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[Madskills]

From the OP:

Why don't mods routinely give more and better officers to the hostiles?

Not within the scope of faction or content packs, unless this is in reference to whatever specific factions are being added

Why don't they send hired assassins after me to reclaim the [redacted] bit of tech that I stole?

Not within the scope of faction or content packs, though there's at least 1 mod where their faction officials will confront you over even possessing their faction equipment (the name of said faction eludes me).  Vanilla can have the Diktat send some people to try to take the Ziggurat, not quite the same thing as it's quest-related.  One Megamod, Nexerelin, introduces Revenge Fleets that are stronger than average and exist solely to try to kill you if you pick on a hostile faction too much.  Another Megamod, Vayra's Sector can have factions put bounties on your head for doing similar things.

Why don't they routinely make my life harder by raiding my colonies all the time?

In the beginning, Pirate raids and Pather sabotage were powerful and plentiful.  This had made a lot of people very angry and had been widely regarded as a bad move.

I agree that my OP suggestions to the problem are just bad. But the problem is absolutely there. However, over the course of the thread we came with better ideas like making military tech harder to access and the idea of making factions suspicious if you're using their tech without their approval.

[Madskills]

Nine-tenths of mod factions are specifically designed as, and balanced to be, just another polity operating in the Sector. It would be very strange if those factions made you jump through hoops to access their gear that Tri-Tachyon doesn't.

The problem is definitely present in vanilla too. But as was said before, the more factions you have, the more obvious it becomes. Vanilla does not have that much tech to be gated behind things. But after installing 1-2 normal-sized faction mods, the market does get over-populated with cheap stuff you don't even need. So in my opinion, the vanilla progression system is not perfect, but that'll do for vanilla itself. But as amount of added content grows, the way player accesses it, needs to be changed too to avoid bloating.

The factions that aren't "just one of the boys" like Templars and Blade Breakers (to name two well-known cases)? Those indeed have specific rules for acquiring their stuff, for this very reason!

None of them are updated to the current starsection version. Since I jumped on the bandwagon this version, I can't even try them.

[Retry]

I agree that my OP suggestions to the problem are just bad. But the problem is absolutely there. However, over the course of the thread we came with better ideas like making military tech harder to access and the idea of making factions suspicious if you're using their tech without their approval.

Former has been done very recently through a miscellaneous mod.  Latter's not really done except for specific faction packs, as Vanilla factions don't harass you for that (and it wouldn't be particularly practical to implement as most of the vanilla factions share the same pool of technology to a vast extent anyways).

(Neither are within the scope of standard content/faction mods)

[Jaghaimo]

Latter's not really done except for specific faction packs, as Vanilla factions don't harass you for that (and it wouldn't be particularly practical to implement as most of the vanilla factions share the same pool of technology to a vast extent anyways).

(Neither are within the scope of standard content/faction mods)

Fairly easy to achieve code-wise, but tricky to balance. I did consider it for Starpocalypse but decided (for now) with a Scandinavian alcohol solution instead: regulate the purchase but do not make it illegal. What I did consider was:

The faction would harass you for having a ship which you could not buy at any Military Market that could sell it. Since this takes into consideration the faction blueprint pool, it would not cause harassment over common designs provided the player had good enough standing with at least one faction (and for higher tier ships, was commissioned).

It would make life for non-commissioned players difficult. Also, should ignore commissions with pirate / pather (does not matter much, since at this point anyone will harass you anyway). Finally, could take into consideration player-known blueprints.

[Madskills]

Finally, could take into consideration player-known blueprints.

I think this is the most important bit that's left to figure out because it's quite important. In my vision, factions should either harass you for "pirating" their blueprints (unless you legitimately acquired bp's from said faction somehow) or forbid finding some faction-specific BP's altogether. Again, the problem is very clear, I don't want quality of my suggested solutions to undermine its importance.

It would make life for non-commissioned players difficult.

I don't see how this is a problem. If you want to proclaim political independence, you're expected to have enough military force to ensure it.

[Yunru]

I think this is the most important bit that's left to figure out because it's quite important. In my vision, factions should either harass you for "pirating" their blueprints (unless you legitimately acquired bp's from said faction somehow) or forbid finding some faction-specific BP's altogether. Again, the problem is very clear, I don't want quality of my suggested solutions to undermine its importance.

Except none of them are "their" blueprints, they're all just from before the fall that they happened to have access to.

[DownTheDrain]

I think this is the most important bit that's left to figure out because it's quite important. In my vision, factions should either harass you for "pirating" their blueprints (unless you legitimately acquired bp's from said faction somehow) or forbid finding some faction-specific BP's altogether. Again, the problem is very clear, I don't want quality of my suggested solutions to undermine its importance.

Except none of them are "their" blueprints, they're all just from before the fall that they happened to have access to.

By that logic most of the planets and stations the various factions hold aren't theirs either, they just snatched them up when everything went to ***.
I don't think historical accuracy is of any importance for a faction claiming a BP as theirs, all that matters is if they can enforce their claim.

Not that I think this would work particularly well. If I'm fielding enough ships of a type a faction considers theirs to make them go after me I'm probably powerful enough to shrug off whatever they send. Still, it could add some flavor and probably wouldn't ruin the experience for anyone.

