SE4 Stock Balance Mod

[Pax]

My thoughts:

The Talisman
Making this a mount would be the best fix, however I doubt it could be done w/o screwing existing AIs. So, how about this: instead of "always hits", why not let it give a +100-ish to hit? That's still VERY significant, without being brokenly powerful IMO.

Torpedoes
These are silly, ludicrous wastes of time at present. They might bebetter, if their "oomf" were upped. IOW, consider a bonus to hit and increased damage (they shoudl do about as much damage per kT as a comparable-tech/cost Beam weapon (or maybe a bit less), be slightly more accurate, and retain a 1/2 to 1/3 fire rate).

Meson BLaster
There's little reason to use these, compared to APBs. Give them a range advantage (say, 50% more range than comparable-level APBs) while decreasing their damage slightly (say, 80% as much as an APB's max-range hit) and that may change; the choice owudl be close-range high-damage, or, long-range low(ish)-damage.

Ship and Fleet Training Facilities
Make these one-per-system, please. Then 1%/turn, to a maximum of 5% times the level of the facility (iow, 5%/10%/15%).

Cargo Facilities
These need to be greatly improved. I suggest increasing storage capacity by an order of magnitude.

Single-resource Production-Boost facilities
Compared to the all-resource facilities, these are a waste of space. Consider adding +5% to their effects at all levels, and lowering their costs somewhat. Or keep the costs the same, and outright DOUBLE their benefits.

Tractor beams
The higher-tech Tractor Beams should be able to reach out and grab someone further and further away. I suggest a maximum range of damage squared (so a Tractor Beam with 4 damage has an absolute range of 16).

Repulsor Beams
As the base damage of the Repulsor gets higher, it's range should extend; however, as the target starts further and further away, the "damage" should drop off.

PDC
Simply too damned effective. Halve the cost/size, but halve or quarter the damage and remove some or all of the bonus to hit. Only "nerfing" the things will mean people won't use them much; making the cost and size attractive for every ship to sport a couple PDC tucked away here and there, despite the reduced efficacy, would probably work best, IMO.

Storage Components
Should count as cargo space. Even adding a single 1kT of cargo to each would work wonders.

Quantum Reactor
Should be VASTLY more expensive for it's size. Should, by rights, mass 1,000kT (thus fitting only in baseships), but either of those would throw off the AI.
NFC how to fix it without screwing the AI over, but it definitely NEEDS to be changed. At the LEAST, double it's price!

Fighters
While not a balance issue, per se, it'd be a nice change if the Small Rocket Pods were actually a fighter-launched Seeker-type weapon.
For further improvement to survivability, you can simply increase the benefits of Fighter-scale armor; if one slab of Fighter Armor III (or whatever) weighed 1kT but absorbed 50hp of damage, that'd help immensely.
Another not-really-a-balance-issue-but-it'd-be-nice-anyway idea, would be a Master Computer style control component for fighters; 1kT with a +1 bonus movement in combat (higher G-tolerances?). Frankly, those'd make more sense than the full-capital-ship-scale MCs, anyway.