Walt If you replace the Large Thrusters with pairs of Standard Thrusters, how well does it work?
Ok i testet this very successfull ship(s) - these sometimes fooled quite monstrous behemoths.
The one with the standard thrust accelerates faster but then gets overtaken by the one with big thrusters after short time.
So the choice seems to be "Acceleration" VS "Top speed" here. It is a hard one. And then you could mix thrusters. And then look at the significant cost difference (133k - 140K). And so on ...
Mentioning that small ships without lateral thrust are forced to have a rebuild because they refuse to attack from an angle and overshoot their move-order-destination constantly and are often found circling helplessly.
Also bigger ships without side/stern/lateral thrusters have a hard time now.
Only Diagonals still do not have to care for thrust-direction because they have 90° placed thrusters anyway.
Walt Also, I might change it to 1 / 2 / 4.
hope you still consider this thrust-rampup ratios - might smooth it out more overall ...