PvK,
I am convinced that restoring original DL cargo but raising its size to 40K is the best solution. It will make DL-3 roughly equivalent to CB-3.
Yes, it is possible to make drone carriers by combining DL/CB, but did you try it ? It is just a different and unnessary layer of micromanagement. Besides, it is _very_ difficult to instruct AI to make any sort of usefull drone carrier now. I personally gave up. 40K size will not unbalance cargo and should decrease micromanagemnt considerably.
Drones are a tricky subject and MM obviously spend a lot of time balancing them. They do the same incrediable amount of damage in normal SE IV, but cost a lot of resources and are destroyed in battle. In strategic combat even lowly scout can trigger launch of hunderds of drones for immense lost of resources. I do not consider restoring the speed of large drones as unbalancing. You argue that larger drones make small one obsolete, but, hey, that is the whole point of investing thousands and thousands points into research !
Drones do not have extra defence bonus as in standard SE IV. Besides, proportions ECM jammers go up to 31K in size, compared to flat 10K in unmoded game.
[ May 25, 2002, 04:47: Message edited by: oleg ]