I had a lot of fun this beta! The game has a ton of potential. Here's a list of the balance suggestions I've compiled over my 261 hours in BFGA2 and from talking to other players on the forums / discord.
1. Ordinance
a. Consider reducing the defense turret bonus from brace from +100% to +50% if ordinance is staying as is. If you buff it, keep the full 100% for now.
b. Give torpedoes more dodge chance. Eldar torps feel ok at short range, but IN/chaos/tau ones will evaporate if fired without fighter cover even at very close range. And it’s impossible to use them to herd enemies at long range. Torpedoes can already be countered by dodging, so they don’t need to get shot down quickly by turrets.
c. Buff strike craft speed just a little bit. Maybe 10%. Fast ships can kite them almost forever right now on all-ahead full.
d. Increase the nebulas / asteroids on the map. This will allow players to avoid strike craft by clever use of the map unless the carrier player makes equally clever use of probes / fighters/ escorts to counter it. This should counterbalance the other two buffs to strike craft to prevent them becoming overpowering.
2. Boarding
a. Add a 10 second spool-up with warning sound and visual effect to scuttle.
b. Increase penalties for missing crew. Consider giving a speed penalty for being on the red layer
c. Add a permanent penalty (like -25% to everything, and a large bravery penalty) for being hulked
d. Start a fire / hull breach or a permanent system crit every time a ship gets hulked
3. Cap Points
a. Add the DIFFERENCE in cap points controlled to the player who has more. ie. If player A has 2 points and player B has 3, player B gets +1 per tick and player A gets none. Slightly increase the points gained for killing an enemy ship (+25%?) to maintain similar game length. This allows the winner of a late brawl to make a comeback if they can hold just 3 points.
b. Don’t let escorts cap OR allow them to only cap neutral points (not enemy controlled ones). Reduce escort cost if reducing their ability to cap. ALTERNATIVELY, move running silent to a 30 second temporary order like scan or emergency repair. Either of these solutions would remove the annoyance of constant backcapping in high level games.
4. Upgrades
a. Tone down most “admiral only” upgrades and apply them to all ships. This prevents upgrades from being bad in 1v1 and OP in 2v2.
b. Make a careful balance pass over upgrades, most factions have several that are not even worth taking in niche situations.
c. Allowing skills and upgrades to be selected on the deploy screen, as devs mentioned as a possibility, would be fantastic.
5. Imperial Navy
a. Slightly reduce point cost on the cruisers
b. Buff the slow battleships (probably by increasing DPS)
6. Space Marines
a. Dramatically increase HP on line ships (+400 on smaller stuff, maybe more on battlebarge).
b. Add 50% crit resistance as a faction trait, like the opposite of “Fragile”
c. Buff damage and crit chance on weapons. Consider having bombardment cannons kill a turret automatically on hit to synergize with ordinance.
d. (Most “SM buffs” should be from universal buffs to boarding / hulking)
7. Adeptus Mechanicus
a. Novas are fine balance-wise, but admech feels like an imperial subfaction. They need more strong, unique skills and upgrades.
8. Chaos
a. Slightly increase the number of fleet points lances cost to bring.
9. Necrons
a. Reduce starpulse damage and cooldown to make it a utility ability instead of a nuke.
b. Reduce Cairn or Cartouche cost by 4 points to allow Cairn/Cartouche fleet in 2v2.
c. Buff hull cauterization stance
d. Buff HP on all ships (+200 to 400)
e. Make necrons immune to armor piercing effects. Lances will still be effective against them because of the range.
f. Buff mobility. Some combination of improved turn rate and reduced inertialess drive cooldown.
g. Consider letting them fade out again (although add a distinctive sound effect to let players know their ship is vanishing)
h. Slight DPS buff to compensate for starpulse nerf
10. Orks
a. Apply Flash Gitz upgrade to all line ships. Might have to have it be 1 step less effective.
b. Apply watchtower upgrade (+4.5k ID range on escorts/LCs) to all ships. Consider having it apply to scanning range too.
c. Slightly increase non-carrier non-rok battleships in cost, so you can’t bring 6 + escorts.
d. Allow roks to be admirals
11. Craftworld
a. Reduce the 270 degree arc on runic targeting stance to 180. Macro kiting is oppressive and very safe when ships are at 13.5k range and firing over their shoulder.
b. Increase pulsar damage significantly
c. Add an upgrade (or make it automatic) that reload stance reduces pulsar cooldown
12. Corsairs
a. (Keep 270 arc on runic targeting)
b. Remove “Fragile” trait or reduce it to +50% crit chance
c. Increase pulsar damage significantly
d. Add an upgrade (or make it automatic) that reload stance reduces pulsar cooldown
e. Add timer indicating cooldown on pulsars
13. Drukhari
a. Reload drukhari are much more fun for both players than lock-on drukhari. But reload stance + kin-crewed batteries + shadow field is so strong that drukhari players can stop moving and delete any fleet in the game in a head-on contest of focused fire. Consider changing either the drukhari reload stance or kin-crewed batteries to inflict bonus morale damage on hit (or some other fun effect) instead of increasing raw DPS.
b. All non-escort ships could be slightly more expensive
14. Tyrannids
a. Replace the boring "+100 shields" order with 2 or more interesting options.
b. Consider adding a (long cooldown) order that lets nids regain a charge of boarding / ordinance / torpedoes.
c. Make all ships generate a spore field automatically on death.
d. Apply the "9k scanning range on spore fields" upgrade to spore fields created by the admiral skill too.
e. Slight price reduction on escorts, LCs, and CRs.
f. "Lock-on" stance should also increase scanning range, not just ID range. Without scans, nids really struggle against stealth fleets.
15. Protector Tau
a. Apply frontal heavy armor to shield, either automatically or with an upgrade
b. Remove water caste diplomat to distinguish them from merchants
c. Make auxiliary disengages un-cancellable
16. Merchant Tau
a. Make auxiliary disengages un-cancellable
I'll edit this to include any suggestions in the comments that I feel would be uncontroversial improvements.