Since I have been playing with this mod for some time, I might as well provide some feedback as well here. As someone that likes trading and hauling random items around, the various Carter ships fulfill that need of a cruiser hull with a lot of cargo, but some carrier abilities/salvage. They make the faction interesting to raid, since most regular factions use merchant ships that are very easy to destroy.
I do think that because you have a lot of content in your mods, Dazc, it is very hard for you to balance them. For example, one of the Carter combat hauleers, has 2000 cargo capacity, 2300+ with cargo expansion, for a cruiser. I would rather not drag around an atlas as it slows me down and is a big phat target, but an atlas also has 2000. So essentially Cartre line is like super cargo ships that can also do carrier and other stuff. Now I still have a use for an atlas, I detach it and send it back to base carrying cargo. But otherwise, Carter's ships are far vaster in superiority there. That is good if cargo is what I needed plus some othre salvage/fighting ability, but it is also imbalanced in its own fashion. I do love mods that change up less known areas of the game, such as the Dinosaur earth mod that makes a serpentine ship, or ED shipyards that has a steam cargo freighter train that is also moving like a serpentine snake. These add unique experiences to playing as a pirate/independent/raider.
Numbers wise, 1500 or 1700 cargo for that cruiser ship would be closer to the limits on other ships in starsector. Too much easily accessible cargo ships that are fast and shielded, makes certain aspects of the game too easy. And I only use like 1-2 of those ships and they tend to push out mules and other ships, since they are much more slot efficient. I don't like adding hull mods and changing them up every time I need to do an expedition, so even though hull mod customization can address this issue, I don't think modifying my ships for more cargo is "fun" so to speak. Just storing ships and picking them up if I need cargo is more than eneough micro tedium already. Having one or two cargo combat haulers ine Carter's faction really helps me avoid the tedium.
Even though I know the cargo value is too high, especially when it is shielded. As an explorer that likes eto pick up random stuff all the time and carry it with me like a nomad, your capitals are also quite convenient. Imbalanced, but convenient. It is kind of like having freee industrial skill points.
How can this be balanced? The burn rating can be set to 7, requiring story points or 24 ordinance to get the highere burn mod in. That would nearly cripple the combat defenses of the ship. Or like thee ED ship yards +2 great drive stabilizer fuelcarrier, you can increase th emaintenance to a verey large number to make up for the fact that we can carry thousands of supplies with ease. And the salvage gantry makes it back anyways.
Star sector's logistics focused hull mods are not very diveres or customized. With Nexerelin increasing wrecked ships found due to random combat and othere mods that bring mining here to space asteroids, increased cargo is verey useful for gameplay. But I really feel that there is a way to make a special mod for these ships that allows them to consume organics and ore to "make stuff" every month. I got this idea from another mod with an organic ship that made more ships out of organics. This would not blow up the cargo space we use for exploration and smuggling by all that much, but it would make it convenient to make use of organics and other stuff to "craft" items that we do need. LIke maybe nanite paste or distraction beacon consumables. That way I am not micromanaging the hullmods, and my excess cargo items I don't need to find a station to sell, I can just sorta exist perpeteually in space, like a cargo nomad.
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Topic: [0.97a] Carter's Freetraders - V 2.3 - 09/12/24 - Even more balancing (Read 217378 times)