Hello! I'm the person you reccomended your mod from reddit. Although I haven't thoroughly played the mod yet, I wanted to share my thoughts so far.
First of all, I must admit, I really underestimated this mod. The forum post only shows a lot of ships that are just straight-up pallete swaps of vanilla ships, which gave me a really bad impression. But I'm glad to know that playing the mod, I can say that there were plenty of original cool ship designs. And the mod is so much more than that, too. But I really gotta say, you should showcase a bit more of the mod, be it with some more images or a video. That single image doesn't do it justice. Many people like me are gonna see this mod, and click away because it didnt seem unique. (I will admit I checked this mod out prior twice too).
I still haven't finished the story yet, I'm currently at the quest where I had to go to the black hole in the abyss, but if I had to guess, I'm really close to the end. I like the ambition of the mod and the number of boss fights, but both boss fights against that megalomaniac dude were a complete joke. Like, it didn't take me more than 10 seconds to defeat the flagship. But I'm not complaining, because it is comically fitting, considering how pathetic this dude actually is. The boss in the blackhole system was actually quite tough though.
For the story and characters, I was really surprised at the length and detail. It's not just simply 'take a tough bounty and claim ship', it really did feel like a storyline of its own, rather than a means of getting to another point. While I'm not an avid reader, I'm enjoying myself so far, and I like the old man that you meet in the fight against the four OMEGA Doritos. It was really cool how you meet him in the invasion quest again, feels like an old comrade joining you to repay a favor. Overall, great storyline so far.
(On a side note, I don't know if this is a bug or not, but the boss fights drop an absolutely ridiculous amount of supplies, metals, machinery and credits. I don't know if its cause it scales with my fleet's cargo capacity, which was 100k, but I literally got 18k supplies, 4k heavy machinery, 40k metals and 1m credits from the battle salvage.)
I haven't tested much of the ships yet, except for the extremely early game, when I bought the ship that's similar to the Aurora, trying to fit a classic safety overrides build. I must say it was miserable--- The shields were okay, but as soon as a Kite so much as sneezed on my general direction, the ship would blow up. It is so incredibly fragile. And I'm guessing this is kind of a trend for most of the other ships, too. Still, about 4k hull on a cruiser... damn.
Asides from that, the ship with the super laser capable of obliterating everything is super broken. But there's so many ridiculous drawbacks to it, that I consider it balanced in the end, and I wouldnt judge any player for using it. If anything, I'd praise them for bearing to use something so slow. Didn't try the other ships, but they seem fine and balanced to me, due to their high DP costs.
For the weapons, I am also a huge fan of lightning and fast but heavy hitting projectiles, but I must say that there are two weapons that stood out to me. First, the Lightning Projector. It's way too busted. It's literally on the same tier as the OMEGA Weapon that launches those red EMP arcs, and for cheaper DP, and it also deals actual damage. The fact that it can penetrate shields and arc to engines makes literally any 1v1 a joke.
The other weapon is one of the story weapons you get. I'm bad remembering names, but it's the one that fires a mote that destroys the enemy's hull and armor over time. This thing is far more overpowered, because it pierces shields, and the enemy can't do anything about it. Once they get hit by the projectile, they WILL die. The other story weapons are also very strong, but this one is just unfair. I really suggest you tone it down the effects of shield-piercing weapons so that they're only 1/4th as effective if they pierced shields, or make them work similar to a tachyon lance (pierce only happens at high flux).
Lastly, the hullmods seem ridiculously powerful... But in particular, the Logistics mod that decreases the DP cost is the kind of delicate effect that can really break the game's balance. I personally really discourage this kind of thing, because you can put it in literally any ship. One suggestion is to make it cost much twice the OP, and to add drawbacks to it that reduces the ship's damage/resistance/etc. That way, the hullmod won't be as strong, but still very useful for carriers who don't engage in battle directly, or ships that fit a very specific niche (Like Omens, Monitors, Afflictors).
Overall, this mod is really great, and I can't wait to play more with it. Definitely a mod I'm including in all my future playthroughs. It's earned its place among my top ones, like the UAF and Lost Sector. Thank you for the reccomendation! I really have found gold in what I thought was a copper vein.
