Hey guys, 

I noticed the devs changed some faction traits up in the past, for example Utopian Infastructure, and the starting shield on the Unfallen system. I am quite happy with the Faction traits of most of the factions, but Horatio and Riftborn have some odd ones.      

The Horatio still have to deal with the 25% increased industry cost to build ships, in my opinion this should be reduced. Yes we know that Horatio can get huge industry output, but getting there is a problem vs aggressive factions. And most of the time aggressive factions have abilities to produce ships at a cheaper cost: Vodyani, Riftborn, UE, Sophons, Cravers, Hissho. All of these have access to reduced fleet cost either by law or other effects.  

But something that bothers me even more is the useless faction trait that increases healing on Heroes from Perfect Genes II. 

In 400+ hours of playing I have never looked at this trait and thought "this is useful and fits the faction". 

When a Hero gets injured you simply heal him with Dust and he is back instantly. This trait is useless and should be replaced, for example increase the Crowded Planets trait from +1 to +2 like Cravers.    

Horatio still start with the worst political faction as Dictatorship and I end up switching to Federation every game. Thankfully with Aitarus' Politics Rework its a viable choice to stay as Dictatorship. But having to use mods for balancing doesn't mean you shouldn't do something about it. 

Another thing that saddens me is that Horatio start on a Mediterranian Planet instead of a jungle. Starting on a jungle would grant an additional 10 Industry or Science from the Starting buildings, a small but helpful change. Building these buildings for only +10 each feels really bad, they are just flat out worse than the starting buildings because of the Mediterranian starting planet. Even Cravers have a better starting planet with Jungle and they already have crazy high FIDS output.    

Another thing that concerns me are the Riftborn. I believe their faction traits should include bonus population slots on Sterile planets and less population slots on fertile planets. Because of how good their Pop FIDS output is, they benefit from having more pop slots. But then again their Terraforming reduces pop slots, something that needs an urgent rework. Playing the Hissho gave me a sad realization when I saw the multiple bonuses on Sterile Planets. If I added them up correctly, they can get +4 or even +5 Population slots on Sterile Planets. This would work so well for Riftborn!      

For balance, I have been using all Aitarus mods in the past and I noticed that you basically implemented the "Later Victories" mod with your recent updates. This is a great choice and I hope you guys are open to my suggestions and are willing to change some things about faction balance in the future aswell.

(Especially when the big rework mod for Inflation and Dust is done and another big rework mod for food, these mods will likely be mandatory aswell just like the Combat rebalance mod and I hope you will incorporate some of these changes aswell.)

sheredynplayer wrote:

The Horatio still have to deal with the 25% increased industry cost to build ships, in my opinion this should be reduced. Yes we know that Horatio can get huge industry output, but getting there is a problem vs aggressive factions. And most of the time aggressive factions have abilities to produce ships at a cheaper cost: Vodyani, Riftborn, UE, Sophons, Cravers, Hissho. All of these have access to reduced fleet cost either by law or other effects.  

I mostly disagree on this, but perhaps it can be reduced by 5% or so while retaining the trait. Horatio's ships are the most versatile in the game and open up almost any composition and strategy you can think of, there should be some cost for this.

But something that bothers me even more is the useless faction trait that increases healing on Heroes from Perfect Genes II. 

In 400+ hours of playing I have never looked at this trait and thought "this is useful and fits the faction". 

When a Hero gets injured you simply heal him with Dust and he is back instantly. This trait is useless and should be replaced, for example increase the Crowded Planets trait from +1 to +2 like Cravers.

This is true, it also applies to the useless Sheredyn pop collection and the final 50 trait for Vodyani is not useful either.

Horatio still start with the worst political faction as Dictatorship and I end up switching to Federation every game. Thankfully with Aitarus' Politics Rework its a viable choice to stay as Dictatorship. But having to use mods for balancing doesn't mean you shouldn't do something about it. 

I doubt we'll see more political tweaks, but the effects for dictatorship are just not good enough compared to the others. The pinned laws and senator effects, if you want to use that bonus, should be substantially better.

Another thing that saddens me is that Horatio start on a Mediterranian Planet instead of a jungle. Starting on a jungle would grant an additional 10 Industry or Science from the Starting buildings, a small but helpful change. Building these buildings for only +10 each feels really bad, they are just flat out worse than the starting buildings because of the Mediterranian starting planet. Even Cravers have a better starting planet with Jungle and they already have crazy high FIDS output.    

Not an issue. (or well, I guess you could tweak Horatio Prime a bit to be a better mediterranean)

Another thing that concerns me are the Riftborn. I believe their faction traits should include bonus population slots on Sterile planets and less population slots on fertile planets. Because of how good their Pop FIDS output is, they benefit from having more pop slots. But then again their Terraforming reduces pop slots, something that needs an urgent rework. Playing the Hissho gave me a sad realization when I saw the multiple bonuses on Sterile Planets. If I added them up correctly, they can get +4 or even +5 Population slots on Sterile Planets. This would work so well for Riftborn!      

Yes. You can just add +Sterile and -Fertile to the Biophobic (Ascetic in files) trait and we're good to go.

For balance, I have been using all Aitarus mods in the past and I noticed that you basically implemented the "Later Victories" mod with your recent updates. This is a great choice and I hope you guys are open to my suggestions and are willing to change some things about faction balance in the future aswell.

(Especially when the big rework mod for Inflation and Dust is done and another big rework mod for food, these mods will likely be mandatory aswell just like the Combat rebalance mod and I hope you will incorporate some of these changes aswell.)

Thanks for the love as always, when I set out to make mods my aim was to show the devs how the game's balance could be improved, not just tell. The dream is to make all my mods obsolete. Put me out of work, jhell; save me from the xmls.