[PvK]

Oleg, I agree about the AI ship size choices, and adjusted them all a couple of days ago. I'll release them in 2.5.1 very shortly - I'm just waiting to see if there's anything else I should sneak in before I package it up and release it.

The Nostropholo (and by inheritance, the Chryslonite) ship designs up to LC look good. The weapon mix is effective against either shields or armor, and is very good against ships with most types of armor. One possible counter-design would be a lot of plain armored structure and low/no shields, or shields and strong shield regeneration. They were making good use of mines, too.

They might benefit from an occasional PD ship, too.

Imp. Fryon, yes I'm afraid your assessment of Solar Sails is more or less right, at least for large combat ships. The Contra-Terrene/Panel design uses the same mass, gives one greater speed, gives a +11% defense bonus, has a larger supply storage capacity, with the disadvantages being cost (about 1800 vs. 3000) and supply income (the sail design generates 120/star/turn, but big deal).

The Proportions solar sails aren't intended to be superior warship drives, but I think they're probably a bit undesirable, given the output of solar collectors (which are I think probably more powerful than they ought to be, since they can make infinite-range ships fairly easy to develop).

So, I'm thinking of cutting the size of solar sails in half (to 10 kT, like engines), and also perhaps halving the supply generation of solar collectors.

Would anyone be heart-broken by this, or have any preferred suggestions?

PvK