Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: Inhilicon on June 25, 2019, 12:24:39 AM
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I was just wondering if these two factions will get more attention down the line. In my experience, I don't feel compelled to join or help them in any way, as they have nothing particularly unique about them. I'm more willing to oppose them, for not being interesting. Will they get their own variants/paintjobs? Maybe a built-in hullmod to differentiate them from other factions? If all else fails, is there a mod that does this?
Pirates have their ghetto ships but with rad paintjobs and sometimes altered weapon mount types.
Tri-Tachyon use hi-tech ships, some of them appealing TT variants (like for the Brawler).
Luddic Church & Path have paintjobs and the latter has a distinct playstyle due to certain hullmods.
Hegemony have very interesting ship variants with distinct paintjobs.
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The Diktat and the League are the place to get mid-line battleships, e.g. Conquest.
For more flavour, I can recommend the Ships and Weapons pack (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11018.0). It has rare Lion's Guard variants of a number of ships, e.g. Eagle. These have paint job in the Sindrians' violet and the perk of free solar shielding, because of Sindria's location right in its system-star's corona. The mod is overall very well-balanced and mature.
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Luddic Church isn't very distinctive. It's more like recoloured Hegemony, without the ship variety. I'd like Diktat to get all the high-tech warships, so that we have a place we can get Medusas or Auroras from, as Tri-Tachyon is very unreliable in that regard.
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Luddic Church got in some mods some love. Like Cathar class heavy cruiser- proper cruiser made from Collosus freighter , some modification to ships like Tarsus, made into missile boat or more.
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The Diktat and the League are the place to get mid-line battleships, e.g. Conquest.
For more flavour, I can recommend the Ships and Weapons pack (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11018.0). It has rare Lion's Guard variants of a number of ships, e.g. Eagle. These have paint job in the Sindrians' violet and the perk of free solar shielding, because of Sindria's location right in its system-star's corona. The mod is overall very well-balanced and mature.
I tried that mod for a little bit along with Nexerelin (while I was still completely new to the game) but I've gotten wary of larger mod-based content like ships or weapons as they've been either overpowered or underpowered in the experiences (mods for other games) that I've had. I assume there's no possibility of having -just- the new paintjobs? I didn't see any particularly convincing proof as to why the authors think it's balanced. Then again, there's also the standard mindset that haunts any kind of opinion-heavy platform which dictates that negative criticism is unwelcome, so maybe no one is willing to speak up about that issue in particular. I don't know.
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Well, most of ships in S/W pack are not OP. They're pretty decent in balance. For just luddic paintjob you need to get a Luddic Enchancement Mod (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=15084.0), which basically give Ludd a slightly changed low tier ships and paintjobs for those not changed.
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I didn't see any particularly convincing proof as to why the authors think it's balanced. Then again, there's also the standard mindset that haunts any kind of opinion-heavy platform which dictates that negative criticism is unwelcome, so maybe no one is willing to speak up about that issue in particular. I don't know.
Well, "balance" is bound to be subjective. I see quite a few posts here and on reddit describing S&W as well-balanced. I don't recall seeing any where criticism on this point got shouted down. My recent experience is that it adds ships and weapons that integrate well with vanilla and have uses, with appropriate costs, without being over-powering. YMMV, but if you only wanted the paint job, that's not the mod for you.
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Also "I dont like mods, because i once played in game with mod 2000 years ago and it was awfull" is like saying : "I did not like ice cream because i once ate one and it was awfull, all ice cream are bad then".
Generalisation is a crime.
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I've played the game a lot both with and without mods. I much preferred the experience with mods, but I can understand a vanilla experience, at least gameplay wise.
Mods that add new graphics, planet types, etc... Are very good without altering anything core to the game. I would love a mod that creates tons of new paint jobs.
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Many mods here offer paintjob for ships existing but added with mod. I suggest you install a Unknown Skies mod (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12041.0). It's add a different planets and skins for them.
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Midline seems to be the most common across factions that are not Pirates and some form of Ludd.
Hegemony used to be the low-tech faction. Now it is a mix of low-tech and midline (plus Wolf).
Tri-Tachyon was all about high-tech. Now it is high-tech plus some midline. Probably has the most blueprints exclusive to it.
