Okay, this thread is simpler and one I can deal with. I think you linked me this one in chat and I said not until during kickstarter, but I thought it was a different thread. I can't click links without it losing my place in the thread, so I have to be careful with that.
I don't have a huge amount of time for this particular subject, but some of this is definitely
not nitpicking. I'll paraphrase what I think some of your stuff boils down to:
Strike vs blitz is confusing
I'm not married to these terms, and they are not my favorite either. Really what these are is "air superiority" and "rusher" or "brawler" or something like that. Even "special teams."
What is strike?
These are fighter jets. They're meant to to come in and wreck anything else in the sky.
Why are MLRS in the Bomber class?
The bomber class is the air-to-ground anti-structural type of class. MLRS ships are not interesting in any way in the original game, because the ability to strike many ships is accomplished in a variety of AOE fashions. But the abiltiy to have multiple precision-targeted bombs against structures IS interesting.
What is blitz?
That's what gets tough. Overall this is "miscellaneous," to be frank. Some of this stuff is very fast and is meant for close range combat. Some of it is AOE, and more slow. Some of it is for sneaking or doing other strange stuff. Some of it is reclamation. The only really appropriate name for this class would be "Oddball."
But not ALL the oddball ships go here, so even that doesn't fully work. The reason I like the term blitz (though understand overall I still hate it) is that all of these ships share the attribute of being surprising or otherwise first-strike or turning the tables. AOE stuff can do unexpected amounts of damage in the right circumstances. Melee-range stuff is inherently "jump out and get you" kind of surprise. Parasites are self explanatory. Infiltrators' sole purpose is surprise. Etc.
Speed has nothing to do with it: sometimes the surprise factor comes from speed, other times it has to do with cloaking or simply the ability to yank out something really nasty in the right circumstances after slowly getting into position. "Surprise class" or "Boo class" are maybe the most apt names, though they suck.
Strike class, again?
These ships are all fast, sure. And some of them will have more hybrid roles, like you somewhat have with some fighter jets that actually a bit deserve the A designation more. I'm thinking that the F119 would fit in here if we're talking real military, even though the reason they named that F instead of A was to attract the top pilots who wanted the F designation. From a practical standpoint it was a hybrid ground attack (not bomber -- there's a difference) and anti-air and spy craft. It's kind of a raptor, honestly, in terms of AI War. Kinda-sorta.
Don't these lines get blurry?
Heck yeah, and that's kind of the point, to a certain extent. The ability of you to predict exactly why one ship is class A versus class B will often be poor, because you could make an argument for a ship being in either class based on its broad characteristics.
However, to fill out the numbers in each part of the quadrangle, certain ships will go one place versus another. We need more basic archers, so laser gatlings go there. They could arguably fit in the strike class, but it's more interesting to give them slightly more range (they used to have that anyway, until they were nerfed years ago). This really returns them more to their roots a bit anyway, which makes me happy for whatever reason.
But the big thing is that once you start encountering these in-game, the distinctions STOP being blurry. They're balanced around their roles, and their roles inherently give multipliers, so it won't take too long before you realize "hey, don't send laser gatlings against parasites, they get rushed and eaten alive." But at the same time: "hey laser gatlings are like an anti-aircraft firing squad against fighters and raptors and so forth."
Inherent lack of clarity
One thing it's easy to forget is that you all have a lot of built-up knowledge from AIW Classic that was in no way obvious at the start, but that you built up. And thus various things are easy for you to remember offhand, and "make sense enough" that you might not question them (much, haha). But for a new player those things can be hugely opaque.
The new quadrangle is in no way immune to that, and the blurry lines between roles in some cases somewhat makes it worse (what class is crippler, again?). However, I posit that it's a lot easier to learn one new data point (crippler is archer) and have the follow-on ramifications of that be simple and easy to understand (I remember the relationship of archer to other stuff, and/or a quick cheat-sheet is right there on the tooltip for me). Versus in AIW Classic there was a lot of data to memorize AND the follow-on ramifications were complex and had to be memorized or even computer-generated in terms of lists of best and worst against.
So in other words, I think that there's no way to have the "perfect setup," per se. But a setup that is quick to pick up and that you can soon accept "okay, that's the way it is" and start dealing with the ramifications is good. Why is a knight in chess called a knight? Why does he move in an L? There are no inherent reasons behind that that I know. Arguably the bishop could better be called a knight, since he "charges into battle in a fast way." And rooks... move? Etc.
There's a certain point past which "you learn the rules and then it becomes natural" in any game that deals in abstraction. My goal is to make that point as low a barrier to entry as possible, without damaging our ability to have actual meaningful complex interactions that you discover more slowly over time (if you were a new player). AI War Classic started complex and only got more complex, and to some extent I think that actually caps the real strategic variance that can be achieved since the base-level complexity can distract us from more interesting issues and opportunities in everything from unit design to AI design to galaxy and planet design.
Final note: I'm not saying "this is the way it has to be and the only thing I'll ever accept." I could even be convinced to add a fifth "true" class and make this a tetrangle, if the reasoning was solid enough. But the good news is that everything in this thread is 100% data-based and has no bearing whatsoever on the actual design of the code for the game. So it can be tuned and tweaked endlessly during kickstarter -- and alpha, when we can test things in practice.
I'm open to other suggestions, in particular about the names here, though.
