First thing I want to say beautiful game, the the style, art, music are all really sweet. I've had fun playing as the United Empire and the Vodyani so far, getting to the rest of the factions as I have time to play, love to see the Sowers return, but that's not what I'd like to discuss. 

So, as I play, I've been tinkering with how I can setup my fleets and ships, which has had me wanting to ask questions about how the Offensive and Defensive modules are thought about in relation to the factions (and the first game), and so I'd like to share some ideas that have come to mind as I play.

The first idea is I wonder if the different factions would focus on different tech areas to spread out the possible Techs, so that way Carvers could maybe forcus more into Ballistics and Strike-Craft, United Empire would focus on a mix of Tech, Sophons maybe on AI guided tech in various Missiles, Vodyani having their beliefs in the Virtual Endless would then favor energy based systems and so on.  

Also could play on some Factions having more Offensive focus in Tech, with others having a Defensive Focus could also be explored with the Factions. The Cravers and Vodyani seem as they'd prefer Offensive systems to get what they want. The UE could then branch in tech focus, depending on which direction they move towards, Sheredyn, Mezari or stay as the UE and so on.

Thinking of Modules fitting within the categories of Offensive Systems, Defensive Systems and Support Systems is where I'm starting with this next idea, as implemented so far with the module categories (Weapon, Defense, Support, Squadron).  The main thing here would be to have each possible Faction Fleet feel more unique, as modules get evaluated and balanced.

Then we retain the two types of Strike-Craft, the Bombers designed to engage and cripple larger ships with their weapons payload, and Interceptors designed to engage other Strike-Craft, with Flak becoming one of the available Defensive Systems used to protect against them, as they could then possibly see a bit of variance in stats between factions.

So examples of some relationships to explore:

Bombers countered by Anti-Strike Craft Systems, including Interceptors 

Different factions could have access to different grades of stealth bombers, some being easier to bypass CIWS systems and other defenses than others, cultural preferences and population features could feature here like Cravers piloting them or Sophons remote piloting theirs.

Missile Systems countered by Anti-Missile Systems 

Examples, being special turrets that would be a mix of Beams, Anti-Missile Missles, Chaff, Decoys and Armor

Energy Systems countered by Anti-Energy Systems

Examples could range from different Field Emitters, Beam Disruptors and Armor

Ballistic Systems countered by Ablative Armor

The relationship stays in place, with an example like the Railguns fitting as being tone way to have Slugs be an Offensive Battery on a War Ship, could also see conventional shells being fired by Ship Cannons

Interceptors countered by Anti-Strike Craft Systems

As Flak has long been a traditional means to counter Aircraft, I figure that it should count as a type of CIWS that would counter these as the purpose of these units is to engage Bombers before they can harm the Fleet, and could include specific weapon types like Missiles intended for small fast moving Strike-Craft

For how we'd see them in the Tech screen, we could see Tech grouped as Strike-Craft, Energy, Missiles and Ballistics. 

Possibly have the Research Levels in Warfare / Military Weapons quadrant play a role in upgrading weapons and/or look to make the ship editing window where we can increase the strength of weapons with resource investments, as it is the screen where we change what we load into the ships and see the resources in the Empire. And finding tech to reverse engineer in the Curiosities across the Galaxy could be a means to upgrade systems from the ship editing screen.

So the new shown weapons from the Rail Guns to Swarm Missiles should fit into this kind of framework, and maybe could be thought of as feature weapons of a particular faction, depending on how the weapons could be distributed and as the devs make more of them in the future.

So that's what I'd like to discuss, could the Factions favor particular Weapon Systems as more as a style and asthetic angle (since they will need to be balanced with how Fleets deploy at the three ranges and spliting the Fleet when their's enough CP)? 

And if Factions have a signature subset of weapons, could reclassifying them and spreading them across the factions be a worth while effort (this is assuming, for example, that the Vodyani would have different energy weapon types for the three ranges for both Offensive and Defensive purposes)?

Starbound wrote:

I think this is already the case. All factions have some unique techs that give them stuff that's aligned with their style. The heroes get level up bonuses that reflect their faction as well. Craver guys get kinetics boost, Vodyani get energy weapon damage. United Empire has Zelevas Incarnate tech etc. I think there's some faction-specific weapon/armor techs too.

I mean also reflected in the Research Quadrant as to what the ships can then mount and fire in combat and not only in damage boosts from individual Heros. Heros should have their sets of augmentations for Fleets, and then how we can arm our Fleets would be specific to each Faction.

The easiest example to illustrate this is with the Vodyani, that they could have Short Range Plasma Turrets to tear open enemy ships, Medium Range Rapid-Fire Lasers and High Powered Long Range Laser systems, with Beam weapons becoming a Defensive System (their type of Flak) that would safely explode missiles as their type of CIWS Missile Defense system. That way they have some options that can crit as Energy only, while not using any sort of Ballistic or Missile weaponry.

They could also have Strike Craft that have lighter armaments and superior engines, so their Interceptor class would be better able to stop Bombers of other factions, and their Bombers would need more Focus Fire support with their class of energy weapons.

And so as believers of Virtual Endless, they might have an aversion to Concrete style military solutions when they meet others who resist them.

Then with the Sophons as they dabble in using proxies to run mundane things, they could favor guided weapon systems and have Missiles that have more systems to allow them to bypass and defeat certain types of Anti-Missile systems more efficiently than other Fleets and have guided munitions at Short, Medium and Long Range. And so due to having really powerful A.I. doing the heavy lifting for them, maybe their Fleets reaction times are a tad slower than other Factions, due to their constant dabbling and tweaking of ship systems.

The United Empire could have a mix of tech, so they can dabble with different types, and going Sheredyn, could further reenforce their supremacy through conquest and thus invest into tougher ships than other Factions to make up for not as strong Weapons upgrades as other Factions, and so could have stronger defense upgrades that would not be tied to a particular Hero.

So this would mean providing more specific Research Trees to the Factions, meaning more exclusive and facilitating tech for each Faction, so instead of having a popup telling players that a particular Research Node is specific, it would simply have a Tech Tree and the available tech to that faction in different order as well.

So thinking about the United Empire, their Stage II Research Nodes could be Ballistics, Strike-Craft and Missiles, where more advanced Research into Energy Weaponry would be found in Stage III or even Stage IV. So They would have Energy eventually, just much later than the Vodyani in comparing those two Factions against each other.

That's the sort of nuance I'm imagining could be possible to explore, if Factions would see custom Research Military Trees to outfit their Ship designs.

interesting military and civilian modules ships in game Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares  

Scout Lab Ship Special System that: generates RPs depending on the ship's size (RPs = 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, or 32)
Achilles Targeting Unit Ship Special System than enables "beam" weapons to bypass the target's armor including Heavy Armor (they must first penetrate the shields) and triples the chance to damage weapons and other essential systems (and often causes drive explosions).