Been playing the game for about a month now and I have to say Nexerelin is the mod it needs to feel like a complete game. While Vanilla was definitely fun for the first week eventually it got rather stale quickly as nothing really happened or changed in the sector as the game went on, apart from actions made directly from the player. Nex adds the dynamic events and faction interactions that really finish the game in my opinion; the sector actually feels alive around you regardless of what you're doing yourself.
However it did take some fiddling with the settings before it got to the point I'm enjoying best. With the mod itself added unchanged the sector flipped from one extreme to the other; relationships between factions degraded in only a few months, massive capital fleets appear out of nowhere trampling everything in the first cycle, and by the second cycle at least one of the factions (usually Tri-Tachyon) has bit the dust after losing their core industrial worlds. While certainly dynamic, for me it was too chaotic and rapidly ending to be a fun experience; the remaining worlds and factions gradually fall apart because they really can't stand up to each other's endless supply of invasion fleets. And this was in a game with just the vanilla factions +/- one of the other modded factions.
After reading through the thread I came upon the settings recommendations which I did as follows. I avoided changing more since the other settings were less clear as to what they actually did.
In exerelin_config I changed these values:
invasionFleetSizeMult; Changed to 0.5 from 1.0
pointsRequiredForInvasionFleet; Changed from 24000 to between 50 and 75000
vengeanceFleetSizeMult: 0.5 from 0.8
In diplomacyConfig I changed the following:
eventFrequency: from 15 to 45
This made it so that faction relationships changed much more gradually so at least a cycle or two would pass before a faction started getting really *** off at another. Invasions and raids happened much less frequently and when they did happen the attacking fleets were a reasonable size that in most cases were able to be repulsed by the defenders at heavy cost. This left the defending world severely weakened but not conquered, and shortly afterwards the defending faction sends it an aid fleet that can restabilize it (But not before I take advantage of the wartime shortages to sell everything under the sun at insane prices). Wars like this went on for some time before peace treaties were signed leaving both sides blooded (but still standing). Smaller scale skirmishes between faction trading fleets and pirates still happened regularly, but on the whole each faction was able to retain enough markets in order to keep their worlds civilized, with little help from my profiteering needed.
The game kept the feeling of being a living world, but one that didn't collapse under its own weight before I felt like I could do anything. I didn't feel rushed by events and took things slowly; it felt more like a vanilla game except there was a lot more fighting and interesting events going on, except actual massive changes would still need the player's influence to take place, which to me was the right balance.
Really appreciate the work from the modder and community in making this mod so great.
Just wanted to add in what helped me get a better gameplay experience if anyone is curious.