Good critique, thanks much :-)
1. The intention with the Hull Mods is, basically, to get things stabilized, then offer up some ways to strongly differentiate at higher OPs once I feel like I know what would work.
The emphasis on Tech vs. Combat is more-or-less intentional; it forces players who've been going all-Combat (because that's pretty optimal in Vanilla for the first 20 levels).
I actually think there's a lot of differentiation between the ships no matter what's thrown onto them, given that the ships themselves are all so different. A Daisho is not a Dram; I feel like there is quite a lot of variety in that sense.
However, the larger goal here is to deal with some of the larger issues with Vanilla's game progression and balance. One of the things I don't like in Vanilla very much is that 2-4 Hull Mods is pretty common, which is not enough to make most of the Frigates useful in later play, with the exception of the Hyperion (and if you're really good, the Tempest); since I'm a big fan of Frigates and often play a small raiding group of them against anything short of an uber-fleet, I'd like them to stay useful and dangerous.
So, while it's not really my intent to make it so that the Frigates all have the same complement of high-end upgrades, feeling similar in that respect, it's more-or-less intentional that they're the only ship level where this is even vaguely possible.
I think that maybe what needs to happen with that is to offer some end-cap upgrades, spread through the three disciplines, that offer players harder choices, and are skewed towards Frigates and Destroyers, not Capships, and perhaps nerf the best upgrades in the current set, so that players will have to honestly weigh spending, say, 25 OP to get something that takes their ship towards an extreme but leaves them with the option to keep the more-generic upgrades. I'll think about that one.
2. The fleet sizes are more-or-less balanced with the idea that players are going to play smart and do some mining for a while, before they tackle anything. The mining fleets are a special case; I found that if they weren't built to handle the actual loads, the engine actually makes them have Accidents just like players, and if they couldn't hold all 1500 of the resource required, they weren't working.
Mining shouldn't be quite so easy during combat, I agree, but that's a tricky issue to balance, given how fleet sizes influence speeds so heavily, regardless of composition.
I completely agree on having smaller, "bite-sized" and midrange fleets to engage, to gain early experience; I put the Patrols in largely to give players that experience. I'll look at adding more Patrols that are sized for players to tackle for sure.
Anyhow, I think a lot of this will get mitigated to some degree by the changes in how much combat is occurring in the next build- if players aren't helping their Faction, it's quite likely they'll see the Faction get overwhelmed.
Reducing Mining's level of profitability is also an option, but I'd rather just increase its riskiness; if there are more small fleets that can take players on when they're mining, it may work out. I'll tweak those factors and we'll see how it feels