[sqrt(-1)]

Vanilla's actual endgame doesn't exist yet, so any mod that attempts to add its own version of an endgame now is going to be in a world of hurt (i.e. redoing everything) when vanilla finally gets around to it.  If it were trivial to make pressing, player-driving endgame content, it wouldn't be such a big deal—but that kind of content is extremely challenging and time-consuming to create.

For reference, I work full time.  I can work on Starsector mods maybe a couple of hours at a time, if I get to it at all on a given day.  So it has taken me well over a month to only get about one third (maybe charitably 2/5) of the way through a full-sized story quest.  Just one quest.  It's not even an endgame quest and doesn't really add meta-level game mechanics; it's just a standard content quest, albeit a large, particularly open-ended and dynamic one.  And I'm hardly what one could call a novice modder.

As a result, it's a matter of extreme impracticality to focus efforts on most types of endgame content.  Doing it anyway, knowing that you're going to have to throw away months of work, is a measure that few are willing to take.

Thanks for your great efforts. I think many people would be happy with a compatibility update of the Ship/Weapon Pack with the quests temporarily disabled.

[CrixM]

IDK I'm pretty sure that with all the mods I have installed pirate encounters are FAR more deadly, even with the garbage filler they still get like spades and sidecars.

[lethargie]

I think this is the most important bit that's left to figure out because it's quite important. In my vision, factions should either harass you for "pirating" their blueprints (unless you legitimately acquired bp's from said faction somehow) or forbid finding some faction-specific BP's altogether. Again, the problem is very clear, I don't want quality of my suggested solutions to undermine its importance.

Except none of them are "their" blueprints, they're all just from before the fall that they happened to have access to.

By that logic most of the planets and stations the various factions hold aren't theirs either, they just snatched them up when everything went to ***.
I don't think historical accuracy is of any importance for a faction claiming a BP as theirs, all that matters is if they can enforce their claim.

Not that I think this would work particularly well. If I'm fielding enough ships of a type a faction considers theirs to make them go after me I'm probably powerful enough to shrug off whatever they send. Still, it could add some flavor and probably wouldn't ruin the experience for anyone.

Except a lot of the ship are not build, they are salvaged. What is the hegemony going to do, shoot every shmuck that drag a hull from fringe space to the core? From what we see in vanilla, the core peace is tenuous as best, corruption is rampant and piracy is everywhere.

[Killian]

I think this is the most important bit that's left to figure out because it's quite important. In my vision, factions should either harass you for "pirating" their blueprints (unless you legitimately acquired bp's from said faction somehow) or forbid finding some faction-specific BP's altogether. Again, the problem is very clear, I don't want quality of my suggested solutions to undermine its importance.

Except none of them are "their" blueprints, they're all just from before the fall that they happened to have access to.

By that logic most of the planets and stations the various factions hold aren't theirs either, they just snatched them up when everything went to ***.
I don't think historical accuracy is of any importance for a faction claiming a BP as theirs, all that matters is if they can enforce their claim.

Not that I think this would work particularly well. If I'm fielding enough ships of a type a faction considers theirs to make them go after me I'm probably powerful enough to shrug off whatever they send. Still, it could add some flavor and probably wouldn't ruin the experience for anyone.

Except a lot of the ship are not build, they are salvaged. What is the hegemony going to do, shoot every shmuck that drag a hull from fringe space to the core? From what we see in vanilla, the core peace is tenuous as best, corruption is rampant and piracy is everywhere.

All it would really lead to is players stashing the mothballed hulls they find in one of the abandoned bases or another safe/neutral location's Storage until they're confident they can ward off the grubby hands of overzealous military/corporate agents trying to "reclaim" "their" property, anyway. Ed: And come to think of it, surely this kind of interaction would lead to constant rep reduction pings, which would just be terrible in general. These prize ships can be enough of a headache to fully outfit early on anyway, so adding another reason that discourages players from experimenting with their new toy feels like a bad idea.

It would be better to make it a positive mechanic- something like AI Cores, where you can "donate" salvaged hulls to factions for a rep/credit boost, based on their condition/outfitting/subtype and such. A generic little shuttle that's half-beat up won't net you much, but if you turn in a pristine XIV Onslaught to Chicomoztoc then the Hegemony will be very grateful. It could also give you a reason to salvage the ships of deserters and haul them back rather than break everything.

[SafariJohn]

That is a cool idea.

[Kenshkrix]

It would be better to make it a positive mechanic- something like AI Cores, where you can "donate" salvaged hulls to factions for a rep/credit boost, based on their condition/outfitting/subtype and such. A generic little shuttle that's half-beat up won't net you much, but if you turn in a pristine XIV Onslaught to Chicomoztoc then the Hegemony will be very grateful. It could also give you a reason to salvage the ships of deserters and haul them back rather than break everything.

This actually sounds like a great mechanic, restoring old wrecks and bringing them back to their respective factions in exchange for some credits and reputation.
It would have to be calibrated accurately, but if it paid just the right amount it would be an interesting addition to the scavenger/salvager playstyle without throwing things out of balance.
A lot more involved than just scrapping everything, but if it paid a similar amount (or perhaps a bit more) then the reputation boost would be worth the hassle earlier on in a campaign.