Well if I had the time or patience to mod I'd certainly be up for making the Hege an ally/vassal or two!
I would love to as well. But sadly, I have a distinct lack of patience when it comes to creating mods. I have tried in the past, with other games and always lose interest before I get to meat of it. I can knock-out a quick custom banner or change stats of NPCs (Warband, for instance). Other than that, I struggle. A short attention span doesn't help whatsoever.
Mind you, I can type out a plethora of ideas in a wall of text, no problem (as I did recently, in helping an indie game, who took plenty of notes on almost everything I wrote!). Swings and roundabouts.
Most mod factions...
...the Sector anyway.
Aye, I know why people do it. I'm somewhat familiar with the lore. I completely understand the motives in doing so. Just as mentioned, when you have practically every mod doing the same thing, fighting against Hegemony, it
does break the game. You could say "Oh, you shouldn't be using so many factions mods" but people
are going to use multiple factions mods. The more, the merrier, right? I would have hundreds, if I could. And a larger map, to accommodate, of course.
As I said, though, it's an aspect that players will have to address, and solve, themselves.
Example: I made Diable Avionics friendly (+50) to Hegemony, seeing as they both have ties to the old domain. One stemmed from it, and the other wants to reclaim in the name of. Figured they could work together.
I also put Scavengers at +25 to most "normal" factions. Don't see why they would be waging war against everybody. I get the impression they are just humble scavs, looking for some salvage and a path in life.
ORA, claims that while they dislike the ideals of the Hegemony, they try to avoid conflict with them if necessary. Yet start at war with them. Changed that to Neutral.
Blackrock, made them Neutral to start. Sure, the lore states they have scuffles, but it's one less for them to deal with straight away.
With my recent changes, Hegemony are now down to 10 enemies. Two allies, Independent at 25 (they come across as a faction who would ally with everybody if they could, just for less hassle) and Diable at 50. The rest are Neutral. Still plenty of opportunity for the RNG to declare war against them, but this
should alleviate some early game team buggery.
Besides, we could all make up our own lore for each faction. Doesn't mean anything. That's the joy of single-player games and why I'm tinkering with it.
Are you using Nexerelin? Without it factions that start the game hostile stay hostile, but in Nex the Hegemony should eventually make peace with most of its enemies at least.
No, I haven't even gotten around to trying it out yet. I'll have to at some point, though.
I remember having a short rant on this in Discord a month ago. My lines, others' removed:
To be honest, I didn't really notice how anti-Hegemony the mods were until I put them all together (ones that work with the current version, at least), then played for a decent amount of time, to see the utter decimation of practically every fleet and planet.
Personally, I love the Hegemony. Always have done. Not only because of their strength and unity, but also due to designs of the ships themselves (a factor that often dictates how I react toward a faction in the first place, and whether I will use them myself or as experience fodder). Conquest XIV is my absolute favourite. Gives me a space boner.
It would be nice to see some love for them at some point. Even a small supporting faction, could help balance-out the rest of the mods a little.