1. I like the pre-refit ships of the 'Middle Years'. In this era, the different races actually feel different. The ships have design deficiencies that would later be corrected. The races have different classes, or at least their ships in each class don't all correspond quite so closely in capabilities to the other races. Once you reach the General War, the races start to homogenize. Everyone has carriers, everyone has PFs, everyone has pretty much every War Cruiser variant. Yeah, there are some variances between the races due to weapons and due to Hydrans almost always having fighters for every ship and Lyrans always being able to carry PFs, etc, but in general the ships are well balanced with few obvious holes in their capabilities. Another benefit of the Middle Years vessels is that pretty much all of the weapons and firing options for the main races are available unlike the Early Years. I maintain that this time period is the one where piloting skill is the most important due to having almost all the same options of a later period, while having to deal with weaknesses and strengths of your ships and your opponents' ships that aren't as prevalent in later eras.
2. I like Y168+ because I like Kzintis...
Mmmm, speed 20 drones. I actually tend to think that Speed 32 drones are boring, plus at least in Y168 or so, the homogenization of the different races isn't quite so prevalent.Two other eras I like:
The X1 era: I especially like the period where X technology is new, leading to X ships against non-X ships. But then I love asymmetrical battles in general.
Early Years: The races definitely don't have perfectly balanced fleet lists, and seeing a variety of different weapons plus races that disappeared before the Middle Years is a lot of fun. I really do miss overloaded weapons though and think that the Early Years era really points out how much more dynamic a battle is when overloaded weapons are available.
Really nothing major in the above post, just some generic ramblings at lunch.
