Yay! One guy who writes a long string of words because I'm serious!

More side torpedo launchers! More side cannons on my cruiser!

Once your shields go down and hull dammage starts- cruisers drop fast under any decent assualt.
Seems like a good trade-off to me. That coupled with the slower than average turn rate and it seems very balanced to me.

Heh - why not just ask for a Death Blossom while we're at it?

Yeah, this. Also there's two skills the engineer(maybe others) class gets that increase EPS that have short cooldowns. At Capt 8, I can run 6 beams. They're MKVIII's, but I can't see how increasing them to MKX's would cripple me down to 3 beams. I'll find out soon enough.

Btw, to the guy you quoted, positional attacks suck in cruisers. They become either first pass attacks or random, some guy flew in front/behind me attacks. If you don't have overlapping arcs of fire for nearly your entire broadside, you're crippling your damage output by a lot.

The game is stupidly easy whatever ship you choose.

Now that I look back on my previous statement, I'm sorry if I came across as being a jerk, though I probably am

My bad man, internets can't convey emotions, damn series of tubes.

Cryptic:
More cannons please!

Are you using EPS Flow Regulator consoles?

You NEED those if you're going to be running a heavy beam loadout.

No harm no foul.

I find that, when reading posts, 99% is interpretation, 1% is intention.

i still cant work out where people say cruisers are the tank class because i die just as quick as any other ship when ive lost my shields.

The only difference is the other ships can turn quick enough to allow their weakest side to not be hit while cruisers just explode.

Try different BO skills. My cruiser can stand up to withering punishment without losing shields, and if I lose shields, I take minimum hull damage until my shield buffs come off cooldown. All while still shooting at stuff. It's fun.