Hi again! I hope you don't mind a few thoughts from a new fan of the mod. I will preface that I also have ideas that might not exactly be in line with the faction image you have in your head.
So far I'm having a blast actually figuring out how to make this faction work (Starsector has programmed me to discount overwhelming range as a strat.) but I don't quite have the full toolkit since the Society doesn't actually use their specialized hull-mods! (And therefore don't sell them in the market.) Its a bit of a tech mining crapshoot to find them all, and honestly I've only ever found the up-scaled shield generator through it. I assume that this isn't intended since the hull-mods (At least the shield gen mod.) don't seem like tech science lost to the ages, but I could be wrong.
Back on top the top of building this faction... Overall I guess the best way I could describe the way I have been building my fleet as "extreme" mid-line in the same vein certain other faction mods are "extreme" low-tech (Kadur) and high-tech (Sylphon). Aside from a few notable exceptions like the SO hammerhead, mid-line currently cant just ram the enemy and point-blank hammer barrage. While high-tech cant exactly do the same, most of their suppression options deal no hard flux, which really *** sucks. This leaves mid-line as the best long ranged school of play.
Where this faction differs is that mid-line typically results in most warships mostly entangling and disabling enemies for the drovers and herons to bap. This faction is far less reliant on strike craft, with no real ship capable of large (3-6) fighter strikes, instead having to gun down the enemy the hard way. The siege cannon helps a lot on the frigs-destroyers when it comes to filling that gap, but a single siege cannon (At its current strength.) just is a bit of an afterthought on the cruiser and up scale. On the defense side, its a bit odd but the Society is its own faction, and technically follows the mid-line philosophy of not focusing on armor or shields too much. The hull being the strongest defense stat is a bit odd, but it gives me an excuse to put reinforced bulkheads so its a win overall! Though, the tendency for ships to only have 5 more crew space than necessary does not mesh well with the hull tanking; since hull damage causes casualties you need spares. Either more lenient crew caps or perhaps a inbuilt hull mod to reduce casualties would be welcome.
I haven't really ever experienced a situation where the commissioned crew hull-mod was useful, its particularly situational and that situation is usually one of panic where you wont notice a 20% buff. Personally, I don't really associate keeping a scrapheap together as a trait of the Society because D-mods never seem to make their ships greebly. Perhaps if the hull-mod was something that capitalized off one of their strengths it would be more in line with the power of commissioned crews? A boost to range, tracking, projectile speed, or ECM (To gain range advantage) would bolster their abilities and not step on any other mods toes (for now). Alternatively, buffs to the hull will probably never be copied because as far as I can tell this is the only "hull-tank" faction in the modiverse. Pure hull strength,
regen, and repair speed/cost are viable stats to be buffed, though if you are feeling reckless you could just make a pure OP buff and grab some popcorn for the reactions.
The weapons are great! The pellet series fell amazing, and the stream like projectile are satisfying as hell. Plasma beams fill a specific role missing from most arsenals and thats sweet! Though I think the medium and large beams could stand for their visual affect being a bit thicker. The bull-dog line fulfills that longer-range HE weapon role I have trouble finding even in the vast modiverse, but their projectiles are a bit understated for HE weapons, maybe a bit more glow? Monograms provide that nice long range pressure at like 0 flux, perfect for the faction really. The bongos provide the opposite end of point defense from the concentrated plasma beams, and are a bit silly. I haven't fiddled with the electron rifles much but I did like the BB deserters so they seem promising. The missiles are fine additions, though I can't say they stand out. The strike craft are well suited to their secondary role in the fleet, and there is not too much to say about them besides the fact that Aces will drain crew fairly quick, which is compounded by the lack of extra crew space. (I haven't used much more than the Aces though.) The only thing I think this faction could use is a dedicated fighter killing weapon; there just are not enough fighter bays to achieve superiority in some fights.
I know in lore the Society kind of makes the Luddites seem technically advanced (They still make magnet based weapons without a nanoforge though.) so this means they really have no right having a phase ship of any kind, and I am totally understanding... but "Who the *** wants gremlins?" I sure don't! But the player can't set their faction to 0 pips into phase ships, so I have to break the faction mold if I don't want gremlins. I am no modder, but is it perhaps possible to make a "phase ship" that doesn't actually have a phase system for classification purposes? Even if it means the ship has no shields, I'm sure the Society can make a ship like that work... but! This would be a perfect opportunity (if its possible) to make a unique ship that has a fairly crazy ship system. While I have ideas on what such a system, I am no modder so I have no idea about their viabliity, so I will just bullet point them.
- Deja Vu: Just make it really fast and responsive with its ship system, like a Fox on steroids perhaps. Protecting the ship by not getting hit.
- Reverse Edith: Degrades the enemy's range, either an aura or massively *** with the local ECM score. Protecting the ship by not allowing the enemy to shoot far enough.
- Hull Cauterization: Spend flux and maybe CR to weld shut hull breaches, effectively regenerating it. "Protecting" the ship by playing the hull focus.
Anyways, apologies for the big wall of text. I hope its not too presumptuous of me to suggest things this far off base.