I'm on the fence with this mod, and I use almost all the other Stellar Expansions. I use this mod because I'm looking for an expansion of the 4 vanilla classes that fits with SCX (Ship Classes Extended). If it weren't for the overlapping dreadnoughts, I might use Realistic Ships instead of this because there's not quite as much shiptype spam: RS adds a battlecruiser and a few ewar/support cruisers.

All in all, the addition of 8 new hulls in Voidcraft feels rather repetitive--does a heavy corvette or a support destroyer really add to the game? Wouldn't you just end up operating a few support battleships backing heavy battleships with a complement of smaller craft for fire support? And on that note, don't you just start replacing your vanilla ships with the heavies as you have money, so that the vanillas become obsolete?

Yep, that's sort of my thinking.

If anything, the real problem is that it isn't obvious that the Heavy classes aren't strictly upgrades - they take more fleet capacity and cost way more, in addition to having different section loadouts. With the "naked corvette" meta, that definitely seems as though it's a mistake.

The support hulls are kind of neat, and the idea there was to get support into the early game - a fleet with a support corvette would have a bit more staying power, support destroyers could be used to slow down harassers, etc.

But again, the problem being that the meta doesn't really support clever gameplay.

I think a better way to handle this is to drop it to maybe two levels of support ships (and a single technology). And potentially remove heavies altogether.

I've been thinking about this more. I hear that naked corvette swarms are all the rage/OP. Why not use Voidcraft to balance ship classes, perhaps according to the method EvE uses; this would mean using a trifecta approach vs the "bigger is better" format Stellaris uses currently.

The trifecta is corvettes (decent weapons in huge numbers)<destroyers (improve their tracking vs small targets or incentivize using small weapons<destroyer killers (cruisers with medium weapons); then repeat: cruisers with large weapons (heavy or assault cruisers)<battlecruisers (medium weapons but tracking bonuses and heavier, for killing cruisers)<battleships (large weapons, large hp for killing battlecruisers). I hope that makes sense, and I have no idea how moddable all that is, but that's the general idea.

Then throw in some EWAR/Support cruisers and/or battleships and you're done.

Troubleshooting my above post, the only problem might be how Stellaris ships prioritize their targeting...it'd be sad to watch a healthy dose of corvette killers and cruisers die to a swarm of corvettes and a few battleships, with the AI trying to kill the battleships with tiny destroyer weapons...it's a real conundrum.

I very much like the concept of this mod and what it aims to do. How it does it is the only problem. It creates too much clutter when you are in a federation. Lastly I am for a total overhaul.

Now what I think may help is allowing auras is a new slot type a Logistic Slot (like point defense is to weapons) and turning some of the ship types into improved sections. These higher tier sections should be part of mid and late game techs and as maintaince and cost are linked to modules these should present somewhat balanced versions of each craft. Lastly this is more a wish then a realistic goal but maybe you can pull it off, stealth. Ships can move undetected till they fire. Here is what I am thinking:

Corvette
- Frigate (4 medium utility slots,1 auxiliary slot, 1 medium, 1 small weapon slot.)
- Prowler (Stealth 2 M, 2 S utility slots, 1 aux, 1 torp, 1 S weapon)

Destroyer
- Escort (bow)(4 m utility, 1 aux, 2 m weapons)
- Escort (stern)(2 M, 2, S utility, 1 aux, 2 torps)
- Logistic (stern)(4 S utility, 1 aux, 1 logistic, 1 S, 1 pd weapons)

Cruiser
- Battle (bow)(4 M utility, 1 L, 1 M weapons)
- Battle (core)(4 L utility, 2 aux, 1 L, 2 M weapons)
- Battle (stern)(4 M utility, 1 hangar, 1 M weapons)
- Logistic (stern)(3 M utility, 1 logistic, 1 hangar, 1 S weapon)

Battleship
- Heavy (bow)(4 L utility, 2 aux, XL weapon)
- Heavy (core)(6 L utility, 2 hangars, 2 L, 2 M weapons)
- Heavy (stern)(4 L utility, 2 L weapons)
- Logistic (stern)(2 L utility, 2 logistic, 2 S weapons)

Science Ship
- Advanced (Stealth, 4 M utility, 2 aux)

Construction Ship
-Heavy (4 M utility, 1 aux, 1 logistic*)
*Logistic slot could hold a module that allows it to increase build speed/decrease build cost on a planet or even for stations as well.

