Enhanced Space Mod is so freaking underrated.

[Singularity's Marauder]

Almost no one talks about this mod. When someone asks, if ES2 can be made better, no one ever mentions this one, even though it seems like it's so freaking right.
It has the most downloads, so clearly I'm not the only one who has noticed this, but this mod is almost invisible to recent audiences, at least to me.
The early game improvements actually make sense, rather than giving you immediate access to tech that gives you per planet bonuses, forcing you to gain industry via maximum spread, you gain bonuses per population and only unlock per planet bonuses later on, which is an immsense balance change that makes much more sense in the context of early game and makes the game overall more realistic.
Because how does creating a small outpost on a lava planet randomly give you +10 industry out of nowhere just due to that? Even though there is nobody even there.
There are many new improvements that greatly improve the experience, more lunar improvements that make discovering moons more enjoyable, as it was in ES1, moons were kinda weird. They felt like a last minute addition only done to please the ES1 crowd with an old feature, but this was barely expanded, with only a singular improvement centered around moons and barely any noticeable features about them.
Moons were a vital part of ES1 with a lot of them being present around, and their exploration being crucial to ramping up the FIDS production of your systems.
Another aspect is that this mod fixes system AI. In original Endless Space 1 you could set a balanced system AI to automatically queue improvements for your system. This was less effective than normal manual queing, because industry production does not produce surplus and the AI only gives one improvement at a time. But if you were a non-tryhard player and just wanted to Endless Space and chilli hot dogs (yes, I am fat), then you could just randomly spread your empire with this improvement on and only focus on the major macro decisions, rather than being forced to give yourself epilepsy and wrist injury by super fast switching between systems to click the improvements ten times in the right order.
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, THANK YOU FOR BRINGING THIS FEATURE BACK. THE LACK OF SYSTEM MANAGER WAS THE ONE OF THE CORE FEATURES I WAS MISSING FROM ES1 THAT MADE THE EXPERIENCE MUCH MORE ENJOYABLE.
There are also probably many many many more improvements that I had not noticed yet.
But another thing is that it feels like AI is smarter.
I haven't faced off against them yet, because I just reached turn 50 and have to go, but I've already noticed that they are building larger more powerful ships, defending their borders and spreading their empire more rapidly.
So...
Yeah. This mod is pretty chill, maybe you should like download it or something.

[Groo the one]

Sure, this mod was really promising, but the modder did stop finishing it. Last update was on 26th of march in 2021.

[Tat011]

i mean the community isnt big enough to support more than one balance mod, and there are like 3 of them.

[Singularity's Marauder]

Originally posted by Groo the one:

Sure, this mod was really promising, but the modder did stop finishing it. Last update was on 26th of march in 2021.

What do you mean "was", it is. Even if it does not really review the features of the Academy DLC and hacking DLC, the thing still works miracles on the vanilla and Supermacy + Vaulters DLC.
I do understand that if one wishes to revamp the previously mentioned most recent main DLCs, then the ESG mod may be the go to.
But at the same time, the thing that the Enhanced Space brings more of the good stuff from ES1 makes this mod more interesting to me.

[Singularity's Marauder]

Originally posted by Tat011:

i mean the community isnt big enough to support more than one balance mod, and there are like 3 of them.

What's the third one?
Enhanced...
ESG...
What is the third?

[Groo the one]

Originally posted by Randomized Randomizer:

Originally posted by Groo the one:

Sure, this mod was really promising, but the modder did stop finishing it. Last update was on 26th of march in 2021.

What do you mean "was", it is. Even if it does not really review the features of the Academy DLC and hacking DLC, the thing still works miracles on the vanilla and Supermacy + Vaulters DLC.

You're aware of i.e. hero skill trees are not finished, yet? I don't remember what other content stayed unfinished, but I did translate the mod to german language, so at the time Kuma (the modder) was still active, I was "up to date", when it comes to the mechanics and content of the mod. And I really liked it. But sadly it seems to have been abandoned by Kuma - he will have reasons for - I'm sure. Anyway, it's worth to check out the mod. AI feels more challenging and Kuma did a lot of really cool and interesting changes.

[Singularity's Marauder]

Originally posted by Groo the one:

Originally posted by Randomized Randomizer:

What do you mean "was", it is. Even if it does not really review the features of the Academy DLC and hacking DLC, the thing still works miracles on the vanilla and Supermacy + Vaulters DLC.

