and have some questions that clarity would help me address them better:
Sorry for the slow reply, was away from stable internet and starsector.
Well that was a compromise I made when I increased the D-mods their recovered ships took. You may have a point though in that they may be too high since I looked at them as individual loot and not as a whole as you point out. I'll review them for the upcoming update. As a side note, I have made an alternate weapons file that is optional that players can overwrite the base one that will make the weapons unsalvageable.
D-mods are barely a debuff at this point, and when you grab that skill that reduced DP of Dmodded ships - turns into a straight up buff, so I'm not sure it's the right way of compensating. Maybe a better balance for strong ships would be something like a hullmod in bioships that just makes ship less likely recoverable, like reinforced bulkheads but with negative number. I think other mods have these, like (I think) Second Wave options salvage chance hullmod.
But in general I feel like unsalvagable weapons are a lot less interesting way to approach balancing. Endgame enemy is good, but new toys is also good.
Weapons just should be hard to field in other ways. If it's something like giant damage of Templar guns - have them very flux-inefficient. Or if it's one of bugs' <0.7flux/dmg energy guns - make them obscenely OP-expensive. Now (or at least at 1.0, didn't with play the latest patch just yet) some guns are sane, like that buffed up 700 units ranged green IR laser with 1.3 flux/dmg, if maybe a bit too OP-cheap. But others are ridiculously powerful. Rising their OP cost
a lot, like twice or more would be an easy place to start. It wouldn't affect hivers, as their ships already have more OP than they can shake a stick at, but maybe would allow players to find niche use for them, without making literally every vanilla weapon obsolete in comparison.
Well as a swarming race I felt that carriers should be the backbone of their fleets. It is also a trait shared by the Hivers of SWOTS but also is high armor and tanky ships. Perhaps I went overboard in trying to keep in lore with Kerebos's ship design and it needs a revisit. I am interested in your opinion on how to keep them a relevant threat if their armor and HP were reduced but also manageable to an extent for the player to fight against.
It's gonna be a big poorly structured IMO, but hivers sound like something relying on numerous heavy fighter drones that stay in a fight, hit hard, and are more heavily armored than vanilla fighters. You should have to invest heavily into PD, but at the same time if most of your weapons are dual use PD, and every ship has a integrated PD hullmod, fighters shouldn't be a problem, and you should be killed by bug cannons instead.
The biggest dissonance I'm getting from some hivers fighters right now, is that instead of staying in the fight and hammering at your unshielded sides, they frontload fat alphas of missiles like vanilla bombers, while also bringing destroyer-level armour. Like pick one, bro.
So instead of having bomber-like role, they should fly in, and fly around the target ship while spoon feeding dmg from pulse lasers and light phase lance sort of weapons. Devastating to unshielded and uncovered ass of low tech ships, and punishing high tech ships with no armour, makes you disengage until you get the fighters off you.
Maybe increase replacement time a bit to give some breezing room, especially for something as big and scary as scorpyfly.
If fighters are carrying missiles with limited ammo, have them fire them with few seconds cooldown, to give the player a chance to defend, and have the feeling of being swarmed by scary fighters instead of bombers just unloading and leaving.
Also more of a preference, but I'd prob not give them shields, as you often have to manually clap them with main cannons, and it's a lot more satisfying to see them explode and have a moment of rest while they deploy a replacement, than see one eating a salvo and continue biting your knees 2 seconds later. Not difficulty or balance wise, just the feeling.
Also, and I have no idea if it even can be implemented, it would be cool to give anti-fighter fighters more of a role. Like instead of just needing PD, also have a need for defensive fighters. But it's tricky because hiver fighters are already tanky to stay in fight under heavy PD, and defensive fighters usually have peashooters. Idk, maybe have some fighters with long range guns but less armour, that would be more vulnerable to fighters, but less so to PD? Or some code trickery like increased damage taken from fighters/reduced damage dealt to fighters? Skills modify that for your own fighters, so maybe there's a way.
No complaint taken, I appreciate constructive criticism. I see many comments on discord that are just trollish in nature and I do sometimes pick up an idea from them but it is comments such as yours that are well reasoned and thought out that are truly helpful.
Yeah, well, hiver balance is sort of a meme there. But you can't expect a wall-of-text criticism in discord, instant chats just don't do that very well, so nobody's even trying.
