How do you decide when to do a tuning or balancing pass? There seems to be a lot of inconsistencies with the relative maneuverability between ships.

In general they wait for a feature to be complete. For example, when IFCS 2 was complete they did a pass on every single ship. It is a constant balancing act of applying what they have learned after tuning ships, and how all ships relate to one another. Once they are happy with it then it goes out to the community, and then they iterate again with the feedback they get.

The next big tuning pass is planned for when the capacitor gameplay comes online because it will have a huge impact on ship performance. A goal of the aformentioned combat summit is also to create a relative ship tuning matrix so that they have more precise numbers on how ships perform. They want to have ships that have a purpose and specalisations. All of that will happen next year.