You're aware of i.e. hero skill trees are not finished, yet? I don't remember what other content stayed unfinished, but I did translate the mod to german language, so at the time Kuma (the modder) was still active, I was "up to date", when it comes to the mechanics and content of the mod. And I really liked it. But sadly it seems to have been abandoned by Kuma - he will have reasons for - I'm sure. Anyway, it's worth to check out the mod. AI feels more challenging and Kuma did a lot of really cool and interesting changes.

I haven't seen that.
Unless by unfinished, you mean unbalanced.
Or maybe it's some specific hero type I haven't encountered yet.

[Groo the one]

Originally posted by Randomized Randomizer:

I haven't seen that.
Unless by unfinished, you mean unbalanced.
Or maybe it's some specific hero type I haven't encountered yet.

Perhaps those are heroes offered by Awakening and Penumbra DLC? Not sure so far, as long as both DLC were released in 2019. So i doubt, its only them. As long as I understand, you have a game running Enhanced Space 2 activated. This case you easily can check out on marketplace, what class and/or faction skills of heroes are left unfinished (no need to buy them, for to check out their skills). If I remember correct, you don't need to skill them first, for to see some of them are bugged.

[Groo the one]

Did start a quick game with Enhanced Space 2 mod activated and wasn't able to see heroes with broken skills (these skills were shown as coloured square with no content) in marketplace so far (6 heroes available). But I'd swear...

Did recheck the workshop comments and found this one:

Originally posted by Ravi on 21st of January 2022 at 21:28:

I believe there's a bug where I can't choose the hero skill that is in the lower right corner of the screen, even though I have no problems getting the skills that are in the lower left corner. To be specific, I was playing with the Horatio faction, and my Horatio hero couldn't get the "Restricted Supplier" skill while my Imperial hero couldn't get the "Titan of Industry" skill

Edit: By the way, you can add the following mods 1. and 3. to Enhanced Space 2 (what is usually not "friendly" in case of other mods):

1. Endless Legend Population
2. Enhanced Space 2
3. Endless Moons 2.8.9

Be aware, another order of mod-activation will cause trouble ingame. I have to add, that the modder Kuma wasn't happy about the idea to play Endless Moons 2.8.9 with Enhanced Space 2 same time - for balancing reasons.

[Singularity's Marauder]

Okay, after playing this mod some more, I realized that I'm kinda full of ♥♥♥♥, and this mod has certain flaws that I would like to discuss.
The system improvements, although feeling more like in ES1 are kinda poorly designed. The reasoning behind flat bonuses in early game improvements was that your empire would have a small population at that point... Or rather your fresh new system. So having flat industry or science bonus was just to help you kickstart or make the system more effective.
The heroes huge cost causes them to need you to heavily invest into dust production, which causes it that your empire needs to constantly research towards having more dust. Unlike in ES2 where the dust aspect could be totally ignored, because as long as you have enough dust "who cares?". Only certain empires or types of playthroughs were about stocking up on dust, but if heroes now cost like 256 dust on lvl 9, then it becomes a ridiculous chase for more and more dust either through scrapping of ships or constant improvements.
Considering the fact that their early game skills don't really do that much, it makes it so you sometimes think about putting them on the unemployed state.
Another criticism I would have is that the skill tree is very restrictive. Heroes in Endless Space 2 where extremely flexible, having the ability to either heavily specialize in one function, but sometimes it feels more effective to make a hero be able to do both administration and fleet combat.
Switching heroes between these two is actually encouraged in mid to late game, as your heroes gain access to skills that lessen their minimal employment time, thus allowing you to shuffle them around more easily.
Heroes are also kept from being broken, because late game skills are rarely that powerful and are usually about making the hero more convenient "setting dust cost to 0" or "allowing the hero to be assigned outside empire's sphere of influence, good for deep space scouting".
The planet types is an interesting change, but the thing is that it does not feel like populations were adapted for this.
Sophons benefit from cold planets, the four armed karate guys (that was kinda racist) benefit from fertile, but there are no longer that many fertile and cold planets. Most planets are temperate and mild.
THIS IS REALISTIC.
Although... Not really. Out there in space, most planets would be harsh and craggy or whatever... Aka. SUPER BAD. Like, look at our Solar System. Most of it is complete garbage. Who the ♥♥♥♥ wants to live in on Mars? Oh, what? You like sand in your eyes?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdMUWstqbXI
Or maybe you would like to live on Venus? The boiling soup planet? Or maybe you would like to inhabit one of our 4 gas giants, where the only surface... Is GAS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0uFmiwY4uQ
The only thing you're doing is making most populations useless. At this point, I should just gather around Pilgrims, cause they have the highest base science production and further this science production is made bigger thanks to common anomalies.
Planets are supposed to have something about them that allows them to be made to work, in this mod planets usually just suck. And that's good.
I like when planets are terrible. That is the fun part. But at the same time, this kinda renders one of the most important part of the game "racist system of shuffling around populations to make them work" cause apparently no race can really adapt, all of them just float around like atoms. I'm not sure if this is racist or realistic anymore. We were never to space and never met any aliens. But at this point, I think this is kinda dumb. Anyway, what was I saying?
I forgor.

