Why do you nerf maintenance buff from 45% to 25%? This is not acceptable. You call that balance? No, it's total destruction of late game.
Atlas with SMod Expanded Cargo exists do you know that? How are you having supplies problem anyway? Unless you are playing with stupid mods that added stupid ships with stupid maintenance cost then that is on you.
Agreed.
I'm perplexed by the assertion it screws balance of
late game.
Vanilla you've got Makeshift Equipment giving you 50% reduction with a cap of 100 units total, and Derelict Operations, giving you a theoretical 33% reduction with no cap if all of your ships have 5 d-mods. Quality Captains gives you the same benefits on Derelict Operations but instead in the Jury Rigging skill, and a 25% reduction with no cap with Field Repairs skill.
The two versions will produce equal supply maintenance savings at 400 maintenance worth of ships, and Quality Captains version will provide superior maintenance reduction beyond that. I don't know what your "late-game" is, but just 10 combat capitals is more than 400 maintenance, and most fleets of 20 combat cruisers would exceed 400 supply. Unless late game for you is flying around with 30 frigates, Quality Captain's skill variants provide more maintenance savings than vanilla.
I'd argue it would actually be pretty unbalanced to layer 45% off with a pre-nerf Field Repairs, plus 33% off with Derelict Operations, plus 30% off with s-modded Efficiency Overall, and maybe even plus 15/30/45/60/75/90% off with s-modded Converted Fighter bays. Taking a 6-bay ship like the Carter Freetraders Bolster and stacking all those discounts together, you've got a 50 supply capital ship operating for just 1.25 supply...how is that not extremely unbalanced?