I hate that LG default hullmod is a straight downside. It throws all nuance away (and makes it look like the game has a political stance, which i don't remember Starsector ever doing, all other factions just suck equally) and makes LG ships basically just ships with irremovable Solar Shielding and a paint job, which just isn't fun. I had an idea in a similar thread before to turn it into more of a tradeoff than a straight downside.
I would much rather have the Diktat D-mod turn into something similar to 17th.
Yes, sure, flux vents got worse and the ship overheats easier, but covering hot pipes does help with crew survivability, and extra metal in corridors does make the ship more resistant against shrapnel.
(same flux stats, but -10% crew casualties, and +5% hull)
Having lived under a dictatorship long enough I can confirm that they love to stick their nose where they didn't belong. Even so I still dislike how the LG ships are designed, I rather have them be awesome but impractical than straight up inferior than the default models, having them offer an interesting alternative that needs some careful workaround will be better. Because even without the Andrada Mods
TM and the reduced OP count, having midline ships rely heavily on energy weapons like high tech ships is already suboptimal.
I agree with this design of Special Modifications, we can essentially make it work like a worse version of blast doors, reduces crew casualties by a small amount and hull damage taken by a small amount, at the cost of increased CR degradation rate on top of reduced flux dissipation as well as repair rate.
For the OP discount due to solar shielding, I say we should either get rid of it or make it so that applying a SP to it increases the OP count of the ship (I believe Progressive S Mods or some other mods already has done it). I am more inclined to pick the former, because when you consider that Pirates can either make their ships more expensive but better, worse but cheaper, or basically remain the same; the Pathers can install SO at the cost of Ill Advised but not lose any OP, yet all the Sindrians can do is to gain a hullmod while loosing OP AND getting a D mod.
Then, we have the Energy Bolt Coherer. This is even more bizarre because on LG ships it increases casualties in combat by a whooping 50%. At this point I don't understand Mr. Andrada at all - apparently he cares so much about his "brave and loyal crew" that he directly meddles in spaceship design, but also apparently has no qualms about putting said crew at massive risk by using dangerous piece of technology on ALL his ships. Which one is it?
Well, maybe Special Modifications were made to counteract the effects of the Energy Bolt Coherer in the first place. But there's still no reason for them to increase casualties instead.