(4) Give subsystems a calibration cost, and have them share a common pool of calibration with rigs. This allows us to assign an opportunity cost to picking the "cookie cutter" OP combinations: if you want a 1k DPS tengu that can trivially tank the toughest L4s, then you don't get to have 3x T2 missile rigs as well. In the other hand, careful choice of less-used subs will allow rig combinations that other ships can't attain.

It is quite odd that T3's have been out for what, 3 years now, with zero changes, and no one complained much about them being OP, but suddenly, there is this huge push to wreck them.

It has been said before, and I will say it again.
T3 mfg is essentially the purview of wh's, as the materials come from there.

The null sec cartels can't control that income stream, because, well, it is wormholes.
Hence the propaganda campaign by null sec to nerf the T3's.

Lowered T3 performance = lower demand = lower T3 prices = lower income for wh players = more wh players moving to null sec = higher tax income for the null sec cartel leadership .

CCP won't wait for the December release to wreck T3's. The standard methodology is the null sec cartel propagandists start a campaign, usually of multiple threads, using non null sec chars. They bombard the thread with alts claiming this is good for the game, and throw in the occasional comment from null sec. Typically, about 3 months after they start the campaign, CCP will announce "we have read the forums, and are responding" and then do precisely what was called for in the forum threads. Of course, they vet the changes with the CSM, but we already know where the CSM's allegiances lie.

This is precisely the methodology that was used to wreck the drone AI, and to wreck high sec mining, and will be used to wreck T3's. I guess goons and pl have decided that Tengu fleets are just too expensive to use in battles. Of course, CCP might only ruin the PVE capabilities of T3's. (Not that they have already not nerfed them with the resist bonus nerf.)

Fozzie is the expected dev to maim T3's sometime after the CCP summer break. Expect the hammer to come down in Aug/ Sept.

The lure of conspiracies is that it makes the believer special, in his own eyes and the eyes of many. He knows the secret, he has the inside scoop. It's a matter of having inside information nobody else has, unless they are wise enough to be in on the matter

So we should buff HACs to be more powerful than T3s? Would that really be healthy for the game?