[csebal]

That brings up another point.

The smaller starliner modules, along with the larger transport ships are simply not worth it.

Why?

Because you need larger ships to fit multiple modules, which means:

more engines, more support modules -> more upkeep

More importantly, you may also need some improved starliner modules, which are quite expensive (well, at least they were in 2.5.x) compared to the first (clumsiest) Version.

So if you compare a large transport, that can carry multiple units of pop to a medium transport, that only carries one unit, you'll realize, that two medium pop. transport ships are cheaper to maintain than one 'technologycally advanced' large ship.

-- About the small starliner:
IT really should be worse than the medium transport, after all it is easily available from the start. Then again, i never build it, as by the time i get to build pop transport ships, i always have the medium transport ship class, so all in one, the starliners definitely need some fixing.

The goal is to make them viable, but underpowered compared to the medium transports.
Here is a suggestion:
- give those ships a rather high base price, so it'll take many turns to build even a single one. Say: about 5-10 turns on a homeworld.
- give them a damn high maint. reduction, say 90%, to offset their rather high price, and make them economically viable to use on the long run, compared to regular transport ships.
- Limit their speed (this is already done) compared to the regular transport ships.
- Give them some -999% defense and attack bonuses.

With this, you'll get a slow to build, extremely cheap to maintain transport ship, that is a lot slower than the regular tranports, but costs less to maintain on the long run.