There have been a lot of falsehoods written about the Goliath's grid nerf. The most prominent is that the Goliath can't deshield a trident anymore. That is patently false. There are a few ways to do so. Here is a video i made today of one such tactic.

https://gaming.youtube.com/watch?v=iaefD17UitM

Hopefully this video puts to rest this false narrative.

God, I need to fix the horrifyingly bad lighting on some of these planets..

(I know that isn't the intended takeaway here, but we all have our pet peeves. Back now to the intended topic..).

Up to now I have not said much on the subject but

large vessels are in fact always easier to destroy then smaller ones.
There is no nerf that will overturn their basic nature.
They will always require an escort to protect them.

The true secret of modern carriers is simply that we have never fought anyone of consequence....

player ships shouldn't even have shields anyways just give the trident a million armor and cheap repair. The player base isn't large enough to launch consistent threats against player caps.

the fact that game play and player encounters hasn't evolved since i left is sort of disappointing. I know inc works hard but the game still plays the same as the day i signed up, I do give him props for getting rid of the swarm hounds which was just plan boring af. I suppose we have vendetta VR that all of two people enjoy though.

"the fact that game play and player encounters hasn't evolved since i left is sort of disappointing."

That's not a fact - that's an uninformed opinion. Play for awhile and see.

It is plenty informed everyone does the same stuff they always have flys around unobstructed in their dent because a single ship has too much difficultly making it dangerous for them and the player base isn’t large enough for people to sit around cap ship hunting. There’s still no way to scan sectors to find players to increase interaction. We just sit around and go “hey b8?” All day long why do you think so many vets left and only check in once a year or so.

It has evolved into Capital Ship Trading Online. No one fights over anything anymore.
Everyone flies around alone with their f2p turret accounts in their space fortresses. What are they doing all day? Apparently building more parts for future versions of mobile solitary confinement.
Anyone without a capship is either building one or as peytros said, sitting around in b8 asking hours on end for a duel.
I still have a 12-month key I bought last year somewhere, but I really don't see anything of interest happening here for me to use it in the near future.

Summary of above:

"Waaahhhhh I'm to lazy to build a capship to fight other capships so I'm gonna cry about how they ruined the game. Feel sorry for my laziness."

Put on your big boys pants, build a capship and enjoy capship battles or go play Farmville. No loss either way.

So, I have recently explained what we've been doing for the last year, and no, that has not resulted in a ton of gameplay changes, although there is the addition of Unaligned Pirates. I've also commented relatively recently on the future of capital ships, which resulted in some controversy, but might be of particular interest to people who don't want to build them.

But, here's the thing, the work we're doing takes time. Not like "a couple of months and nothing to show for it", but like a YEAR or more. I've been pushing content drops in as much as I can, in-between things, to try and maintain some activity, but it has been admittedly challenging to juggle.

I've also mentioned and announced some advancements, but those aren't "visible" enough to be super-obvious yet.

I can empathize with the notion of "hey, I came back and I don't see a lot of change", and also with capship manufacturing not being for everyone.

But, seriously, you guys are also choosing to make the most negative possible assumptions, and you're also choosing to ignore the available information.

Now, on a positive note, we have some pretty awesome new changes to talk about soon, stuff that speaks to exactly why we've been focusing so intently on technology for the last year. I intended to post about the changes on Monday, but I've been in a flu-induced feverish fog for the last few days, so it'll probably end up being tomorrow, with the next release.

No, these changes are not like "Drone X now drops Y item! Yay!". These are more like "It's now much more technically feasible for Incarnate to re-make large aspects of the game universe, and experience, in ways that may surprise and/or terrify you. (Hopefully in a good way)". Because those are the kinds of changes we actually need, even if it they aren't what people think-they-want.

This whole long-burn development thing is challenging and frustrating for everyone, but the endgame is revolution, and not incremental evolution. The latter might be enough for some of you, but the game needs the former to really grow and be relevant.

"I can empathize with the notion of "hey, I came back and I don't see a lot of change", and also with capship manufacturing not being for everyone."

Its not the manufacturing of capships so much as it is the gameplay.