Played a little with the new expansion and a fewobservations:

- You can get Vodyani population playing another faction. But with their -50% Food on system they are unplayable. When you play them as Vodyani then that 1 population counts as 1 for each planet. If you don't play as Vodyani then they count as any other faction and are usefull only if you want to have a death system that consumes population (handy in some situations)

- Luxury resourses:
    Not sure what is happening here. In one game I had only level 1 industry and science luxury resourcs (for system development) and in another I had level 2 industry and science luxury resources available. Why is that?
    I like the fact that Industry and Science are only level 1 bonuses. Dark Glitter is still not worth it and should be improved. If it would be like +500 Manpower or provide some damage to attacker then it would be worth considering. Or maybe it would increase conscription to produce 300 manpower?

- Ground combat:
    I like the change that manpower modules provide a bigger deployment bonus. Now if you are not using them you will find it very hard to conquer a system as with conscription you can survive an attack most of the time.
   
- Food consumption should be increased. You don't need to worry about food infrastructure and get to maximum population without problems.

- Photobomber as pilot issue. I am forced to pick a governor skill when upgrading him. I simply run out of level 1,2 admiral skills after spending 7 points (and that 7th is on a useless "Papers please" that increases manpower refill rate by 40%)

- Like the idea of Obsidian centers that increase population slots on Sterile planets. But they should be available to all factions not just Hissho. With them it is worth considering to have sterile planets. If you could only terraform both ways that would be even better (from Jungle to Arid as well as from Arid to Jungle for example)

- Space battles
    A great dissapointment that this weakest part of the games hasn't been fixed.
    Some of the issues: battles end very quickly (usually 1-2 phases), missiles efficiency/defence, squadrons, ship health linked with experience, weapon balance, etc...
    There are multiple topics for this already and a number of good solutions. Will not go into details as this would take a few pages of text.
   
- Trade Value bonuses. Those are still a mystery. How can I learn what is the trade value of a system and what a +25% bonus to that value actually gives me? Is building a Solar Security Operations Base worth the 32 dust upkeep? How can I tell?

- Sieging modules. They are overpowered in late game when you just stack ships with it and quickly remove all manpower. Their efficiency should be logaritmic just like we have with projectile/energy defence. The more you put in the less you gain but you still gain. Such a system should work a lot better.

- Space battle camera needs a lot of work so that we can enjoy the automatic cinematic of space combat. Specially with Behemoth hulls the view angels are useless.

- Command point scaling is wrong. The tech Universal Aerodynamics makes you jump from 10 to something like 22 command points (depending what hulls you have researched). That is twice what you had before. A tech that increases command points per hull should be the first one so that this bonus would increase troughout the game. Mid game difference of 10 vs 20 command points means you don't care about tactics as or what the enemy has. You autoclick and always win.

- Flotilla shields provide to low of a value to be considered usefull. This needs some enhancements.

- Science output spirals off in late game and I got a tech practically each turn. But I will have to play more with other factions as this might be to the fact that with Hissho I was taking over system by system without any consequences.

- Hissho Keii. 

There is already a lot of talk about that. The only real problem I see is that they take over system after system without the happinness drawbacks. I am aware that with militaristic rule you get a lot of happiness from being at war and for those scenarios the situation is similar.
What I would suggest is that there is a Keii cost for taking over invaded systems the same way as there is for new colonies. Its value would increase with each system the same way as it does now. In this way Hissho expansion won't be at such an insane speed and on the other hand they will invade systems without taking them over to gain Keii.

Hi samsonazs,

To the point feedback :). Thanks for the many good points. We'll try to have some of these tweaks in the upcoming balance mod.

About the Hisshos, we agree that the scaling costs on colonization are not enough of a drawback for their expansion, and we are looking into solutions. The one your proposed is one we have submitted internally but it comes with significant AI costs so we'll have to see how it goes. In any case, something will be done :)

Great topic!

Especially glad you brought up the Command Point issue with Universal Aerodynamics. This has long been a peeve of mine. Max CP progression should be a gradual curve, not a curve interrupted by a massive leap.