Oh I know, nerf is such a bad word. I suppose the alternative would be to boost the hell out of unbuffed base stats. So give ships ten times the hull and shields that they have now. It's the same basic idea of diminishing the all importance of stacking poorly balanced skills.

Want to reduce the likelihood of being instapopped or running into invincible zombies? Don't like "one shot kills" and yo-yo hull healing? Bring all abilities in the game back down to a reasonable level. Work out smarter mechanics for stacking items and skills. This would make the game more accessible for new players and add extra tactical dimensions for more skilled players.

There is a reason Commander and Captain level PvP were so much fun and it's largely related to the less twitchy game play. Call me crazy but we don't need this game to continue down this path of inaccessibility. The skill gap between players themselves is vast enough. Continuing to pile on more and more vastly over powered abilities is only going to further hurt the player base.

The game is too spammy. Abilities are too strong. There is a tremendous difference between a buffed ship and an unbuffed ship. Abilities should add dimensions to combat, not break it.