Other specifics of problematic balance:
Weapons
- Pulsar beam is too powerful. It functions as PD and as strike. If massed, it negates the need for anything else. I recommend flagging it as PD and weakening it
- Hiigaran fighters are too powerful for their costs
- All hiigaran energy weapons are too efficient; they should have a flux cost increase. Note that most energy weapons are 1.2 or higher damage/flux ratio. The exception is continuous beam weapons that can do better than 1.0 in some cases.
- the short-range chain weapons (both explosive and kinetic) are too efficient
Ships
- Some of the ships have relatively low flux dissipation for their size, which can be frustrating to fly.
- The Vaahrok torpedo gunship's built-in torpedoes are ridiculously strong. A reaper torpedo does 4000 damage, the cho does 2500x2, and can fire 4 at once. The torpedo itself isn't really excessive damage, but the ammo count and the fact that the ship can mount 4 medium kinetic mounts with an attack speed increase makes this ship able to destroy a capital very quickly
- The sajuuk-kar laser on the dreadnought is oppressively powerful.
- The Kuun-lann missile cruiser has too many weapon mounts of too large a size for any ship. (I stated this already but putting it here for ease of access). 4 Medium, 6 small, and 2 large weapon mounts, even without the missiles, puts in the damage output of a battle cruiser. 6 heavy missiles makes it outgun small stations by itself.
Vanilla weapon balance:
Consider this low tech weapon. It doesn't do anything special, but as a consequence it's fairly efficient.
Arbalest Autocannon
700 range
150 damage per second
120 flux per second (.8 ratio, very efficient)
Poor accuracy, medium turn rate
8 Ordnance Points
Now consider this medium tech weapon:
Heavy Needler
800 range
250 damage per second
200 flux per second (.8 ratio)
Medium accuracy, medium turn rate
15 ordnance points
It's almost double the cost to mount it, it has the same efficiency, but it has substantially more damage output and a little more range. If you want a weapon to be efficient, it has to lose in other areas. Either in ordnance, overall damage output, range, accuracy, whatever.
This weapon is more specialized:
Hypervelocity Driver
1000 Range
138 Damage per second + 200 EMP damage per second
175 flux per second (1.27 ratio of non-emp damage)
Perfect accuracy, slow turn rate
13 ordnance points
This weapon trades damage per second for EMP, range, and accuracy.