I have been giving it some thought, and one possibility, is to stick with regular weapons and ship computers and so on, this increases compatability with other mods aswell, which is always a plus, and instead use auxillary systems and passive techs to fit the flavour, sort of like you have with tile yields and the first Networked Military technology (it gives like 5 Evade, +10% range and 5 hit chance or something), this is pretty large, and sets the stage for a range advantage already, perhaps make the tech a little more granular (one each for 5 evade, 10% range and 5 hit chance), and then possibly one more for each of those, for example, regular kinetic artillery with 20% range from techs is already at 120 range, which is an advantage still, but not the 140 + 20% = 168 range that the integrated ones had

The Mind control government is very very strong, by the way, I like the flavour of not having to worry about happiness, but remember that max happiness gives 20% tile yields, -20% ethics divergence and means you dont have to worry about factions
So currently, the Mind control government gives a net +5% tile yields and -20% ethics divergence, in addition to its edict cost reductions and so on, perhaps up the penalty to -20% on tile yields, so as to cancel out the benefits of maxed happiness, this I think quite represents a collective mind control situation, they arent really happy, they just never rebel or anything, even with the penalty, I would probably still pick that as my go to government ^^ alternativley, perhaps a better way to model it would be to find a way to have to goverment tag your pops with the 'unnafected by happiness' trait, a bit like robots/droids are now (and removing the yield penalties, obviously)

More Feedback on Balance, the Networked Strike Crafts shouldnt have shields, most PD weapons do 100% less damage to shields, which makes networked strike crafts immune to most PD weapons, which is what you need to counter them (aside from other fighters, which they still outperform in every way)

The balance of this mod has, in my eyes, been put in to serious questioning as of late.
Granted, im using this mod in conjuction with others, and it may just be a snowball effect.
But since the post is here, I'd like to add my experiances.

I have been playing a multiplayer game with three friends, Myself as networked AI, one friend as Psyonic, and another as Cybernetic.

I also have New ship classes enabled. im not sure if we would have the same problem without NSC, however..

My friend has been playing as the..cybernetic, i think it is? where all the extra modules decriptions make the ships sound alive. (armor is living tissue, power gens are 'hearts')

He has a fleet of 3 ships. thats it. just three.
It has an armor rating of 90%, and has the Int. Kinetic artilary in all weapons slots.
These three ships, are able to out repair the incoming damage of a 90k fleet of pythorian scourge, and, in short time, pritty much wipe them out single handedly. despite his fleet only been around 20 to 30k worth of 'fleet power'

While i on the otherhand, Am capable of making a flagship with negative maint costs. effectively making it pay me for been deployed.

This mod is awesome, but..especualy when combined with the NSC mod...the extra modules become.. insanely overpowered simpily due to stacking capability..Again, Perhaps without the mod these modules are..nowhere near this insane, i have not tested since i only really play with NSC..but..the combination of these two mods..

My friend is looking at taking on an awoken fallen empire. with these three ships. just to see if he can actualy do it..

And the worrying part? we think he might pull it off.. his hull regen and armor is just -that- rediculous that only the titan laser might have a chance with its burst damage.

Thanks for contributing to the discussion, its nice to have someone other than me putting forwards balance concerns, as I want to be able to bring this mod to MP with my friends, but there isnt much point if its too OP

Yeah.. Its the same concern i have. trying it in MP..you can tell the difference between a player using any of the AI's stuff to one who isnt..more so with NSC, since they add more ship-types with extra utility slots..so the effects just stack to rediculous numbers.. flagships with negative maint-costs, ships with so much HP regen that they out-heal practicly all incoming damage from a fleet 5x larger and more deadlyer because it -also- has a maxed out armor rating of 90%

I love using robotic races..but..by mid-end game when the tech starts coming in for the AI stuff..it just gets so crazy.. im genuinely having to think about if this should be in my multiplay list..which is sad. theres nothing quite like playing like the borg and assimilating everyone. :D

Now..my concern is a mix of this mod and NSC. so..i cant blame this mod entirely, it likely was only balanced for the standard ship types. and sure enough, with those standard ships, its not -quite- as insane..but its still something that needs looking at either way..a lot of the AI tech is just.. way powerful. especualy if you go up against someone who has no access to any of those tech's..a friend of mine in this multiplay..he choose not to do any of the AI stuff, and his fleet power..and capability is just.. laughable compaired to us.