Luddic Church is just low-tech. Its only specialty is Perdition wings. Its capital of choice is the Legion.
Luddic Path and Pirates use hacked hulls and are distinctive. (Pathers need an industry somewhere for its unique stuff.)
The rest favor midline, including Independents. Conquest blueprints can be nicked from Independents too. They also have phase ships, but do not use them much.
Diktat, League, and Independents are very similar, although Diktat and League have some blueprints Independents do not have.
As for mods and stuff, I do not have much time for the game, and I prefer no mods. I would make an exception if I made a mod for Starsector, but I doubt I will make one.
P.S. I would not want to join Diktat and League because I get sick of endless expeditions from them. They are the reason why I cannot have more than a size 3 or 4 farming colony until I am strong enough to kill any endgame threat. Tri-Tachyon sends expeditions too, but they are significantly weaker than the other two meddling bullies.
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The Diktat and the League are the place to get mid-line battleships, e.g. Conquest.
For more flavour, I can recommend the Ships and Weapons pack (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11018.0). It has rare Lion's Guard variants of a number of ships, e.g. Eagle. These have paint job in the Sindrians' violet and the perk of free solar shielding, because of Sindria's location right in its system-star's corona. The mod is overall very well-balanced and mature.
I tried that mod for a little bit along with Nexerelin (while I was still completely new to the game) but I've gotten wary of larger mod-based content like ships or weapons as they've been either overpowered or underpowered in the experiences (mods for other games) that I've had. I assume there's no possibility of having -just- the new paintjobs? I didn't see any particularly convincing proof as to why the authors think it's balanced. Then again, there's also the standard mindset that haunts any kind of opinion-heavy platform which dictates that negative criticism is unwelcome, so maybe no one is willing to speak up about that issue in particular. I don't know.
You're just wrong. The starsector modding scene is WAY more advanced than you seem to think. The linked S&W pack is considered vanilla balanced. MANY MANY MANY mods are considered to be NOT balanced, but tons of people have posted about it. Things like borken/neutrino are seen in some ways as "boss factions" now that knight's aren't a choice anymore. Additionally things like DME/DA/shadowyard/brdy are seen as a bit overpowered (at least imo, others might disagree). Sometimes mod factions are seen as potentially underpowered, but also they're sometimes underpowered on purpose (junk/pack/kadur).
Then you have things like underworld which are stronger than vanilla but what they do is take something a lot of people found to be underpowered in vanilla and bring it up to a more balanced state.
There used to be some good mod reviews out there about balance, like here: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11001.0
I'm not currently aware of any good megathread for mod reviews but if you read each mod's lengthy discussion thread you'll seen a ton of discussion about balance in all of them. So you might be right, that it might be hard for you to know which mods to use that will achieve the balance you want. You're just wrong that those mods don't exist though, and you're wrong that the discussion about balance isn't occurring. S&W pack is one of the most universally beloved, simple, well balanced mods out there though.
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The Diktat and the League are the place to get mid-line battleships, e.g. Conquest.
For more flavour, I can recommend the Ships and Weapons pack (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11018.0). It has rare Lion's Guard variants of a number of ships, e.g. Eagle. These have paint job in the Sindrians' violet and the perk of free solar shielding, because of Sindria's location right in its system-star's corona. The mod is overall very well-balanced and mature.
I tried that mod for a little bit along with Nexerelin (while I was still completely new to the game) but I've gotten wary of larger mod-based content like ships or weapons as they've been either overpowered or underpowered in the experiences (mods for other games) that I've had. I assume there's no possibility of having -just- the new paintjobs? I didn't see any particularly convincing proof as to why the authors think it's balanced. Then again, there's also the standard mindset that haunts any kind of opinion-heavy platform which dictates that negative criticism is unwelcome, so maybe no one is willing to speak up about that issue in particular. I don't know.
You're just wrong. The starsector modding scene is WAY more advanced than you seem to think. The linked S&W pack is considered vanilla balanced. MANY MANY MANY mods are considered to be NOT balanced, but tons of people have posted about it. Things like borken/neutrino are seen in some ways as "boss factions" now that knight's aren't a choice anymore. Additionally things like DME/DA/shadowyard/brdy are seen as a bit overpowered (at least imo, others might disagree). Sometimes mod factions are seen as potentially underpowered, but also they're sometimes underpowered on purpose (junk/pack/kadur).
