Feedback: Hey I started my current nexerelin play-through with an HMI commission with the intent of being an outer-rim miner starting out to get my initial funds. I've spent my early game playing, mining and trading in HMI territory and surrounding uncharted worlds. I've found that the way you've set up the industries and sizes of HMI's markets make this playstyle nonviable and also results in the HMI faction breaking the rules the other factions and the player plays by, resulting in the territory feeling artificial.
1: There's nowhere to sell ore, the fact the fuyutsuki market supplies a large quantity of ore and volatiles, rather than demanding it means that the sell prices on fuyutsuki are extremely depressed, if this is a place where resources are collected for distribution to the core, it doesn't feel like it considering no miner worth their salt would sell to fuyutsuki. In essence this results in HMI pulling it's resources out of it's butt, whereas other factions supply their rocks and volatiles from mining worlds and have refining/industry worlds that actually demand ore. It makes a lot more sense to mine for tri-tachyon or the diktat rather than the dedicated mining faction as it stands.
Suggestion: replace the special market with a refining industry (which demands ore) and add a couple normal mining colonies to "feed" the refineries as well as to be the source of HMI's mineral market-share (the same way it works for other factions). Cracking open rocks on high HAZARD rough-and-tumble mining worlds should be HMI's speciality, as it stands they don't even have any regular mining operations aside from Galena, which doesn't even export anything because it's accessibility modifier prevents it from getting any ore offworld! I'd also downgrade the High Command to a Military Base, it doesn't make much sense for a rough frontier world that hasn't kicked its rivals out of their home system to have the same military capacity as the brightest core worlds, especially when it has so few colonies to support with it. (i've done much of this in my own save via config).
If you wanted to keep the market, restyle it as a "miner's exchange" give it a demand for mining products that's greater than the refinery and outstrips the planets import limit, meaning there'll be a "shortage" of ore (even though the refinery is supplied and running smoothly). Meaning "there's always a good price for ore on fuyutsuki." The fact that it's not *actually* supplying ore for the rest of the sector doesn't matter, that supply can be met by actual mining colonies same as everywhere else, this exception for fuyutsuki could be explained as corporate subsidies/bounties/incentives paid by HMI to attract the best independent miners and undercut competition. And further, makes the mining faction the best faction to sell ore to.
2: Colonies are way too small and don't export their goods. The Distant Polity modifier is handy as it prevents the worlds from decivilizing due to the hostile mobs present in their systems, but it feels artificial(especially when you found your own colony in the same system or next door) and prevents these worlds from exporting anything. And also break the rules if the player invades them and takes control of the world for themself.
Suggestion: Remove the modifier and give these worlds stability buffing buildings and administrators with both the fleet logistics and ground operations skills, these combined with the accessibility buff from the aforementioned mining colonies will keep them from decivilizing, and make it so they can actually supply other HMI colonies. The fact that they're "distant" is already represented by accessibility stat being weighted by the number of nearby worlds.
Further, up their population a bit. Size 3=Less than 10,000 people. That's lower than the population of the small mining town I grew up in, on a whole planet! It drastically limits the faction's ability to supply itself (despite having 2 fuel-production facilities, neither meets the faction's fuel needs due to accessibility and the low population). This will also allow you to give the faction a light industry and more military bases(all HMI worlds are importing consumer/luxury goods from out of factions, despite running an orbital works!). For instance In my game, i set Samiel to size 4 (10's of thousands sounds appropriate for a haunted world) and added a light industry to make use of the organics extracted there, as it stood, the world didn't make much sense for HMI to be exploiting it at all.
I love the flavor of the mod, the weapons and ships mesh excellently with the rest of the game, but as it stands the faction itself is stilted compared to the other factions in the Sector.
Also, use a simplified logo for the in-game flag, the text typically isn't legible on the UI interfaces, it clashes with the other faction's designs and violates just about every rule of vexillology
https://nava.org/good-flag-bad-flag/. Remove the big letters and replace the small letters with a white line. 3 colors+2 shapes-text=beautiful flag.
Criticism dump done (I really do love the mod, honest!)