by eoingibb
The problem with this tech for our group is as follows:1. Its extremely situational, and the situation it appears to be aimed at fixing (making interceptors more usable for races with only 2 movements) is usually more effectively solved by simply taking another move action.
2. Its an "upgrade" that makes your dreadnaughts design worse. In our local games actions are very tight. Cold war upgrades occur frequently, and if you fall behind the cold goes hot pretty quick. With a lack of actions, and a need for your ships to be the most effective you can achieve - the opportunity cost for interceptor bays as laid out in the rules is just to high. At a minimum its two actions (research and upgrade) to utilise these, and often its more thanks to the power requirement. All that for something that's situational. Plus in tight fights you frequently have to "upgrade" it away for something that actually helps you win the fight (improved hull, computers, shields, guns) which makes it yet another action to use.
3. Its expensive. For the same research cost you could have two cheap technologies that actually help you in combat (improved hull and plasma cannon for example), or a mid cost tech that improved your economy (advanced mining, or economy or science for example). These are always a better choice as they will help you - there's almost nothing situational about them.
4. Its rare for Interceptors to actually matter in combat from the mid game onwards - as they simply do not have the slots for technologies to compete. They are still useful as Pinners and Bombers. However they are seldom something that a player is willing to just throw away - empires seldom have large brown resources excesses. Thus the "benefit" of bringing two interceptors along to a combat as opposed to the opportunity cost of losing one combat viable slow on your cruiser/dreadnaught is weighted heavily in favor of the combat slot. If the player has spare actions to them upgrade away the interceptor bays in favor of something combat worthy - then odds are that player would have been able to achieve the exact same result by simply starting with the combat worthy design and using one of the actions on moving the interceptors - leaving the resources and actions spent on interceptor bays for something more worthy - that actually helps them win the game.
In short if you are thinking of using this tech - odds are that whatever you want to do with it you can achieve cheaper, quicker and more effectively by doing something else. And thus will be more likely to win your game.