Thank you for the feedback. i made the following changes:
- reduced damage,firerate and shields of all strike craft
- reduced range of almost all weapons
- reduced armor of all armor modules
- greatly reduced hp regeneration of cyber utility modules
keep it coming!

Nice to hear, I will try a new game to check out how it works out, thanks for listening!

Okey dokey, Looking over the changes in a new game, the range reductions are a good start, but the T2 networked artillery is still too far, especially considering the networked combat computer lvl 2, which gives +30% range, remember, always compare the progressions of your weapons with original weapons, for example, there are almost no weapons in the entire game that gain range from going up a tier, so its probably best to keep ranges the same (the damage is still stronger after all, so its still an upgrade)
About the combat computers, I think the bonuses are too high, compared with the sentient combat computer (same mineral cost and power needs) its just much much stronger, esp. the +15% range boost at T1 (or +30% at T2) consider toning the bonuses down, or if you realy want the range, have the computer only boost range, and by 7.5%/15% at T1/T2 or have the range bonus be smaller, and have a small evasion/hit chance bonus aswell (maybe 5% to all three on the T2?)
Strike craft still have shields, as I mentioned before, this makes them immune to point defense weapons (which all have -100% shield damage) so strike craft shouldnt have any shields
The integrated Antimatter artillery is still crazy strong
The fusion beam is fine in terms of range, but it probably shouldnt have shield penetration, thats a very rare and very powerful ability, especially combined with 90% armour penetration, other than that its damage value are good, and its nice to see it done with high ROF low dmg
The Void beam is the fusion beam on steroids, its range is too good (maybe have it the same range as the fusion beam) and it ignores even more shields, which is very strong considering it also ignores armour, I am not sure how less damage to shields matters much when it penetrates shields mostly already
I discovered the Laser Point Defense, which is almost too strong already, mainly because high RoF allows a small number of these to basically make your ship immune to missiles and strike craft, which is obviously too much. the T2 version is even worse, with its 96% accuracy and 500% tracking it almost NEVER misses, and it has 18 range and a high RoF, I would consider removing these two weapons, as adding more powerful PD weapons (at least ones this strong) makes missiles and strike crafts a complete joke

A overarching theme I have noticed in the way this mod is balanced, is that you partially balance everything with very high mineral costs, but because its so easy to have unlimited money in the late game, this doesnt work that well, I havent noticed the mineral costs at all when it comes to building ships, this means two things: 1) the Mineral costs are fine as they are, which is good, BUT 2) mineral costs arent a good way to balance components.
Power consumption is, but with the T2 networked reactors, power is never an issue either, one option is to increase the power draw on the very strong components even more, so that for example you want to bring the AM artillery (and you still want it to be as powerful as it is), you arent gonna be able to also bring all the other networked weapons and shields, this would mean you would have a few networked components, but with vanilla components because of power limitations, this is more difficult to balance correctly however, so toning down the stuff thats too strong is much easier)

The Ruthless production edict bonuses are too large, gaining 2 (up to 4 with Expand production) tiles and a +25% energy/mineral and +30% science bonus aswell is crazy strong, even with the influence cost what it is and the 6 month penalty, I like the idea, but its quite a bit too strong, consider halfing the maximum bonus tiles (+1, with another +1 with expand production) and also consider toning the bonuses down (maybe +10% all yields, which is still very strong), I assume the other planet conversion edicts for cybernetics and psionics are similar, so consider changing them the same way

by the way ECHO, feel free to explain your intention with certain design choices or why you want a certain thing to be as strong as it is (if you feel the desire to do so of course) this is a discussion after all, and at the moment it feels like I am talking at you rather than with you, so I apologise if I come across a bit on the accusatory side. I try my best to be constructive though
Its easier to make suggestions about how to make something fit a flavour and still be balanced that way :)

I appreciate your feedback. I have to admit that I haven’t really balance tested it, but in the few games I played I figured that a lot of things are op.