Then you have things like underworld which are stronger than vanilla but what they do is take something a lot of people found to be underpowered in vanilla and bring it up to a more balanced state.
There used to be some good mod reviews out there about balance, like here: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11001.0
I'm not currently aware of any good megathread for mod reviews but if you read each mod's lengthy discussion thread you'll seen a ton of discussion about balance in all of them. So you might be right, that it might be hard for you to know which mods to use that will achieve the balance you want. You're just wrong that those mods don't exist though, and you're wrong that the discussion about balance isn't occurring. S&W pack is one of the most universally beloved, simple, well balanced mods out there though.
Jeez. Thanks for trying to invalidate my entire sum of experience with mods over my entire life. Anyway, I've already looked through all the pages of the ship/weapon pack for any quips about balance. There are very few; barely any. Ships that were mentioned include names like Aurora, LC's Cathedral and Excelsior. Some people voiced concerns over the latter but such SPOOKY negative feedback was promptly (and unsurprisingly) denied. Where's this "discussion thread"? I honestly can't find any such thing.
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As far as the Diktat, I'll just say we've got some specific and fairly expansive plans for that, but as to the details, I'm afraid it's a :-X
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Jeez. Thanks for trying to invalidate my entire sum of experience with mods over my entire life. Anyway, I've already looked through all the pages of the ship/weapon pack for any quips about balance. There are very few; barely any. Ships that were mentioned include names like Aurora, LC's Cathedral and Excelsior. Some people voiced concerns over the latter but such SPOOKY negative feedback was promptly (and unsurprisingly) denied.
For most mod authors, vanilla balance is a goal; whether it's met or not can vary - but there are a lot of mods where, if you use it and can identify a way in which the ships are over or under powered, the author will consider that to be valuable feedback and make adjustments.
As for the specific ships you listed... I'd just like to note that the Aurora is a vanilla cruiser. If someone's claiming that a ship is overpowered for being as dangerous as an Aurora, well...
And, when you get down to it, that shines a lot of light on what tends to happen when someone wanders in saying "XYZ ship is OP, nerf plz!" - they base it on something like "Well, I can take this cruiser into the simulator, and have it beat down all three vanilla Dominators at once!"
Here's the thing: I can put together a 100% vanilla Aurora variant that can do that. I've even managed some variants that can sometimes pull that off under autopilot. If I'm willing to accept taking hull damage along the way, I can put together a 100% vanilla Dominator variant that can do that. Being able to win that fight isn't (necessarily) an indicator of a balance problem. In fact, a heavy cruiser that -can't- win that fight is probably -underpowered-.
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As far as the Diktat, I'll just say we've got some specific and fairly expansive plans for that, but as to the details, I'm afraid it's a :-X
It's stuff along the "Andrada was actually a player character" vibe, isn't it?
Jeez. Thanks for trying to invalidate my entire sum of experience with mods over my entire life. Anyway, I've already looked through all the pages of the ship/weapon pack for any quips about balance. There are very few; barely any. Ships that were mentioned include names like Aurora, LC's Cathedral and Excelsior. Some people voiced concerns over the latter but such SPOOKY negative feedback was promptly (and unsurprisingly) denied. Where's this "discussion thread"? I honestly can't find any such thing.
This would be better answered in SWP thread, but: Aurora is a strong, but not broken cruiser (not to mention it's from the base game), Cathedral is basically a flying station with a fitting price tag and it can't really focus all of its guns at a single target, and Excelsior is theoretically very strong, so fragile and hard to fly, you better be bloody breaking the game in half, after you finally get good at using it.
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I have played quite a lot with SWP and it is incredible how well integrated it is into the game. On all my playthrought I have not found any outlier that really stood out by being overpowered. If anything I often hesitate between ship from vanilla and ship from SWP.
The purposeful outlier are IBB ship, special ship rewarded from bar initiated missions. You do not need to interact with those if they bother you, and you cannot get a blueprint fro these ships anyway. There is also the Excelsior has you mention, but its a very situational outlier that I don't recall seeing in any of my games. In those case where it does shine, it require incredible practice to ultimately do something you could do more naturally.
