It's probably a tad late, but I figure I'll throw in my 2 cents.
I personally feel that LoA, at least compared to other faction mods, suffer from a frustrating identity.
A few examples of mod factions to demonstrate my point:
- Interstellar Imperium ships are ridiculously customizable, slow, and well protected, but flux-starved.
- Diable Avionics have powerful ship systems, good fighter screens, and versatile weapons. Their capital ships are extremely mobile for their size as well
- Blackrock ships are super mobile, have impressive ship systems, and excel at burst damage. They don't do so great in sustained combat though
- Shadowyards have weak weapons, decent defenses, and decent flux stats, but their ships are all built for very specific roles so their fleets really shine in tandem
- SCY ships have crap armor and shields, are relatively slow, and have poor flux dissipation. What they excel at but have obscene burst damage and maximum flux.
- Legacy of Arkgeneisis ships have poor flux stats, poor armor, decent mobility, and weak ship systems. Their ships are extremely fragile and not particularly threatening.
I feel like the faction is held back by a strong desire to not make them overpowered. What is the faction... good at? All the other factions have give and take, push and pull. Legacy ships have okay mobility, but paper armor, laughable shields, mediocre flux stats, specialized but not hugely effective weapons, not particularly powerful ship systems... It's like the stat sliders on the ships are messed up. If you lose armor, flux stats, and shields (all hugely important), then the payoff should be worth it. It doesn't feel like LoA provide that payoff, at least to me. It's very difficult to make a fleet that feels threatening.
I know you've expressed a desire to point out that LoA ships are not meant to fly without vanilla ships supporting them, but I wonder why you'd push for that. Every other mod faction does just well on it's own, and i usually try to stick with their unique fighters/weapons to get a feel for the faction as a whole. I really like the LoA frigates and destroyers a lot; they feel good to fly and are well designed. However, I feel that their line ships are super lackluster. It's very hard to get 10 pounds of LoA capital ship to fight like 10 pounds of basically anything else.
I love the sprite work you've done for this faction recently. The ships look fantastic. It seems like you care a lot about building a good mod, and I respect that a lot. I'm sorry if this comes off as harsh, but I'm trying to be honest.
I have a couple suggestions if you're willing to hear them:
- Give LoA powerful ship systems to compensate for their poor stats. The ships with the front-mounted long-distance explosive missiles are a good opportunity here. Give those missiles some serious punch. Right now, they're not particularly impressive.
- Give LoA ships a lot of in-combat mobility, like high top speed while over 5% flux. This way, their poor armor and shields would make sense. The faction would have a clear weakness: long distance engagements
- If LoA ships had very short combat operating times, it would create opportunities to increase their stats without feeling like you're making them overpowered.
- Give LoA ships an identity... perhaps as carrier-killers. The meta is big on carriers at the moment, so why not give the LoA ships some built-in hull mods that make them more effective at the task? Perhaps resistance to fighter damage, powerful PD, or ship systems that scramble them somehow.
- Alternatively, LoA could be built to be a short-range faction with advantages against long-range enemies. Perhaps all LoA have a built-in sensor scrambler that reduces enemy weapon range. Maybe any weapon longer than a certain range does greatly reduced damage to them. (admittedly hard to implement)
- If LoA are meant to be self-sufficient raiders, give them campaign stats more in line with this. Low maintenance, low fuel consumption, low sensor signature, powerful sensors, resistance to storms. Let an LoA player bring more tonnage for less money than other factions. If they are already nudged this direction, nudge them more.
