What I have seen on the server personally is this...
Roms with no blue hexes to hit.. they take some Gorn hexes but not vigorously..
but as soon as a blue hex shows up, they attack it en Mass, not even giving enough time for the hex to have the DV raised... I flipped 21,15 last night and 2 feds and 3 gorn tried to rais the DV of that one hex.. it got to 7 then was immediately hit by 4 roms, 1 flying a DN.. they went from 10,9 section of space over to 21,15 just to het the 1 minor non VC Fed hex while disreguarding the Gorn hexes...
Every PVP I have had has almost been 2 on 1.. I hardly ever got a 1 v 1 or 2 v 2.... because of the Economy of the feds, the yards are building only the sNCLR, which is not being built and is illegal to fly.. an even then the Fed yards only build 2 of those every 4 turns.. nothing else.. so we can't replace ships that are destroyed and we are still being stuck in illegal specialty ships...
Every time I get killed in battle, I have to make a new account for Fed just to have a playable ship, I run maybe 5 missions vs AI before I get hit by 2 Rom pilots and get my ship killed.. then I have to make a new account in order to keep playing..
I find no fun playing as plasma chucker.... I enjoy a mix it up ship where tactics are extremely important..
I have greatly enjoyed the Fed vs Rom matches I have been in.. makes me try things that normally gets ships killed.. like last night I was in a 2 Rom vs me match.. I almost took out Netman, but both Netman and his partner were flying sSPX against my lone DGX... I know I scored over a hundered internals on Netman, however he was still running speed 31 and had a tractor ready which got me killed... I was severely out gunned by the 2 vs 1 but the match was fun... however this is just a rinse and repeat of almost every match I have been in...
as such, It is no fun having to make a new account every 6th mission just to gain 1 hex worth nothing to the Roms in order to try to build the economy enough to have maybe a 3rd ship in our yards..
as for player balance.. at 3 AM was the only time I have ever say even numbers of Rom vs Alliance (CST) and even then the DN on the boards completely negated anything that the Alliance tried to do...
that is why I suggest a race cap like they use in SFC 3.. limit each race to say 5 players.. then when all slots are full, then increase by 2 slots per race until they are full and so on..
this will make all sides have equal number of registered players per race .. some may not get to fly the race they want, but it is fair..
the problem with GW 5 and the number of roms is this..
say a planet has 5 VC on it.. there are 15 Roms on and 6 Alliance on.. say everyoine is in the Planet hex.. everyone is flying 2 vs 2.. this allows the Roms to run 7 missions stacked under all the PVP matches.. there is no way to even realistically attempt to hold the hex as they are running 10 missions on 1 hex to our 3, resulting in a 7 DV shift to their favor (if the Alliance ships win) in any given 20 min period.. given that the 7 players playing AI in the hex only run 1 mission in the 20 min..
so where is the fun in even attempting to play any sort of strategic game with that sort of odds..
that is why the majority of alliance has said they quit the server.. I was hoping that some of the Coalition would be honorable enough to swap sides to blance out numbers.. but winning is all that counts.. see with even numbers, then you actually can use strategy and plan your movements and have great PVP's that are worth flying because the map will show the results of the pilot skills, instead of how well you can kill AI..
It wan't that the Alliance didn't want to play, but Steam rolling 1 race that over half of the PVP comes from was just wrong... an honorable thing that the Coalition should have done was state.. let's push them back to maybe a 3 hex deep area and let them have the one base... their economy will be so poor that they can't get good ships, but at least we would get PVP as they tried to fight their way out...
Instead, because someone is scared of the Fed Fighters, they steamroll the Fed.. the Fed fighters die quickly if you use your plasma on them.. it makes for a much longer mission, but I saw the other night in a 2 vs 2 where2 sSPX took out 6 sqadrons of F18Cm and then proceeded to take the rest of the match.. the statement of the Fed fighters being too tought and a major problem is just white wash and holds no water.. Feds did not have many carriers built.. that means you would be fighting AI ships with fighters.. and even then the AI uses slow drones.. which meant taking out the command ship is a piece of cake.. On top of that the Fighter missles only do 4 damage each, unless equippped with Type 1 Med missles, and even then a strong shield reinforcement with an ECM shift of one basically negates 2 of the 3 missles, not counting T bombs and PD and defensive tractors.... I mean come on.. if 2 xSPX can kill 6 squadrons of F18Cm and still win the match, I am sure the bigger iron should have no problem..
Anyhow, I hope a system is incorporated to where it forces equal numbers... Makes the server fair and fun.. and it gives the ability to let your battles decide the outcome instead of the number of missions run on a hex..