Yep, Cargo hulls only have 1 HitPoint.... so while Über-Sensor-Ships are a balance problem, but 'Attack Freighters' probably aren't.

Can someone test a fleet of this fragile battle craft and report results of said test?

It would be an interesting early game type of thing (like Chopping became in Civ4)

DarkTalon's right, it will only work if you attack and can one-shot kill them or have obscene defenses on the ship in question.

Also, the early weapons have a large scaling factor, which is to say that they get bigger as the hull you mount them on gets bigger, so a size 55 hull isn't going to be so uber compared to a size 26 hull with 16 times as many hit points.

It's an interesting idea, but it isn't going to throw the balance of the game off.

I would like to chime in and say it isnt that big of a deal that you could have really good sensor ship. How is it unbalanced? Most "AWACS" type of planes are fragile and could be shot down easily. Think of it as a moving satellite. Just make sure it doesnt get attacked. It is how the game was intended to run and I hope it doesnt get fixed because I like it. And I would like the AI to recognized this strategy and use it themselves if they think their economy can support a couple of these expensive sensor ships. Or the AI could recognize it and destroy yours.

When it comes to uber sensor ships I'm not sure it's that big a deal...but it is kind of crazy to so easily be able to see the whole map. Early on you can use a cargo hull to make a monster sensor ship but it suffers from the cargo hull fragility. Later on you can use a bigger military hull and go even more crazy (once you have some miniaturization and large+ hulls, or so).

You can get the same effect from building a few tiny or small sensor ships, so it's not the huge sensor ship that's a problem. Even early on I can make a tiny sensor ship with crazy sensor range. It's just a small matter of sensor tech. 3-4 of those tiny ships gives you the same coverage with more flexibility - I just prefer the single monster sensor ship so I have less to keep track of.

I don't like a solution that says that "cargo hulls must be 80% cargo modules, etc" - that greatly inhibits your flexibility.

What if I want a troop transport that's 60% engines to get troops to the front faster? (I do this already)
What if I want a colonizer that's 50% life support to reach a distant star? (I've done this)

I could see them changing how stacking sensor components works because it's a bit overpowered to have full mapwide visibility with ease.

I think the solution lies with changing with how sensor stacking works - not a more complicated and sweeping limitation structure like the "80%" thing.

They could use a scale of diminishing returns when stacking sensors rather than straight up addition. Or cost could scale up considerably for sensor modules as they're added. Sensors are currently dirt cheap and putting 12 of them on a ship is nothing. But if each additional sensor module doubled in cost it'd cost a mint to make an AWAC (hey, just like it does in reality, just ask the U$A).

I like the scaling cost idea - because you could still make a sensor behemoth but it'd cost 1000's of bc (instead of a couple hundred).

For example, say sensors cost 5bc normally - so you could put 10 of them on a ship for 50bc. If the cost doubled for every additional sensor you'd end up paying 5115bc for those same 10 sensors. Ouch. I'd still do it but it'd take several years to build it on my best ship building planet.

It would also be reasonable, IMO, to not allow sensor components on cargo hulls at all, which would help a smidge and would cut down on one's ability to instantly create a sensor super ship.

OK, just thought about it, and thinking in 2 dimensions:
1^2=1, so, with 1 sensor you sholud have normal range
2^2=4, so, with 4 sensors you shuld double the range (that's alot already, isn't it?)
7^2=49, hehe, in this case, 55 hull space ship could have 7 times more range than ship with one sensor? hehe, still too much? We can put the 3D calculations (space is 3D) where you would have 3.8 times more range with all 55 slots filled with sensor modules and have double range with 2^3=8 modules, god or bad? 3^3=27, so 27 modules should triple the range... didn't play the game so i dont know how many modules standard scout-ships have and how far they "see", but those calculations are based on real life things, and they could remove all that bitching about caping and such...