (e.g. the cloaking field on guards), and the implants were also a lot less “tuning the ship”, i think t5 was basicly really not “pre-planned” at all how it would play out, but definitely planned to exist at some point.
also, since t3 had such an active population, the gameplay there was really influential into balance changes and tweaks (e.g. tacklers were underused, got a lot of new stuff, became totally op in t5 later)
Very interesting, ty indeed! I would think that less was more and this t3 dominace was a big asset for player happiness, in regard to flexibility and ease of access and simplicity…