Since Beta, you still only need to play Fed to Lt 6 in order to unlock Klingon at Lt 5 (with skillpoints to get you up to Lt 6).

This player has played Fed to Cmd 7 and Klingon to LtCmd 8. The problem here is that this is missing the T3 comparison (Klingon Cmd).

Well, I think the issue in t1 comes from the kdf ship being actually a -better ship- all around than the miranda. Cloaking really is just icing on the cake.

Universal stations and better handling go a long, long way.

I think that simply bumping up the Light Cruiser's turning radius (maybe similar to that of a Federation T2 Escort) would go a long way to fixing the issue of T1 space balance. Klingons might still get a bit of an edge, but it won't be as bad. Raising healing and/or nerfing damage (both things applied to both factions) would also help a bit, but then you risk affecting PvE and opening up a whole new slew of balancing issues - which, in my opinion, isn't worth it to just do a little more evening out in T1.

Well the t1 fed ship is really set up strangely by default and new players have no idea that they should be doing anything differently.

It's a fairly maneuverable ship using a very wide arc low dps weapon.

You would think a fairly maneuverable ship would have a say... 90 degree frontal arc weapon and rear turret, right? I mean, that's what makes sense.

the way the weapons are set up though is that they have to broadside to fire both beams, and then they don't get to use the torp without maneuver. the bop has no such configuration issue

If I were the devs, I'd change the starting kit of the t1 fed light cruiser to :

dual phaser bank
torp
rear : phaser BEAM turret

and have the first few missions give :

+phaser console
+turn engi
+weaponpower console

i'd also give the bridge officers HY torp, eps and sensor jam

with a 90' arc front weap, the weapon would match the firing arc of the torp

I agree T1 space favors klingons as they start out in MK 2 gear all around, even some greens. I found very little space items to buy with pvp or exploration merits as there was nothing to really improve upon. Maybe if they started klings in all MK 1 greens so they have something to improve upon and something to spend those points on.

Most feds usally start pvp with some MK 2 gear, but most usally end up with alot of stuff they still could improve upon.

As for Tier 2 favoring feds in space, that might be somewhat true now till the klings get their tier 2 cruisers.

So far in my experienced: T5 goes to klingon.

It has nothing to do with the gear, really - though the gear was totally unnecessary.

The reason kdf has the advantage in t1 is :

Maneuverable ship
universal bo stations

and secondarily

better loadout

really, the miranda is an inferior ship. It's also equipped with gear that don't make sense.

We have a winner :p

I don't think changing the initial weapon loadout like that would really help, and in fact it might end up being a hindrance. If you're in a 1v1 battle in T1 (which can certainly happen on capture and hold maps, without the player doing anything excessively stupid), a Bird of Prey can spend 80% of its time on the rear arc of the Light Cruiser. With a base turn rate of 11 (same as the K'T'inga) there's little the Federation player can do except fire his rear weapon and hope someone comes along to help out. Once you get Evasive Maneuvers you can fire off a few pot shots from the front weapons, but not enough to really be a threat.

Which baffles me as well. The t1 miranda seems like the worst of both worlds.