Hi there. I've been using the outposts for a little bit, and I just dislike the balance of the mod in multiple places. My post doesn't include all the outposts types, as I haven't used all of them yet.

First, let me start with the mining outpost. At the base, it provides you with 750 of a given resource, provided you have enough total mining skill. Honestly, I feel like 750 is way, waaaaaay too much for a lot of the resources.

For acquiring silver, it's almost as strong as trading outposts. With a mining skill of 30 you get about almost as much silver as you do with 30 social.

With a total mining level of 30, you get 750 silver.
With a total social level of 30, you get 900 silver.

And yes, I know you can add more pawns to a trading outpost, but with mining ones you'd have to just making new ones if you want more silver. But that's also no the main reason for why it's so strong.

With a total mining level of 30, you get 750 silver.
With a total mining level of 35, you get 750 gold.

If I care about money, why would I ever go with silver over gold? I could sell all of that gold for way more. And all that for just getting 5 more mining skill levels. But also, what about components and crafting outposts?

With a total mining level of 50, you get 750 components.
With a total crafting level of 50, you get 500 components.

The crafting outpost, for the purposes of getting components, is just straight up overshadowed by the mining outpost. This is just insane. I know that the crafting outposts also make advanced components, but still. My point still stands. For normal components the mining outposts are just much better.

Finally, the amount of plasteel you get may also be a bit too much - 750 is quite a lot. And always get 750 of everything no matter what. You have 100 pawns, each level 20 mining? Sorry, you're only getting 750 silver. 1000 pawns? Still only 750 silver. 2 very talented pawns? Also 750. I feel like the amount you get should start smaller for everything, but start scaling up with the amount it provides based on the total amount of skill.



Next, what about the research outpost? I've put pawns with total intellectual level of 35 there, and they just rush through any research insanely fast. Doing geothermal power research, from start to finish, took around 5 in-game hours. Seriously, this is just insane considering you only need to send a couple of pawns to an outpost where you don't need to worry about them basically at all.



And finally, the last one I'll touch. The farming outpost. I haven't used them for all that long, but honestly. I feels like they produce a bit too much for the amount of growing skills they need. And on top of that, why are we allowed to set up farming outposts in the middle of the sea ice? I assume this is a mistake, but you can straight up make them on the north pole. (I was also going to complain about ambrosia, but it seems I've got a mod conflict going on which adds it as an option... And no, I can't grow it normally.)



Now, this one isn't exactly balance complaint, but I feel is still relevant to mention. The scavenging outposts, from their description, make it seem like they may provide you with some random items, potentially stuff that would otherwise be a quest reward (only my assumption). But so far, I've seen nothing but techprints. Techprint after techprint, nothing more. Is this intended? Or some quirk that makes them only give techprints until I unlock all of them?



Same as before, just something to mention. The logging outpost output is based on amount of pawns. I feel like it should be increased with plant skill level, even if slightly, since pawns chop down trees faster if they're more skilled.



Now, I wouldn't be complaining about it if it was more configurable. But as it is right now, all you can do is either increase or decrease the output from the outposts. If I disapprove of the amount of gold the mining outposts produce, I can't do anything about it unless I also nerf every single outpost that produces things. Do I feel the trading outpost is too weak? Can't buff it without increasing the amount of stuff other ones make. I honestly feel this mod could really use that option. It would make basically all of irrelevant.



Now, what do I propose?

- Reduce amount of gold, components you get from mining outposts down to 75 and the amount of plasteel you get from mining outposts down to 150-300.
- Possibly drop the amount of everything as well, but make the amount scale with mining level.
- Slow down the research from research outposts. It's way, way too fast. And potentially make it only work during the day to make it more realistic, as it seems it works 24/7 right now.
- Most likely drop the amount of items you get from farming outposts.
- Add more configuration options. At the very least, let us configure amount of resources we get split between each type of outpost, instead of a global option. And settings for non-resource ones, like research speed from research outpost, amount of shells per pawn in artillery outpost, or the base/minimum/decreased per pawn value for scavenging.