Siege mode is bad game design. It turns the player into a literal F1 monkey, as you can’t pilot the ship, maneuver, etc. It removes piloting skill, control, player choices, etc. Pretty much all you can do is hit F1 and look at your watch to see how long you have until you can un-siege. I don’t see how it is arguable that this is somehow a good game play mechanic, so unless the goal is to bore players or make the game worse, what I propose is to remove siege mode, and replace it with something else.
"Waah! Waah! He wants to buff big ships! WAAAAAAAAAH!"
Whoa! Hear me out! Let me finish my proposal please! The goal here is not to buff these ships, but to simply remove a bad mechanic and replace it with a better one. Unless someone can correct me here, it seems that the goal of siege mode is to create risk for using said ship by making it unable to warp out for X minutes, thus making it vulnerable to other players and NPCs. So, lets keep that goal. The new mechanic shall be: Upon pushing the button-formerly-known-as-‘siege mode,’ the ship now enters Z-mode [insert whatever cool name for Z], whereupon the ship cannot enter warp for X number of minutes, exactly the same as before. All previous buffs to DPS, HP, immunity to ewar, etc. and all previous nerfs to logistics and whatever else shall still apply. However, the ship can fly around, maneuver, use thrusters, turn, etc.
The player is now free to pilot the ship, use piloting skill, etc. For instance, he can try to match his speed/direction in order to cancel out the transverse velocity of enemy ships so he can get better hits. Since Dreads (and possibly Marauders) are monstrously unwieldy, perhaps the new Z-mode could even add quite a bit of agility, acceleration, speed, and turning ability. Not enough to evade a frigate or cruiser for Pete’s sake - I’m not suggesting that. But certainly enough to make things interesting, spice things up, add the possibility of using piloting and skill, etc.
"But that’s a buff! Waah! Waah!"
Ok fine - I get it. You hate big ships. So since the ship is faster and more maneuverable in the new Z-mode, penalize sig-radius or whatever so it’s still just as easy to hit. I’m not trying to buff anything, I’m just trying to make better game design and game play. A mechanic which stops the player from flying a ship, in a game about flying ships, is patently absurd and retarded.
It’s hilarious that you would make such a dumb statement.