Take a step back from everything that's going on here and get out of the circular arguments going on. Between people saying that the gunner class is indeed harder to utilize and less useful than the engineer and others saying just find a captain that doesn't mind taking a gunner, I think the point is made that we need some kind of subtle game mechanic tweaks to make the gunner class more useful in the long run.
What will it take? I honestly have no idea, people are right in that I'm a level one in everything else, I suck at flying and engineering quite literally makes me doze off, I just gun. Maybe we need subtle mathmatical differences in place that make it unreasonable to have engineers using guns, maybe reload and firing differences, maybe something that I just can't fathom in all my years of game review. I wouldn't agree with the bruteforce selection of two engineers and a gunner though, a captain should be allowed to pick his crew and instruct them. We need to make gunners viable, not required.
This has, more than anything though, been incredibly insightful on the community and how it functions. I understand there are good people and good captains who know how important a good gunner CAN be, but it seems that kind of person is going to be few and far between, and overall it makes me less interested in the game. No one should be harassed because of their class or spec choices, even if it's viewed as a little selfish that he won't switch classes just for the sake of the situation. I can understand if there's a plethora of gunners and there just isn't space for them on a crew, but when captain after captain yells at me to go engineer or leave, I just start to not give a damn and write the game and community off as moot.
