You guys are missing the point. Atlas can be more efficient. It just is too efficient. The jump is greater than collosus to buffalo. It was not the case until a buff a while ago.
So why a ship that is designed and dedicated to carry around huge amount of stuff can't be efficient at carrying around huge amount of stuff?
Also, if your nerf only make Atlas just slightly tiny bit better than Colossus maintenance-wise, why do it at all? What does it achieve?
Player are going to use the ship slot efficient cargo ship anyway.
Other than mildly annoy some player, your proposal achieve nothing.
I would say it first before you get any idea. You can't make Atlas less efficient than Colossus, not even equal. Otherwise Atlas lose any reason to exist in universe, in lore, in realism, in catalogue of shipbuilder and in consideration of any rational person.
Well, in a way Atlas
IS less efficient than a Colossus. You don't pay less maintenance even if you fail to fill up your cargo. Thus create waste. But by utilizing multiple smaller ship, you can avoid this inefficiency by stowing away some of your cargo ship when the extra cargo space are not needed. So there are always a niche for smaller ship. (Maybe not for the player. After all not everyone need to haul back home ton and ton of scrap metal after high tea at Chicomoztoc.)
Extra: I think bringing hullmod to the discussion about a ship (unless it is built-in) is kinda stupid. It is not like you can't modding/S-modding a colossus like a Atlas.
Extra2: I know it is a old discussion, but you have no idea how heavy 40op or 1 S-mod toward something that doesn't help in combat on a combat ship.