Thank you, I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks they get the shaft. Frankly, damage control ratings are the least of their problems. Sure, their capital ships are better, but so what? On Expert difficulty, their enemies will start out with hordes of X-wings and Y-wings, which can more than cost-effectively take out those capital ships. And until you get two steps into your Ship Research line, there's very little you can do about those fighters! Short of dedicating most of your resources to defending Coruscant, it seems like the only way you can hold onto it in the beginning is for the Alliance to be generous enough to let you hold onto it. And then there's the covert-ops side of things. It's to be expected that the Alliance has an advantage there--after all, that was kinda their "thing". But not only can the Alliance get their minor characters into play twice as rapidly (on account of having four major characters, rather than two), but Sullustan Regiments obviously give them a huge advantage when it comes to foiling enemy missions. To be fair, the Empire does get some "advantages" of their own in this department, but when you get right down to it, the actual benefit is negligible: a) The ability to assassinate enemy characters is convenient, as it saves you the trouble of securing captives against rescue attempts, but on the other hand, sometimes those rescue attempts have the pleasant side-effect of tying up more enemy resources, so assassination isn't that much better. b) Being a Jedi Master, Darth Vader can conduct Jedi Training missions from the beginning. However, this is generally not the most effective use of his time, so once again, the "advantage" doesn't really matter.
