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[Megas]

Invictus is nearly as big as the Derelict mothership.

While we still have the two dead-in-the-water versions acting as bosses, perhaps a more functional and slightly modified version can be encountered in Derelict bounties alongside or replacing the Guardian.  Maybe the mothership could be recovered (and changed in the background like with Ziggurat with and without purple motes).

The redesigned mothership could share similarities to Invictus with Ablative Armor and high health.  It loses the modules and whatever modules the ship had become a normal part of the ship like any other ship.

The mothership builds new drones in the field, so it ought to be a carrier.  The bays should be builtin.  As for the fighters, have slightly smaller copies of the smaller Derelict frigates like Pickets for fighters and Sentries for bombers, though perhaps with two mounts instead of three, and one drone per bay.

Mounts on the mothership could be more or less the same, maybe Targeting Supercomputer can be downgraded to Advanced Targeting Core for a recurring enemy and/or playable version.

[Ivan Fullbright]

Under the hood, stations like the mothership are just ships with Axial Rotation, Vast Bulk etc., right? I wonder what it'd be like to fight against if it could move, but was otherwise identical to the station variant with the destructible modules and the like.

I like the version you're suggesting more, though, especially since it could actually work for player use. It'd be a better armor/hull tank than the Legion, but have worse (non-fighter) offense than an Astral, being the only (combat) capital without a large mount. That sounds a bit underpowered, though, so maybe it could have Fighter Chassis Storage? Would make it super unique, plus it'd be a nice parallel to the Guardian's Missile Autoforge.

Although, I can't think of what its ship system would be. Targeting Feed or Damper Field would probably be broken powerful, Recall Device is too high-tech, and it's already got plenty of PD.

[Megas]

Although, I can't think of what its ship system would be. Targeting Feed or Damper Field would probably be broken powerful, Recall Device is too high-tech, and it's already got plenty of PD.

Give it something that is in theme of being a mobile factory.  Reserve Deployment would drive the idea that the ship is producing drones like crazy.  Missile Autoforge would be something if it used missiles (I do not remember seeing the mothership use missiles).

If nothing jumps out, something simple like Accelerated Ammo Feeder would do.  Mothership looks undergunned for its size.  Could even justify it by saying it is making more ammo fast.

[Ivan Fullbright]

Ooh, I forgot about Reserve Deployment. Unfortunately AAF and Autoforge wouldn't work as the ship has a grand total of... 4 medium and 11 small energy mounts, yikes. Undergunned is an understatement. Leaning into drone spam seems like the way to go, plus it's pretty thematic, and Reserve Deployment sounds perfect for that.

Edit:

Mounts on the mothership could be more or less the same, maybe Targeting Supercomputer can be downgraded to Advanced Targeting Core for a recurring enemy and/or playable version.

I wasn't sure if this was necessary, but then I realized Targeting Supercomputer gives, say, Antimatter Blasters 1400 range...

[Doctorhealsgood]

Having the derelict mothership spam mini derelict frigates with reserve redeployment is so cool that i would not care how impractical it is i would want to field one.
I wonder if you can make the mothership deploy loadout variants of its drones kinda like how [HYPER REDACTED] does.

[Ivan Fullbright]

Ask and ye shall receive

Felt like dipping my toe into modding, so here's my attempt at making a playable domain mothership. Blueprints are automatically learned, but I don't have it set up to spawn yet, since it's no doubt wildly unbalanced -- the fighter versions of the sentry and picket drones are currently identical to their frigate versions. If y'all have any suggestions for tweaks, I'd be happy to implement them, since I lack both the time and ability to playtest properly.

I wonder if you can make the mothership deploy loadout variants of its drones kinda like how [HYPER REDACTED] does.

I could theoretically add more variants?, but as far as I can tell they're handled by individual entries in wing_data.csv and you have to reference a specific one of those entries for built-in wings. [HYPER REDACTED] has some black magic going on with custom scripts that no doubt work completely differently from fighter bays. I think there's only one variant of the picket and sentry in vanilla anyway, but maybe I could just add the warden and defender instead.

[Jackundor]

you know, for a bossfight the mothership is like, really disappointing

like, the mothership itself doesn't even have much in the way of firepower, fielding nothing more than a few energy mediums, while not being able to move.
the only challenge comes from the other derelict ships in the fight

i think survey ships should be more difficult and motherships even more so

make it have some larges, make it field swarms of drones (although i guess that would mean we need a derelict fighter)

generally derelicts offer very little in the way of an actual challenge rn

[SCC]

Well yeah, early game easy enemies are easy. Of expdrones, only Guardian isn't one.

[KDR_11k]

Still, the Mothership fight feels kinda pointless since the mothership itself doesn't do much at all. Might be more interesting if it sent out fighters or something. Otherwise you just have to wonder why that thing is even on the battlefield, on my first encounter I thought I was doing something wrong by shooting at it and that I was meant to take that thing intact.

[BaBosa]

Alex has mentioned that the motherships are an introduction to station fights. But it sounds weird to me as I think most people are going to have a normal station fight before finding a mothership in most cases.

[KDR_11k]

Alex has mentioned that the motherships are an introduction to station fights. But it sounds weird to me as I think most people are going to have a normal station fight before finding a mothership in most cases.

And it doesn't really feel anything like it when you're not always worried about the massive firepower that will regularly sweep its arc across your ship.

[Megas]

Mothership looked big when it was first released and Onslaught and Paragon were the largest ships the player can use.  Now that Invictus has arrived, the Mothership acting like a station while being the same size or slightly larger than Invictus looks silly.  Mothership should be retired as a station and become a borderline super-capital like Invictus that can fight like a normal ship.

[CapnHector]

Mothership looked big when it was first released and Onslaught and Paragon were the largest ships the player can use.  Now that Invictus has arrived, the Mothership acting like a station while being the same size or slightly larger than Invictus looks silly.  Mothership should be retired as a station and become a borderline super-capital like Invictus that can fight like a normal ship.

Alternative solution: make Mothership sprite 4x bigger and give it a mining blaster barrage module on one side so it is a real introduction to stations.

[Demoncard]

I was so weirded out last year as a new player, that there was something so weak, so far away from the core. A better introduction to station combat would be giving Derinkuyu Mining Station what for in the tutorial, and maybe the derelicts in general could use an overhaul.

[Jackundor]

Well yeah, early game easy enemies are easy. Of expdrones, only Guardian isn't one.

except i never fight them in the early game since exploration is not really useful if you have such a small fleet

you don't have many ships with surveying equipment meaning that that's expensive
you don't have much in the way of supplies and crew, combined with the above that leads to almost no surveying while you are in the really early game
you don't have the cargo space to carry any significant amount of loot

also you can encounter derelics *wayyyyyy* out in the fringes of the sector

derelicts are not early game, simply because you basically inevetably encounter way more dangerous threats before them