[Talenn]

geoschmo:

I took a quick look through the hull sizes and whatnot at the start of a game. I didnt have time to play it out, but here are a few quick observations:

1) Larger ship hulls arent going to be used at all early on in the current form, even with the Eng Dept. They have to be made a bit more attractive. Maybe certain 'large ship only' components will help. I know the goal is to have them become more useful as time goes by, but they should at least be viable (if expensive) in the early game or there really isnt a choice to build them.

2) CAs appear useless in this build. CLs only lose 100kt, get a defensive bonus, an offensive bonus, and dont get the hideous 50% maintenance penalty. IMO, the CA should be the largest 'standard' hull that people use...ie, the workhorse of the fleet. Anything bigger (Cap ships) should start to cost the hideous maintenance, but start getting the 'power' returns...ie, greatly increased space, components that only they can benefit from, weapon mount bonuses etc.

3) The smaller hulls probably dont really need a To-hit bonus AND a Defense bonus. I think the two together are working against what you wanted originally by trimming the bonuses back on the Sensors/ECMs etc. If the rest of the mod is in place, I dont think they will be necessary and could unbalance things farther down the road. As it is now, without missiles, some of the larger cant hit the small guys at all, but receive no real benefit in return.

All of this is just my opinion. I applaud your efforts and I wish I had more time to tweak with it and send you some working data. Please dont take any of this as an 'attack' on your work.
I have thought the hull size interactions through a bit after my Last mod and I can probably work up some other rough numbers for you to look at if you want.

Thanx,
Talenn