If I didn't know better, I'd have assumed these were vanilla. The messages have good cadence, the mechanical hooks are smart and respectful of player attention. They also do new things - the mark of a mod that understands the engine. Short of bespoke art, this is as premium as DW2 events get. Huge kudos.

The fantasy is great: a confident republic with a civil society that funds security regardless of the state's whims. Mechanically, though, the combo of:

• Low corruption + Strong growth + Happiness
  
• +20% Tourism (quietly enormous), +10% trade
  
• *Manual Mining* control (Merchantile's crown jewel)
  
• And the Corporate Navy's pre-tax maintenance

...pushes Terrans into "Way of the Ancients without the maintenance reduction plus abilities" territory. In my run, Tourism alone did 8B by 2860 while holding 1.6B GDP, then 25B by 2880 after terraforming - some years dwarfing ALL other State income *combined*. Tourism also steals private credits from other empires and turbocharges migration, which compounds growth. It's the healthiest private-to-state conversion in the game, especially when you build fewer stations (fewer targets) and keep taxes low. Don't underestimate these bonuses.

With the Corporate Navy getting thousands of credits of pre-tax maintenance that doesn't cannibalize research or growth funding, and Terrans print durable power (more on their combat impact later).

Suggestions: (some, not all)

1. Drop manual mining control but give Exploration Cruisers a massive mining yield bonus. That preserves the "state can target critical resources" role play without turning the whole private sector into a player-driven force multiplier.
   
2. Reduce Colony Corruption Reduction and either trim Population Growth or Colony Happiness.
   
3. Cut the Corporate Navy's hull cap and/or disallow Destroyers (escorts + frigates only)
   
4. Remove Reassuring Defenses. Troops are cheap and the government doesn't need the extra cushion of happiness.
   
5. Add a modest Ship Maintenance penalty to the Terran Republic to reflect "we can fund it, but its pricey".

Right now, ECs are a luxury SUV showing up to a bike race. Fun. Expensive. Unnecessary. Standard explorers already go the distance (literally) and automation does a decent job. Making explorers worse to prop up ECs would slow the early game.

A better approach: Give ECs unique capabilities.

• Shroud of Terra:
  Create a shield-piercing environmental hazard around Sol that only EC hull can transit through via unique high-reactive armor + repair bonus baked into the hull. This prevents the AI from spoiling the Terra narrative and makes the EC essential without nerfing explorers.
  
• Storm Ecology:
  Populate the shroud with many weak but armor-biased monsters. A fleet could brute force it at great opportunity cost; an EC can solo it slowly. This also explains why ECs exist: they're unique pathfinders and expeditionary hulls that can get places nothing else can.
  
• State Miner Extraordinaire:
  With elite mining yields, after clearing Terra, now the state has a reason to manually task an EC for Hyper Crystal and super luxuries, especially on discovery.
  
• Streamline techs:
  Merge two EC component techs into the hull tech or grant them via the Terra hint world events to keep research bloat down.

Terra is the mod's thesis made space-object. It arrives at a satisfying pace, takes work to realize, and meaningfully supports tall play. By year 2800 (40 years in), I had only eight colonies, three of them minor acquisitions. That's the tallest I've gone in DW2 without losing.

If anything, to truly support tall-but-thick growth (big pop, few worlds), consider one early-mid-game Terran pop bump via events. A hidden Terran independent at <20 suitability generated on discovery - expensive to integrate but juicy for migration. You could also thread this through the Ghost Fleet or one of the Terra clue chains. The point: more Terrans sooner without Space-Orcing the map, like all the AI empires want to do.

Vanilla issue the mod inherits: the Shakturi hit hard, but fade fast. DW2 wars are supposed to be attrition games; without colony-anchored defenses, they can't consolidate effectively enough. Your weapon tweaks makes their fleets feel dangerous (good!), but once the wave passes, they crumble.

Suggestions:

• Give them Planetary Shadow Beams or equivalent batteries that unlock with their arrival. It doesn't have to be insane, just enough to punish and give them a safer rally point.
  
• Weak planetary shields so they have some sticking power that need dedicated bombardment weapons to simply delete.
  
• Much more powerful Bastions, or a Shakturi Bastion-only weapon that makes them as dangerous as a modest fleet.

With one-of-each race, plus three more amicable soft-skins, the map naturally forms large pro-Terran coalitions:

• Readily allies (6):
  Ackdarian, Ikkuro, Kiadian, Securan, Wekkarus, Atuuk (functionally neutral toward Terrans)
  
• Join with a nudge (3):
  Teekan, Zenox, Ugnari
  
• Stubborn but workable (3):
  Haakonish, Mortalen, Quameno
  
• Hard enemies (3):
  Boskara, Dhayut, Gizureans

Axis-leaning races lack safe neighbors, and when any bug gets ahead, the friendliness network dog-piles them. Without powerful strengths, they struggle under the weight before the Shakturi come. The Web of Destiny usually props up the Ikkuro; the Boskara Conformity rarely matters.

Two ways to help:

• Duplicate Axis races:
  2 Boskara + 1 extra Dhayut/Giz to build defensive pairs that are pre-bond before the Axis event. It creates smaller, sharper blocs that don't fold to a 1v4.
  
• Diplomacy softening:
  Reduce extreme biases to max -80 (except the Shakturi and, to a lesser degree, the Boskara) and lift average unfriendliness toward -40. You'll get more small clusters and fewer universal hate-targets.