The mod has its own, obvious discussion thread. "negative feedback that was denied" if there was any are in these thread absurd and baseless accusation by person who have no business arguing balance, the discussion of which would simply bog down everyone.
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While I would like to argue that the faction mods are in-fact well balanced; however, I'm going to take the side that disagrees with it but more on that in a bit.
With regards to SWP, I will say that since 0.7 or so it is the mod that has the honor of having content that's most often confused of being from vanilla, along with some oft less remembered features of Nex even from some of the more frequent players. I will vouch that most of the content in the mod is indeed well-balanced with vanilla aside from the (unique) IBB bounty mod-ships.
The Excelsior had some people talking about it on the SWP topic directly after HELMUT made this topic here. (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13577) To its credit, if there were ever a ship that had almost no skill ceiling, it would be the excelsior and while it seems fairly damning that he was able to tackle those stations with it alone we should keep in mind a couple other things with regards to the game proper.
- Nobody is lying when they say that the excelsior takes a very high degree of skill simply to use in combat. Its high skill ceiling comes at the cost of a high skill floor. Even if you're not a fan of mods, I believe the SWP contains a standalone mission wherein you use the excelsior to fight off other "experimental/prototype" frigates in a sun's corona that can be done just to try out how difficult it really is to use. You can use the simulator in the mission refit screen too to try it out in less extreme conditions.
- Following off that, In his topic HELMUT himself does state that those recordings took more than a few tries of practice before he was able to pull it off. So, while someone can eventually save scum his way through it. I would not expect anyone to make use of this in their iron man runs.
- The Excelsior costs about as much as a cruiser to deploy and loses 40% CR from a single combat with the PPT of a frigate. While it was possible to solo lower armored battlestations, its not likely that the same could be done to a moderately sized, more mobile fleet in the time required, and while you do get a fair amount of power from it, a cruiser can give you about as much as well as the ability to take a good hit or two while being much easier to reach its nominal DP effectiveness.
Now, about the general mod balance. While it is true that the general ship and fleet balance is well reigned in, I cannot agree with regards to the campaign and economic layer. In this aspect almost every faction is overtuned with a couple outliers being wildly overpowered.
For reference, my faction mod list includes:
- Blackrock Drive Yards
- Dassault-Mikoyan Engineering
- Diable Avionics
- Interstellar Imperium
- Junk Pirates (includes ASP, PACK, and Junk Pirates)
- Neutrino
- ORA
- SCY Nation
- Shadowyards Reconstruction Authority
- Sylphon RnD
- Tyrador Safeguard Coalition
Now, my brief glance over what each of these faction have is by no means extensive, I mostly just cruised over some planets and looked in their markets as well as running through the global list to look for nanoforges and synchrotrons. I discovered however that mods have a major issue with pristine nanoforge spam.
Of the mods I had listed above Only Tyrador, Sylphon, ORA, PACK, and Junk Pirates do not have a pristine nanoforge. This means out of 13 factions, 8 of them have a pristine nanoforge(with DME possessing 2). In contrast, 2 out of vanilla's 6 factions (8 if including pathers and pirates) have a pristine nanoforge on their worlds. This tilts things out of vanilla's favor with regards to simulated combat due to D-mods having a hand in the combat calculations, so the mod factions will be more likely to win their fights over time, which matters more with Nexerelin. It also makes things more difficult for a player that's building up his colonies as their raids will contain stronger ships with no cost to their officer power or quantity due to not requiring doctrine to cover the gap in quality for no d-mods.
In terms of corrupted nanoforge, the coalition, ORA (has 2), DME, and Shadowyards each have one. Some mods also add a corrupted nanoforge for the pirates as well. In contrast with vanilla, nanoforges belong to any faction that does not have a pristine forge (excepting pathers/pirates though pirates do have an orbital works). The other factions don't need a corrupted forge since they're (ab)using pristine nanoforges.
Surprisingly though, Sylphon doesn't have any forges even though as far as I know, it's an established faction. Meanwhile, PACK and Junk Pirates keep the trend of pirates not having any forges.
Meanwhile, synchrotrons, which don't affect ships at all, is kept much more reigned in with only Diable Avionics and Imperium(On the independent world, Traian) adding one.
