Thank you for your very detailed feedback, Stavrozium!
I also saw your other thread specifically about the Asurans but since you also mention them here I'll just reply here.

1. We are of course working on it but it's not ready for release yet ;)

2. Thanks for bringing that to our attention!
We will have to check how to deal with that as setting them as "proper" heroes would also cause them to respawn in GC which is something that we'd like to avoid.

3. We did quite a few balancing tests with the Asurans and also had several rather competitive matches in multiplayer. Most matches were either 1v1 or 2v2. We are very pleased with the balance up to tech level 3 but test results become sparse at level 4 and level 5 since -due to the multiplayer competitiveness- most matches ended at tech 3 or lower.
I checked the income stream ability of the Asurans again and you are right, it was too high.
I've now changed it to 190 (from 205). The mine upgrades themselves are fine but were of course affected by the too-high base income which will be adjusted in the next patch. Thanks for the very detailed explanation of your findings! :)
We will also take a closer look at the price of the T4/5 ships again. It needs some more testing but at first glance I tend to agree with your suggestions.

4. The ability of drones being capable of penetrating shields is practically their unique selling point in the series and we really want to stay lore accurate in that point.
Yes, that means that the Wraith will always have a slight advantage but that's just the way it is I guess.

5. Each hive will spawn 3 squadrons of Darts, indefinitely, until you destroy it's hangar.
I feel that makes Hives quite useful and given the Wraith's very powerful Corvettes that often results in fighter superiority of the Wraith. Maybe I've just seen too many PP playthroughs but currently I think the Wraith already employ a strong "swarm" style.

Ive been doing a lot more testing,
i finished playing the GC, from both sides,
i really liked it, even if it is unfinished;
without ground combat the GC is a bit less tedious,
and it is finished more quickly. I like the story elements,
and even the obvious advantages the wraith get,
which makes playing as the Lanteans more challenging. ;)

I also played a little bit of ground skirmish,
mostly just checking out all the units,
and i really like it so far! :D
I really look forward to seeing the Asurans,
specifically i want to see hordes of replicator spiders :P
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As for the Asuran drone missiles,
and this is just a suggestion ofcourse;
make shields block the light drone missiles,
while the heavy drones would still ignore shields;
the puddle jumper could then get the light drones;
and the heavy bombers get the heavy drone, (or the other way around?)
making them a lot more useful/different, because at the moment,
it seems a bit pointless to make the heavy bombers,
since the jumpers also get a cloaking ability.
(in any case, the heavy fighters/bombers both feel a bit redundant,
imho, although i dont know all their stats, ofcourse)
At the moment, puddle jumpers can easily kill fighters, especially in groups,
while still having shield ignoring bomber damage vs larger ships,
and they have a cloak ability if Corvettes show up,
making them quite OP, even if they cost 2 pop. (when made in stations)
This way, you could also give the Asurans a bomber that costs 1 pop,
and maybe lower the pop cost of Corvettes/Frigates/Destroyers (to 3/4/6 ?).

Also, the Asurans then wont get shield penetrating missiles,
right from the start, making them less OP in early game,
while still having the option of the heavy drones at higher tech lvls,
and the light drones would probably still shred shields anyways,
but at least there would be some extra way to counter them,
(with shield boost abilities) which is really necessary, imo.

Lore-wise, this could also make sense,
since drones were invented to fight the wraith, (afaik)
and there would be no need for this shield-ignoring technology,
as the wraith do not use "bubble shields", like the Lanteans do.
And then later, the Asurans improved the design,
when they rebelled against the Lanteans.
(so we only see heavy drones in the show)
Or you could even say that every time you play a new GC map,
or even a skirmish on the map, this occurs in an alternate reality,
each time, and every time its a bit different, multiverse theory, etc,
which is also a part of the lore of the show, (that "mirror" :P )
so in other words, you could make up your own lore a bit,
and it would still count as "canon". xD
Anyways, this is just a few ideas i had,
and i thought i'd share it. ;)

