Hello there, thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. I am currently working on an update for Hiver Swarm so your post is very timely.
Balance is wack as all hell. Ships are very strong (and surprisingly easily recoverable for how strong they are), but weapons are just stupidly broken.
As to their ship recovery, that has also been an ongoing struggle between the players that do not want them recoverable at all and the players who want trophies for their hard work. As a balance, I made them explode on death and their salvaged ships usually 3 to 4 d-mods making them wrecks. I have been thinking of making a separate download to flag them unrecoverable like Remnant ships for players that do not want them but I have held off since I figured if a player did not want them, they could just opt to scrap them. It will delay the patch but I can add a separate ships.csv download that would make them unrecoverable, assuming I understand your comment correctly. Some clarity on that point would be appreciated.
Like large energy weapon that's cheaper to mount than plasma cannon, longer range than plasma cannon, and more than 4 (!) times more flux efficient than plasma cannon at 0.3 flux per dmg. What? 
It is hard to judge them comparing their tech to vanilla or most mod faction tech. In earlier versions of the mod I had them toned down but they just got destroyed by an entire NPC sector going after them and the player had little chance to interact with them. I have steadily increased both their tech as well as their aggression over the course of the mod. Their weapons are OP on purpose so they can not only just hold their own but steadily take over the sector if left unchecked. As stated earlier regarding ship recovery, I felt that if a player did not want to use the recovered weapons, they can opt to sell them or toss them out the airlock. I am unsure if I can make a patch that makes them unrecoverable but I will look into it.
And it's meant to be mid game boss faction? With weapons times stronger than end game Doritos tech??
I call them a mid-game threat because a player can ignore them up to a point. Typically by mid-game players have a planet fully colonized, a strong fleet with capitals and some backup ships stored on their planet. At that stage when you can afford to loose a fleet, I felt the game was lacking in threats from mid to end game.
Doritos tech, nice I like that.
Well the thing is by having the entire sector their enemies, that includes the Remnant. One of things I noted in earlier versions was that their fleets were being decimated by Remnant before they even got to the core. It still makes their colony fleets pretty much a moot point because the game forces a weak fleet for that purpose and they are easily sniped.
And then these weapons are also like 10 times more expensive than vanilla guns, and can be found in random salvage all over the system without even meeting a bug fleet. Or purchased together with bug ships at any of countless bug-invaded planets in core systems.
I made them so expensive as a trophy to sell for players who lost so much defeating one of the fleets as a way of compensation and reward. You are correct that when NPC fleets fight them, there is loose salvage flying all around to be picked up. I am unsure but if I make their ships unrecoverable, I believe that would eliminate or at least reduce the amount of after battle salvage floating round. I cannot say if that is the case though until I do some testing.
You have to actively avoid using this easily accessible and crazily OP tech that has zero drawbacks, otherwise literally every other fight in game is a cakewalk. And if you fight bugs without using their tech - they are ridiculously hard to fight.
In the patch I am working on I have decided to increase their fleet point strength and deployment costs in order to lower their ability to field overlarge fleet deployments. That should make fighting them more manageable and reduce their fleet sizes and thus the amount of recoverable tech.
I'll compare it to Templars, for example. They are also way stronger than vanilla ships, and are meant to be sort of end game threat, but
1) they have counters that let you prepare to fight them specifically
2) their tech and ships are a lot harder to recover, and doesn't lie around abandoned mining stations
3) their tech is at least somewhat balanced against vanilla - ships cost a lot more DP to field, and weapons are extremely flux hungry, especially on vanilla ships.
Getting Templar gear is hard, it gives a huge advantage and feels strong, but it doesn't feel like typing "nuke" in console and autowinning every encounter.
Oh how I miss The Knights Templar as a mod, fond memories. Dark Revenant is a much more skilled coder than I am and it has not been updated for years but I'll see if I can still d/l it and look over the code for clues.
I like the concept, but with this balance it's in such a weird place that it throws the rest of game's balance out of the window.
Well that is sort of the point of the mod. I would not recommend installing them with no other player made faction mods to help keep them in check, they will destroy vanilla factions. I will add that to the forum OP as a disclaimer.
You have given me much to think about but I am a bit sleepy atm and heading off to bed so I apologize if I have not properly addressed your comments. I will do some research in the coming days and see how I can best address your concerns while keeping them a viable threat that the entire sector is gunning for. Any clarity or further opinions based on my replies would be appreciated. Thank you for taking the time and making the effort to share your opinions.
