Auto-upgrade and components with a higher mass than those they replace

This is a bit off your topic, but it is related: Support barely gets better as you research it, and it gets bigger which makes it more inconvenient to fit with other components. By effect/mass ratio after environmental support, which is a sizable 50% increase over life support, the next 3 upgrades are 7%, 4%, and 3% better then their previous version. As a point of comparison, the first 3 sensor improvements are 33%, 20%, and 46% better then their predecessor and the first four beam upgrades are 82%, 38%, 38%, and 29% better. Right now it really doesn't make much sense to go down the support tech line.

EDIT: So after posting this I though, "Well support doesn't really get more space efficient as you go up the tree, maybe it gets more cost efficient." Nope. In fact, upgrading from environmental support to stellar support is the only one that doesn't make it more expensive in terms of maintenance cost/range.

So we should just use the basic or add more of the earlier ones? That does not make ANY sense at all. What bout the 'miniaturization' tech that precedes it? I thought of the 3 choices one 'decreases mass' was one...

Yeah, the specializations will help you, but I'm comparing it to other tech trees that also get similar bonuses. Environmental support is a major upgrade over life support but the rest are very minor upgrades. I guess having different sizes does help you hit your max mass exactly, but as a matter of opportunity cost, I think it's very hard to justify researching support over other tech lines.

I agree. 

I also play on HUGE maps with limited habitable planets and tight clusters. This tends to force all factions to get 'some' life support to be able to find and colonize or conquer. 

I haven't found this a problem because I've played only on scattered or spiral Galaxy choices, but I can see how this is a problem with tight clustered choices, especially on the largest map settings which I believe a lot of us prefer despite needing more than 50-hours [and probably longer] play before you can even sniff the possibility of winning.

It also needs balancing because of the inconsistent upgrade values quoted, surely we should all be expecting a consistent upgrade value of 50% or more to make the game fun rather than realistic.

Peregrine, you're bang on the topic, really.

I did a quick spreadhseet to compare the costs and mass and range and all that and well, like you said, they suck.

What needs to happen, in my opinion is that they get smaller or at the very least, stay the same size.

I did briefly consider just modding it in to see how it plays, but I'm not sure what I need to put in the mod folder - just the components I change or the whole file.

GO MARVIN GO!!!!

Change it and then post it so I can also do it!!!

The mod folder is a bust, unfortunately.  Tried doing it in a modular way, tried doing it in the 'whole file these bits I've changed are in' way.  At the moment it only works if you (backup first!) switch in a modified version of the game's ShipComponentDefs.xml file.  But thanks for the encouragement.