Btw, Warships should cost 12 pop, the Dreadnaught 16 pop,
and the City ship should cost 20 pop; it probably sounds silly,
but having these nice round numbers feels more... satisfying. xD

Also, i noticed some errors in the desriptions for the Asuran ships,
i dont remember which ones exactly, it was several ships;
specifically the parts about how many weapons/fighters they have.
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As for the wraith, you're right, they are indeed swarmyness incarnate. :P
i didn't realize hives have infinte darts in their 3 hangars, which i love btw!
And yes, their Corvette is borderline OP, although to be fair,
if you fly your whole fleet of fighters into ANY Corvettes,
you're doing it wrong anyway. :P I like how you have to take care
of your fighters/bombers as they are easily countered by Corvettes,
just like how you need to protect your corvettes from bigger ships. ;)
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For the Anubis faction, the Flagship needs a buff,
preferably 2 fighters, (with maybe 2-4 more squads in hangar)
maybe even more, and/or lower their pop cost to 6,
making them in line with the other factions,
(specifically the Wraith's Iratus Battlecruisers)
because i feel the extra 1 pop cost doesn't feel worth it, atm.
They have 2 cool abilities, but nothing really spectacular,
at least compared to the other factions, imo.
Also, i feel like a Flagship definitely needs more hangars. :P

The New Ha'taks need a buff, imo,
they are only slightly stronger than the Old Ha'taks,
having basically 1 extra cannon, and a slightly better ability,
while costing significantly more resources. (and +1 pop)
Maybe change 1 of their medium cannons to a heavy cannon,
specifically the cannon that it has extra, at the front? ;)

And the Super Ha'taks (as well as Anubis' ship)
seem to trouble focus firing all their weapons at the same target;
sometimes i see shots firing when f.e. fighters are flanking it,
even while i'm targeting hardpoints, etc..
Anubis should maybe get a buff, 10 pop seems a bit too much,
even with the superlightning weapon, imo,
although i assume i missed something. :P

Last but not least, the Pyramid ships are a bit too expensive,
when you compare them to the Corvettes of the other factions;
they have no ability at all, which is fine by itself,
they aren't bad, they do decent damage, but still..
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Tau'ri: the Asgard ships should all get a shield ability,
(just like the one Thor's ship has, an "autocast" ability)
that automatically activates, including the Daniel Jackson ship,
that ship's ability needs this "autocast", imo,
as their current shield ability seems a bit buggy;
the ability button simply disappears, once their shield is depleted,
despite still having a shield generator hardpoint.
(i'll do some more testing, i could be wrong :P )

And maybe 1 of the Asgard ships (O'neill class and Thor's ship :P)
could get some fighters, maybe some kind of small Asgard drones?
You could also just add like 2 F-302 squads,
that deploys along the O'neill class ship, and Thor's ship,
and 1 X-301 squad for the The Daniel Jackson, but without any hangars,
they would simply arrive using Asgard hyperspace travel,
symbolizing the alliance, between the Tau'ri and the Asgard? :)

In short, i feel like the Tau'ri really lack some bigger "carrier" ships,
even if they have the only Corvette that comes with 1 fighter,
they should at least get 1 ship that deploys 2 fighters. (+ hangarS?)
And the Asgard ships all having proper shields simply fits. :P
You could also just add more fighters to the BC-304,
which would probably be less work, although if you change the shields,
you could add fighters while you work on that, saving some time. ;)
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PS i specifically want to avoid players thinking;
"The other guy is playing Asurans? Then im going Wraith!",
and keep this mod as balanced, and enjoyable, as possible. :)
Also, if you dont want some of these ideas in your mod,
perhaps it could be added with a submod in the future? ;)

In any case, these are just some of my thoughts,
i have made a few mods myself, for other rts games,
but i dont have any experience modding this game, (yet?)
i like making "rebalance" mods, and i just love this mod,
since i grew up with Stargate, hence this long rant. ;)

