[PvK]

Kwok, did you think the suggestion was to add a positive cargo storage ability to supply storage containers, to allow transporting units? I think the suggestion was just to give them the ability, but set the value of it to zero, so that the game would allow players to create Transport hulls full of supply storage for use as tankers. It wouldn't allow them to carry units in their supply tanks. That is, to allow supply storage to qualify as cargo only for the purpose of the "must include 50% cargo components" limit.

I think this sort of thing is a fine idea for adding more interesting design options. I did this in Proportions, as have other mods. I don't know that it's a pressing balance issue, though.

For more interesting trade-offs, though, I'd suggest trading off speed, size, combat modifiers, and maintenance cost modifiers.

One thing that does seem like a minor balance issue, however, is that there is practically no reason to use a colony ship hull (except in bluffing games employing reverse psychology). It has exactly the same stats as a Small Transport, except that the requirement for a colony module is more restrictive, so it just guarantees your opponent that it really is a colony ship, while a Small Transport could be a colonizer, a carrier, a mine layer or a troop transport.

How about if we removed the 20kT cargo ability from colonizer modules (so Small Transport couldn't be used as a colony ship), and then added 20kT cargo ability to the HULL of the Colony Ships in vehiclesizes.txt (so they'd still have the same design performance and not break any AI)?

PvK