AIs are something that are either not touched, or implemented with what seems to be wild abandon. As far as I saw Sylphon RnD was the tamest with its AI usage using a total of 5 alphas, 7 betas, and 7 gamma cores in its markets. DA goes a bit gamma happy using 4 alphas, 2 betas, and 22 gammas in its faction markets. Imperium is the most market damaging with its cores with its usage of 15 Alpha cores(3 as admins).
Lastly, as far as I could tell, Interstellar Imperium was the only faction in my list that made use of the Planetary Shield generator by having it on its homeworld (with alpha core). This basically makes it immune to most anything unless you happen to be using the shield generator changes mod.
As you can see from above, many mods do have an issue with being overtuned at the very least on the campaign layer with a few more having issues with regards to AI usage in the marketplace. I do request that most of the mods that make use of a pristine forge to downgrade to a corrupted forge to better match vanilla sensibilities.
As an aside, I've noticed when playing with mods that I haven't really done any exploration at all. It makes sense then after learning about this from a friend as it turns out I was able to simply raid for everything that I've needed rather then needing to go out to the fringes for the rare and powerful equipment when I can guarantee what I need in the sector with a few marines.
PS. Simply ignoring parts of a mod that could be OP (such as IBB) isn't a great answer if the person playing was a min-maxer as if something OP exists or is perceived to exist then they will use it or perform it regardless of how boring or how much real world time cost there is to doing it. There's a reason Alex is wary about such things and frequently goes on to quote that "players will optimize fun out of a game, if given the chance" from the article. Sure, that might not affect you or many others, but ignoring that issue would mean that there will be a very decent size group that will not be able to have fun playing the game, which could lead to their non min-maxing friends not playing either on their recommendation. To a min-maxer the act of being sub-optimal intentionally is unenjoyable.
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@ SapphireSage: Player does not need mods to get most he needs from raiding. He can already get a good set from raiding New Maxios alone. Asher in Gilead is nearby and is often left unprotected. Both have corrupted nanoforge. Good to grab few things the Church has that Independents do not. Then there is Rasevalg in Valhalla. Sometimes guarded, sometimes not. One of two places to get (XIV) blueprints. The tricky one is Culann, with lots of exclusive blueprints, but often heavily guarded. I now bring a pure phase fleet to sneak past Tri-Tachyon patrols and raid for those exclusive blueprints!
However, there is a price to pay for raiding instead of exploring early. The price is you often get junk common blueprints for things normally found in a pack. If you get sick of seeing blueprints for Harpoon racks, Lashers, and Hammerheads, then either you save-scum like crazy until rare stuff drops or explore and find those packs first then raid when only rare stuff is left. This is important for things only found at heavily guarded worlds like Culann or worlds with stability problems like K. Starworks.
Pirates have Heavy Industry (I do not remember if they have nanoforge), but Pathers do not (no way to raid for Prometheus 2).
About mods...
Unless most ship hulls were radically changed since late 0.7.2 or early 0.8, about half of the Blackrock hulls are mildly overpowered for being green high-tech ships that can use ballistics. NPCs are supposed to be balanced by using their faction weapons that are generally somewhat worse alternatives of standard weapons, but player can mount standard weapons instead and have stronger ships. The others, I have not played recently.
I have no problem with mod factions having their pristine nanoforge. After all, player will probably find at least one in the sector. Ditto for synchrotron.
As for cores, if they are not perma-hostile with Hegemony, they should not have cores at all. The only standard faction that uses cores is Tri-Tachyon, and you see a human for the portrait (but Pathers do not lie).
PS. Simply ignoring parts of a mod that could be OP (such as IBB) isn't a great answer if the person playing was a min-maxer as if something OP exists or is perceived to exist then they will use it or perform it regardless of how boring or how much real world time cost there is to doing it. There's a reason Alex is wary about such things and frequently goes on to quote that "players will optimize fun out of a game, if given the chance" from the article. Sure, that might not affect you or many others, but ignoring that issue would mean that there will be a very decent size group that will not be able to have fun playing the game, which could lead to their non min-maxing friends not playing either on their recommendation. To a min-maxer the act of being sub-optimal intentionally is unenjoyable.
I am an unapologetic classic example of that "min-maxer", and will optimize the fun out of the game. The power of power compels!
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While I would like to argue that the faction mods are in-fact well balanced; however, I'm going to take the side that disagrees with it but more on that in a bit.