Transport
- Heavy (Stealth, 4 M utility, 2 aux, 1 S weapon)

Dreadnaught
New class unlocked through rare endgame tech. It has 4 sections bow, core, bridge, stern, and can be unlocked through salvage of fallen titan, or dreadnaught guardian.
- Spinal Mount (bow)(5 L utility, 1 aux, 1 XL weapon)
- Boardside (bow)(5 L utility, 1 aux, 2 L, 2 M weapons)
- Artillery (bow)(5 L utility, 1 aux, 3 L weapons)
- Carrier (bow)(5 L utility, 1 aux, 2 M, 2 S, 2 pd weapons)
- Boardside (core)(5 L utility, 1 aux, 2 L, 2 M weapons)
- Artillery (core)(5 L utility, 1 aux, 3 L weapons)
- Carrier (core)(5 L utility, 1 aux, 5 hangars, 1 pd weapons)
- Support (core)(5 L utility, 1 logistic, 2 L, 2 M weapons)
- Boardside (bridge)(5 L utility, 1 aux, 2 L, 2 M weapons)
- Artillery (bridge)(5 L utility, 1 aux, 3 L weapons)
- Carrier (bridge)(5 L utility, 1 logistic, 5 hangars, 1 pd weapons)
- Command (bridge)(5 L utility, 1 logistic, 2 L, 2 M weapons)
- Boardside (core)(5 L utility, 1 aux, 1 L, 2 M weapons)
- Artillery (core)(5 L utility, 1 aux, 2 L 2 M weapons)
- Carrier (core)(5 L utility, 1 aux, 2 M, 2 pd weapons)
- Support (core)(5 L utility, 1 logistic, 2 L, 2 M weapons)

Let me know what you think, and as always thank you for your great mods.

I think a smart move would be to have the tender ship hang back in combat, seeing as it's useless until after the battle. I think you can acheive this by using an artillery combat chip (don't know if that's vanilla or not). Also you should have a bigger version of the Tender after unlocking the Cruiser, call it an Engineering Cruiser or something. I like the heavies because I also run the Aggro mod, which makes them viable tanks (expensive though, which felt fair).

I think before more ship classes are added, roles need to be defined for them. Some overlap is okay if it's overlap between specialized ships and non-specialized ones. So both cruiser and bs having hanger slots isn't a problem, because cruiser gives acces to early strike craft, but battleships are better carriers. So there's a reason why you would have cruisers with hangers and battleships with hangers, etc.

Also, maybe in addition to adding new ship classes, maybe add some new weapons/modules? Kinetic seems to be the most "complete" weapon type. It has short range version, auto cannons, it has special BS type gun, Kinetic artilliery, has a spinal mount version, I don't remember the name lol, and of course just the basic line guns, the rail guns. Energy doesn't have a short range high dps weapon nor a specail L slot only, and missiles have neither short range, L slot ony, nor spinal mount weapons. Missiles could use a short range rocket pod that could be awesome to fit on corvettes or cruisers, and maybe energy can get some kind of pulse bomb or pulse lasers. Kinetics is the most fun to play because it has the most range of options. Missiles is just S, M, L missiles which all feel the same, and whirlwind to counter PD .

Anyways, food for thought.

my suggestion would be overhaul it for 2.0 and leave as is for 1.9 personally i enjoyed the extra options and with 2.0 i beleive you could do even more with it i enjoyed having more otions for my ship hulls and the support ships were amazing with all those extra auras

looking forward to the heavy titan :-). maybe a kind of flag ship?