Today i started to look into the mod files,
of this mod and a few others, to compare,
and to learn how modding for this game works.
I only looked at some of the XML files so far,
mostly to look f.e. how many fighters a specific ship has.
If i'm not mistaken, quite a few ships have an infinite reserve of fighters,
(the biggest/capitol ships of each faction, as far as i can tell)
so then this isn't exclusive to the hive ship, as i thought.
Which is fine, imho, all factions should have 1 capital ship like this,
while the wraith should then have several; which brings me to:

The Wraith Battlecruiser deploys 2 darts,
but has no reserves, despite having a hangar;
i found this when i looked at the xml file,
it doesn't have the line of code, <Reserve_Spawned_Units_Tech_0>
even when other ships that dont have reserves, have it.
(they have 0 in reserve, infinite reserves is i assume -1)
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I also wanted to check what is called "<Space_Layer>" in the files;
meaning the Y-level, or height, of space units,
(i saw 3 layers; Corvette, Frigate and Capital ship)
I also saw "<Layer_Z_Adjust>" , which uses a specific number.

I wanted to check this, because some ships have trouble pathfinding.
This is a EaW issue, not a problem with this mod;
if there are too many units on the same layer;
especially the biggest Capital ships,
they'll often turn around unnecessarily,
and take a huge detour instead of just going forward, etc..
The main trick to counter this, is to build ships of each class/layer,
and/or using several control groups, spreading your units across the map,
and use these layers to put your ships in a formation, on top of eachother..
This isn't really a problem, i learned to live with this, but still.. :P

There are some mods though, like the EaWX mods,
that seem to have found a way to get around this issue;
making ships smaller makes a big difference,
as then their "hitboxes" aren't as big,
so they don't block each other as much.
(and if done well, the game feels more zoomed out, while it isn't)
I did see a "scale factor" in the files, which is always 1.0 ,
so i assume/hope there is a way to make ships a bit smaller,
without having to change the models/texture or whatever. :P
changing all/most of the unit's sizes, to f.e. 80%,
should already help with the ships all getting in each other's way.
Although it is still a lot of work to change all the sizes of units, this way.

I also noticed some ships that have no space layer at all,
although they do have "<Layer_Z_Adjust>"
specifically the X-303 and BC-304, The city ship,
and the Anubis System Flagship all have no space layer,
and the Flagship can fly a LOT closer to Super Ha'taks,
compared to other ships in the same category,
so perhaps some shennanigans can be done with this,
by removing the space layers, and using the layer_z_adjust instead. ;)
Again, i know this is a lot of work, and its certainly not urgent. ;)

Anyways, i hope all of this helps,
and my apologies for the wall of text, i wanted to be thorough,
and i probably still forgot some stuff, so more could be coming. ;)

Once again thank you for your very detailed feedback!

I think you played a lot against AI, didn't you? That, unfortunately, will have an impact on your test results as there are several modifiers on the AI, such as unite belonging to a heavy AI simply doing more damage and having more health than the same unit would have if it was in player possession.
Many of your observations should not be noticeable in a player-vs-player match and the mod's balance is purely designed for that.

To answer some of your questions:

The Wraith Battlecruiser doesn't have reserve unit because it uses it's hangar for spawning Kamikaze Darts. If you destroy the hardpoint, it can no longer use its ability.

Space layer simply defines which units respect each other when pathfinding (same layer name = units will avoid each other), whereas the z_adjust defines how "deep" the units will fly below the 0 plane. Units in the same layer usually have similar z_adjust but obviously that depends on the model.

You can tweak the collision boxes with custom_x_hard_extent for example, but on very big units the engine still hits a limit.

All ships have a space layer but you wont directly see it on many because they inherit it from a template ("variant of").

Hope that helps understanding things a bit better ;)


PS: I've fixed the issue with the Asuran heroes not being lockable through the settings, will be in the upcoming patch :)

Ah yes, i have only been playing against the AI, usually on hard difficulty,
and i see how this can affect test results. This explains a lot. :P

And yes, this did help me understand a lot of things better, thanks for explaining. :)

I'm looking forward to the next patch,
i'll do more testing once it's been updated. ;)
For now i'm just gonna play, for fun,
and work on some of my own mods, for other games. ;)