While your in depth analysis is nice, your main point is irrelevant. The only mod discussed is SWP for added variety.
In fact the only other comment I found who alluded to other faction mods agree with you.
You're just wrong. The starsector modding scene is WAY more advanced than you seem to think. The linked S&W pack is considered vanilla balanced. MANY MANY MANY mods are considered to be NOT balanced, but tons of people have posted about it. Things like borken/neutrino are seen in some ways as "boss factions" now that knight's aren't a choice anymore. Additionally things like DME/DA/shadowyard/brdy are seen as a bit overpowered (at least imo, others might disagree). Sometimes mod factions are seen as potentially underpowered, but also they're sometimes underpowered on purpose (junk/pack/kadur).
The OP as made baseless accusation about the balance and the receptivity of people involved in the SWP, which understandably can annoy people that worked a lot to read/analyse/implement/test it. The general established point, that is a close to objective as possible, is that installing the SWP add a lot of "personality" to different faction at no cost to balance. I would add that it is also extremely stable and therefore a perfect solution to spice up the sector.
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The main issue of balance with SWP, and it is unavoidable, is the "perfect tool" syndrome. Because it adds a lot of ships in roles that vanilla lacks - and because those ships are competitive, balanced options - a player with SWP can more often find the 'perfect' ship for whatever job they need done, rather than having to settle for the closest approximation. The net effect is that with SWP a player can have a more powerful fleet, if they are willing to hunt around and fine tune.
This isn't anything unique to SWP, and it can't be helped: any mod that adds lots of balanced options will cause the same thing.
The minor issue with all mod balance is that they are constantly being refined and tuned, and their balance target (the base game) changes every version. So yes, there probably ARE unbalanced aspects of every mod. However, if you find some and give a reasonable post about them, the authors are usually very happy to make a change and bring things in line. (And luckily no one has copied the new Assault Chaingun as a balance point.... yet. :D)
All that said, I have noticed a trend towards power creep lately in the modding community. Not in factions that are designed to be vanilla balanced, but in 'boss' factions, unique vanilla+ ships, etc that has then encouraged the NOT vanilla balanced factions to up their numbers.
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The main issue of balance with SWP, and it is unavoidable, is the "perfect tool" syndrome. Because it adds a lot of ships in roles that vanilla lacks - and because those ships are competitive, balanced options - a player with SWP can more often find the 'perfect' ship for whatever job they need done, rather than having to settle for the closest approximation. The net effect is that with SWP a player can have a more powerful fleet, if they are willing to hunt around and fine tune.
This is something I recently realized about a mod I made for another game, and in the middle of updating it, I am considering culling out the less interesting stuff. For example, that blue laser weapon can go, but the flashy and unusual rainbow laser may stay.
And yes, having more "balanced" gap fillers can increase power level a bit.
Another possible problem with more perfect tools is they can dilute the item pool if much of the loot is randomly generated. It can be a problem if it becomes harder to acquire basic, workhorse items.
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The main issue of balance with SWP, and it is unavoidable, is the "perfect tool" syndrome. Because it adds a lot of ships in roles that vanilla lacks - and because those ships are competitive, balanced options - a player with SWP can more often find the 'perfect' ship for whatever job they need done, rather than having to settle for the closest approximation. The net effect is that with SWP a player can have a more powerful fleet, if they are willing to hunt around and fine tune.
This isn't anything unique to SWP, and it can't be helped: any mod that adds lots of balanced options will cause the same thing.
The minor issue with all mod balance is that they are constantly being refined and tuned, and their balance target (the base game) changes every version. So yes, there probably ARE unbalanced aspects of every mod. However, if you find some and give a reasonable post about them, the authors are usually very happy to make a change and bring things in line. (And luckily no one has copied the new Assault Chaingun as a balance point.... yet. :D)
All that said, I have noticed a trend towards power creep lately in the modding community. Not in factions that are designed to be vanilla balanced, but in 'boss' factions, unique vanilla+ ships, etc that has then encouraged the NOT vanilla balanced factions to up their numbers.
I'm pretty sure that is the goal/ point of many mods: To fill in gaps in ship roles that vanilla misses. Otherwise you get multiple flavors of the same ship or weapon.