Multiple tests showed AI spy odds vs Terran Republic was weirdly low (<20%) while other matchups sat >50% - and it held even when the Terrans aren't a big dog or is an AI empire (AI Terrans not part of the above game). That means enemies can't steal maps or probe strength; they go to war blind and poke border rocks. Given how much the mod leans on "veterans who know what they're doing", its fair for Terrans to not be unknowable. Worth auditing whatever creates this effect.

Slot changes are cleanly implemented. The issue is role overlap:

• Battleships are meant to be slow, punishing heavy weapon platforms with a cost gate (Hexodorium + credits)
  
• Heavy ships, emulating them, currently do the job cheaper, sooner, and arguably tougher by weight - with buffed late Hail Cannons making railgun fleets the obvious meta pick. They become the "I win" button without paying the battleship tax.
  
• A global +20% missile damage further tilts the board: fast missile carriers on cautious posture can out-trade most things (and obliterate monsters) while the Corporate Navy drinks from the same fountain.

Suggestions:

• Give Heavy ships a notable drawback:
  Worse FTL efficiency, speed and slow activation, the turn rate of slugs, a daunting construction speed penalty, a significant Hexodorium cost.
  
• Re-empower Battleships to have a place:
  Beef up inherent targeting, enable them to move and maneuver better, increase power output passively, provide a major damage repair bonus, dramatically increase hull reactive rating.
  
• Remove missile's +20% damage bonus
  If anything, give them a faster RoF between shots in a volley, so their volleys are tighter and more resilient to PD.

At ~20 colonies, 132 evenly distributed corporate warships stood vs 83 State warships, mostly frigates. With missiles and some fighters, the Corporate Navy not only cleared monsters, they preempted Hive ships, blunted pirate raids, and even spoiled a Shakturi invasion. They also played the offensive fiddle, arriving quickly to newly conquered colonies, clearing systems like busy bussers. They rarely fought alone; ad-hoc stacks formed naturally.

This is very fun, but it also means the civilian tail wags the military dog. This means the "State Navy budget tension" vanishes because the civilians carry a large, pre-tax stick.

The earlier economic solutions should mitigate this, but its worth emphasizing how effective these ships were with missiles. I considered not using defense fleets at all.

Diverging from DW2 vanilla, where Earth is just some rock, it commits to the thesis: Terra matters. Events pull naturally toward it, rather than pushing into it. The levers pulled make the Terran fantasy sell. When a mod has me change my normal play and still has me grin at the mid-game, it's doing something right.

Still, it could use some sandbags pulled from the economic scales. Exploration Cruisers want a job only they can do. Shakturi deserve a foothold. A tiny nudge to diplomacy and espionage would make the midgame less one-sided and the late game more dramatic.

"On Earth, peace to men of good will."

Thank you so much for this invaluable feedback Jason, this made my day

There is a lot I can learn from this and I´m really grateful for the detailed analysis on many of the different aspects...

I already had some ideas reading thru of the suggestions and have to ponder about implementation and ramifications....

I agree on many of the suggestions and will revisit these elements.
Some are easy fixes > heavy ships > economics some others need pondering and some cannot be implemented due to engine limitations (unfortunately)

but...things can be done!

However I have no idea what is going on with Espionage...it cannot be altered anyway as there is no xml access to it so whatever created the effect of being Terrans opague...I have no idea but there is a race and/or gov bonus I can apply - and thus give others more success chance

Lots of things to consider now and I love it.

So I reviewed your save and find you missed the whole grand finale and what Return to Terra is all about
Just researched the 2 techs leading to it and voila !
https://postimg.cc/Dm5GgVF2

Also, that game got "Blitzed", true !?! Maybe even on automation - lol
Missed part of the Terra arc, did not repair the Hyperion...
Still a lot to take away from it! Thank you so much

...but that Destroyer Long Range Sensor exploit!!!...errrr, that not happen again...they all get nerfed to oblivion now.
Only ships to mount Long Range Sensor will be Recon Cruiser and Command Cruisers in next version.

The Recon Cruiser job...is to spy on enemies far away as it can jump directly 600M....and in
the future I want it to be the tool to find ....you see!

Corporate Navy strong cause busloads of money. I will remove all bonuses to trade, tourism, happiness etc

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that I did the nebula event afterwords for completion's sake, figured it would do that but just didn't prioritize it, but probably should have. Stubbornly didn't get the research facilities despite research focus - already had big bonuses. But completely missed the Hyperion.

Blitzed? Yeah, it was kind of fast, but tech rate and all was set to normal. I considered the Terran Republic the victors before the Shakturi were defeated.

Gonna miss having thorough LRS coverage in enemy space. Hadn't thought about it this way, but having that might be a powerful advantage that isn't intended to be easy to get. Always took it for granted, since the AI often takes LRS on their ships, I'd assumed they usually get good coverage too. Might have reason to use monitoring stations again.

Originally posted by Nightskies:

Blitzed? Yeah, it was kind of fast, but tech rate and all was set to normal. I considered the Terran Republic the victors before the Shakturi were defeated.

I find that if I let NPC empires be and not go after them they grow way stronger over time. Also 2000 star galaxy dynamic is a little different as there is more space/planets to expand to so there is more "flesh"

What is interesting though is the amount of surviving empires...

Ok, so next goal is to make them aliens like Terrans a little less as it seems that it is still on autopilot to become everybody´s darling and give them bugs some leeway from the others by not hating them too much.

Also Shakturi get couple new techs and buildings, wish we would get some sort of slider to determine their strength on arrival as often they are almost DOA because of the attrition that is setting in once all-out war breaks out and their allie/s are not a huge empire.