[Singularity's Marauder]

Another thing I would like to point out is that the technology restricting movement is an important part of balancing. As if you were to give Cravers immediate access to moving around the galaxy, they would start rapidly conquering it.
These kind of technologies are crucial to keep these kind of low-science agressive races in check. Theoritically United Empire, Horatio, Cravers and Vodoyani, if they were in a 1v1 against Sophons, with this kind of balancing, they would just be able to immediately fly into the other player's home system, kill him and ♥♥♥♥ off to eating dinner in a matter of 50 turns.
Although this is untested.

[Singularity's Marauder]

This mod also drastically changed science laws, making them feel very basic compared to their intuitive highly beneficial support role in the original ES2.
Lowered industrial cost for system improvements meant to help Sophons in the early game was replaced with more probes. Which is redundant tbh... And kinda broken. You can literally scan half the tiny galaxy by sending just a bunch of probes. If you have a hero with probes and a -100% probe cooldown, then you can just spam those and know everything you need to know. The +40% food on systems which was crucial to late game and high expansion, and also really lore friendly and interesting... Was replaced with just... More science? Which is super... Super... I dont even know how this got past the critcism at all, I guess there were no real Sophon mains in the community to test this back then.

Also, strategic resources being more common, but at the same time more scarce... The fact that you need them to do pretty much anything is a neat idea. But at the same time, not every faction needed to have strategics in the original game. If you tried really hard, you could probably get around without even researching Hyperium or Titanium. And just focus on Adamantium. If you found like a barren or lava planet with a rich adamantium base, you could just get that and give that to ships and also get some cool improvements and pretty much dominate mid game. That was balanced, because barren and lava planets are garbage, so having been forced to colonize them in order to get a cool thing... Is poetic and neat.
But now we all need ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hyperium and titanium. You can't get around without it, cause all the basic improvements that used to be pretty much for free in ES2... Now cost more time and resources... Which you will need, if you want to benefit from your population and systems.

Kinda... Kinda weird, ngl.

Also... Percentage increase is always broken. If you have an increase by 5%, that is going to give you like... 20 industry per 400 industry... Which doesn't sound like much. But at some point, you are going to get like 2k industry out of nowhere. This is why Behemoths are a dumb idea. Having just a cheap thing float in the sky and give you 50% bonus FIDSI for basically nothing is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dumb as hell, boi.
But maybe I just don't know.
So the fact that basic improvements give you now bonuses to one aspect of FIDSI for a small exchange in natural resources is... Has extreme potential to be game breaking.

[Singularity's Marauder]

I also noticed that military improvements have been severely spread out, which causes the military tech tree to be more annoying than ever. Previously, you only needed like the least amount of input into the military tech tree to make your fleets work. Weapons and defense modules were unlocked via getting to the next tech stage, and most of the actual things in tech tries were modules, some weird bonuses, fighters and bombers probably, and unique resource intensive weapons which were the ice breaker... However, you could get around without having them, further making strategic resources not as important as they are in this enhanced edition. Now on the other hand... The entire military tech tree is filled with weapons and modules that are probably, most like, although I haven't tested this, used thoroughly to get an edge. Whereas in ES2 you can just probably ignore 50% of this tech tree, in Enhanced you probably need to spend there much more time to get all the cool stuff.
Another thing is that the Chain Gang was made kinda mandatory, considering the fact that both the "gain more military per food" and "gain more military by sacrificing a population unit" were rolled into one.
Also the second stage of the tech tree is pretty much ENTIRELY MANDATORY. You will need all four of those, because they contain the only 2 early to mid game defense improvements and both tanks and airplanes.
Tanks and airplanes being available in the early game is a neat idea, but then it kinda... Well... Streamlines the race in technology if it comes to invasions, probably making it wholy reliable on spamming those overpowered invasion modules.
But I should check that.