Why is the size one gimbal found on ground vehicles not the minimum weapon size for all ships? A size one fixed gun can't be gimballed, so a gimbal user loses half their DPS, which is a lot for a potential new player. Why do ground vehicles have a gimballed size one, but ships don't?
TL;DRGround vehicle gimbals were a temporary workaround for unstable firing over terrain; size one ship gimbals are a valid concern tied to a long ongoing debate about making size one guns effective while balancing starter ships.
I think that's specifically the Dragonfly and the Nox. That was there as a temporary workaround for the problem with size one fixed guns on a vehicle that goes like that across the surface: it's fundamentally useless until you have a stable firing platform, which ships can do because they can just stabilize. Whereas on a Dragonfly or Nox, you're constantly going over the terrain, and if you have fixed guns and no way to control it, you might as well not have them. It's definitely a valid concern that size one weapons on ships can't be gimballed, and it goes back into a very long debate we're having about making size one guns effective, which we could sit here for another hour and talk about.
It's a difficult challenge, because you want players in starter ships to have a good experience. But at the same time, you want to create a path towards upgrading, so they can't be too capable.
Yeah, we don't want them to be completely useless either. They should be able to hold their own against appropriate targets. But at the end of the day, if they're going to go up against something significantly better, it's balance. Balance never stops.