This topic got me thinking:

The reason the L port was removed was because of the very real abuse of "swarm spam and run" behavior but swarms have a very legitimate use against non-capital ships. They are often used to effectively defend against small fighter or mid-size ships targeting behemoths or centaurs. I think the root of the suggestion here is that there are a lot of legitimate large port weapons and addons that are very useful in gameplay that would be great on the hound. Megaposis, radar extenders, repair modules, etc.

I think a better suggestion would be to create a medium port category and make medium port items equipable in either medium or large ports. To take it a step further, I would suggest that you should always be able to put a smaller item in a larger port.

With that being said, I propose the following:

1. Add a medium port category and allow small port items to be equipped into small, medium, and large. Medium port items to be equipped in medium and large, and large port items only to be equipped in large ports.
2. Change the hound to 1 small and one medium port,
3. Make the megaposi and select other modules medium port
4. Situationally review other ships and ports where small ports can be upgraded to medium ports to give unter-utilized ships more firepower or better balance without opening up all large port weapons.

Unfortunately a lot of users have issues with only 2 choices...
Personally I agree a medium port would allow more flexability in limiting loadouts but the added complication might prove to difficult for some players.

Its a good idea but it would also be very disruptive to implement at this point.

-1

I am a pretty firm believer that for maximum creativity you need some bounds or else people will just default to the “best” options. A medium slot that can hold megaposis on a hound would let it fill its role better as an interceptor. IMO a hound should be able to drop a Goli shield as the hounds original implementation was as a glass cannon interceptor. There’s always the option to undock and fight the hound which is considerably less manuverable in a dogfight than otherships.

I’m hoping this can change incs mind about medium ports since it would make a lot of unloved large port weapons useful

+1 to the medium port and small weapons in medium/large port idea.
However I'm against giving hounds a medium port because it trades speed for firepower and it's already annoying enough to have so many people fly them and just run away or do hit and run tactics.

+1

Or, just give Incarnate a reason to make new weapons all together. New ships, More weapons, more new set ups, etc. Medium port class

I somewhat like this idea. Having the ability to mount small port items in a large port or the hypothetical medium port makes good sense. There should be a weight penalty the mounting adapter must have some mass after all.

I'd take this a step further and simply make large port and turret port versions of ALL small port weapons, along with turret port versions of ALL large port weapons with a slight (100-200kg) weight penalty. The bigger the jump, like putting an AAP into a turret port, the bigger the penalty (greater disparity between the physical sizes of the weapon and it's mounting location).

The only way I can see to do that is to have it listed as something like this

Axia Advanced Positron blaster (Large port mounting)

Yellow Jacket Missile launcher (Turret port mounting)

Screamer Rocket launcher (Turret port mounting)

An alternative would be an adapter, that when mounted changes things, but I doubt that would be practical from a development standpoint.

I would love to see a Behemoth with 5 chaos swarms all blasting away at me as I try to kill it, or a mix of Gems, chaos and locust swarms, along with stingrays and firecrackers. That would make for an interesting target, multiple missiles to avoid, with multiple different flight characteristics.

I would suggest that adapters aren't needed and that ships should have an auto-adjusting fitment like you would see on a drill. The only requirement should be that an item be smaller or equal to the port size it's being loaded into.

I would be a little weary of letting all small port weapons into large port slots, the current balance is around assuming that large port ships that fit large port weapons will have the added mass the large ports provide, however it might mean we see some more variation than the common AGT+flare proms and taurs.

But more variations would be a good thing. One of the things I grew bored with in combat is how there was always a cookie cutter spec that was best in class for any specific scenario. I've tried ravens on a Skyprom and I don't really see large ships becoming super agile fighters. If that were the case, pilots could get the same advantage by simply not equipping anything and we don't see people leaving a bunch of ports empty for the competitive advantage. At best, it would open up some experimentation and give veteran players new load-outs to play with which may draw some people back and may retain some of the ones getting jaded with current state.

Yes I am in favor of more variation, I hope it did not come off like I wasn't as I was more just thinking out loud. I suppose I didn't really take into account how heavy large ships actually already are. I am still in favor of your idea ala my original post

-1 to the above ideas