Thankyou and welcome. if I keep getting appreciation like this.. I'll never abandon the mod. Im really glad that you are enjoying it. Let me know if their are any features you think should be added. Remember that the theme of this mod is an RTS conversion but be as creative as you can regardless.
I can't really get down to playing Starsector with your mod yet because of work. I don't have any free time, so I can't give good feedback right now... but I just want to tell you something and throw in a couple of ideas.
I'm a game designer and game developer myself, and I can say that your mod creates a unique gameplay for the gaming industry, simply because no one has thought of combining sandbox and RTS, lol. All RTS just offer you a campaign + skirmish. And the campaign is usually a linear set of skirmishes with some kind of plot. This is very stupid and short-sighted, while such gameplay systems as tactics, shooters, action games have developed in huge variations of genres, RTS is stagnating. For example, Homeworld 3 was recently released, right? They just offered a linear campaign as always. Just imagine if instead of a linear campaign they offered a sandbox like the same Starsector. I can assure you that the gaming industry would simply explode with hype, and everyone on the Internet would be screaming about the revival of the RTS genre.
This is a real niche that can be occupied if you can make your own game, I am 200% sure of it. I can tell you the reason why this is still not on the market, if you are interested. But in general, yes, your mod combined with Starsector is proof of the concept of RTS in a sandbox. And that it works, and that it is very cool.
From the ideas off the top of my head, I can tell you this - Starsector has a clear balance that the larger the ship, the better it is. It is almost impossible to create a fleet of frigates and corvettes that could effectively fight against cruisers or capitals. The reason is in the game design of the combat system. Namely:
Each small ship is processed separately.
The game does not use abstraction during shooting, but uses concretics. That is, the definition of whether it hit or missed is if the projectile hit another ship.
This leads to an unsolvable problem - frigates and corvettes make logical errors and do not understand how to fight against longer-range ships. And they simply become obstacles for shooting by large ships. This problem is solved in fighters, because their logic clearly states to simply fly to the enemy and fight with him until victory. But such logic is not written for frigates and corvettes.
Also, because of that concretics system of misses and hits, even if the first frigate in a horde of frigates guessed to dodge, the one standing behind it will definitely get hit. So a horde of frigates also does not work - it will be very easy to shoot at.
And, frigates also constantly block their own line of sight, not allowing each other to shoot.
There are basically two solutions.
1) Change the concept of what one unit on the battlefield is. Let there be no such thing as 1 corvette. Let one entity mean a wing of 4-6 corvettes that move together and do not interfere with each other's shooting.
This is a complex solution that requires rewriting the foundation of the combat system. But I do not think that it is much more complicated than what you have already done.
2) Bring the hit system into abstraction. Let a die roll (accuracy/dodge) occur during a hit on the hull, and in case of failure, the projectile flies further (visually higher/lower than the ship)
This is just me sharing my thoughts as a game designer about the problems of the starsector balance and their solution, I understand that this is not related to the concept of your mod, lol.