About module bonuses/stats: the kind of bonus is intended (Synthetics have all the accuracy/evasion bonuses, cybernetic has the hull regeneration, etc.) but the actual values are a bit arbitrary (I just made them up while implementing the mod) so it’s not surprising that they are too high.

As for design choices:
- Point defense: I always felt kind of betrayed by the ineffectiveness of the vanilla one, so I wanted to create one that can actually hit something. I think I’ll turn down the RoF.
- Integrated Antimatter Artillery (XL weapon): this is intended to be a powerful anti-battleship weapon but inefficient against smaller ships due to low RoF and waste of a lot of potential damage.

The fusion and void beam weapons are from the very beginning of the mod and I haven’t looked into them for a while (I think I even forgot them in the recent balancing change).

One clarification at the end: the “expand production” edict is (currently) repeatable up to 25 tiles.

Ah, I see that all makes sense
On the point defense front, tracking is used to reduce enemy evasion, and leftover evasion reduces accuracy, evasion is capped at 90% for ships, but most strike craft/missiles cap out at ~40% evasion or so (with the exception of swarmer missiles, which have 200% evasion but have shorter range, limited to M slot only and deal less damage than other missiles of their size)
so anything over 50% tracking is almost always redundant on PD weapons, except vs swarmer missiles, but they are specifically designed to counter PD. So while reduced RoF is a good idea (current PD has around 2 reload time), it might be a good idea to lower the range to maybe 15 instead of 18, if you want to keep the 500% tracking, consider lowering the accuracy, because that is gonna be the % of shots that will hit, and 96% is probably too high, perhaps 90% with the lower RoF would be more balanced?

Antimatter Artillery: I get that its a powerful anti-battleship weapon, but killing enemy battleships in one hit is too strong regardless of how low the RoF is, try to use the other XL weapons as a guideline, and the best way to make it ineffective against small ships is not to have low RoF or damage wastage, its to give the weapon low (like 0-5%) tracking this means it wont be able to hit high evasion ships like destroyers and corvettes very easily

If Expand production goes up to 25, that definitley needs a rework, because of the way research costs scale (10% per planet and 1% per pop), extra tiles per planet are very very strong, especially combined with the tile yield bonuses, I am all for building tall, but there is only so much space you can utilise on a planets surface (which is what the tiles represent) and tile blockers are there to represent the work that can be done to free up more space, adding tiles because of efficient organisation of resources and freeing up internal space should still be limited, as I suggested, +2 tiles is already amazing, consider either placing a cap on expand production and having it be +3 tiles max (so 1 from ruthless, and 2 from expand), or remove expand, and just leave ruthless as it is, with +2 tiles (and a reduced yield bonus)

made some more changes:
- reduced RoF, range, accuracy and tracking of inerrant point defence
(acc. 92%, tracking 160%; it should be able to hit everything with a chance to miss swarmer missiles)
- reduced tracking (now 15%) of integrated antimatter artillery (XL),
increased power draw (250->320)
- reduced shield and armor penetration and tracking of void beam
(but now 100% damage against shields)
- reduces bonuses of combat computers and auras
(about 50% of previous values)
- removed shields from strike craft
(you are right, PD has 0% damage aganist shields)
- reduced bonuses of converted planets
(now 15-20%, if this is still too much i can reduce it even further)
- disabled the "expand production" edict

Excellent, I cant wait to try it all out again, will provide feedback when I get far enough

Just a quick question can this empire be played by a ai or will they just delete themselves. Because i wanted to play another faction and team up with my robot faction.