Pacifists: 20 Influence, 20 Diplomacy. This is 70 points worth of bonuses. Reducing it to 20 Diplomacy, 5 Influence or 15 Diplomacy, 10 Influence will be enough.

Populists: 20 Morale, 10 Population Growth, 10 Influence. 55 points worth. The morale bonus is high and allows you to get +30 Morale with another 10 points. 10 Morale, 10 Population Growth, 10 Influence is still a good pick for economy/influence oriented races, and that's 40 points altogether.

Universalists: 10 Economy, 10 Defense, 25 Luck, 10 Population Growth. 50 points worth. This is half of what Federalists do + stronger ships and higher population. It can also be abused in combination with Luck ability. 5 Economy, 10 Defense, 20 Luck, 10 Population Growth will tone it down a bit.

Technologists: 20 Research and +2 sensor range. It used to be +1 sensor and at some point it got buffed, which is not necessary as it is still strong party.

Edit: Forgot about Influence - 3rd option gives +15% for 35 points. Probably typo, should be 20%.

Racial Luck ability - It can be abused in combination with Universalists, even more as Torians/Altarians. 20% for 25 tones it down a bit.

Racial Repair ability - It is weakest stat so we should just leave 40% for 10 points.

Racial Weapon and Defense - Luck works on both of them, so you get increase in both for less points when choosing Luck. My suggestion would be to revert it to vanilla values: 10 for 10, 20 for 20 and Defense only, 30 for 30.

 

Starbase Assist modules are out of line: 1st tier is as strong as 3rd, in case of Defense 1st is as strong as 4th, and 5th tier gives weak modules compared to the jump that 6th tier provides. I posted changed values earlier on page 35.

My guess is that those values were set to reward AI for researching first 2 techs, but it makes it far to expensive to continue to research further down in the tree for modules that are just 'meh' compared to first tier. I haven't tested AIs on longer games, but if the AIs continue to research other techs in the tree, they will hurt themselves as Starbase branch is very expensive to research and it gives just assist modules, not weapon/defense modules to help defend the base.

 

Also, Empathic Tactical Center was changed at some point to give bonus to Weapons instead of Defense. Defense bonus is more in line with what ethics establish: Good - defenses, Evil - weapons, Neutral - bit of both. It could be boosted to 25% Defense to still make it attractive.

 

Maybe, but at this point (120 turns in) they abandoned all other tech branches in favor of colonization techs and don't show any sign of stopping. Altarians for example, don't have any morale, economy, factory or farm techs, and they only reached as far as Xeno Research, which gives only +5 research and no better labs. If they continue to research more of the colonization techs, they will be stuck for another year, and right now they are easy to conquer as their economy, research and production is very low.

Arceans escaped this fate only because they started researching colonization techs after they got some basic techs, but I predict they will start falling behind more.

Torians are biggest offenders, they don't even have Planetary Improvement techs.

Iconians are doing ok because they didn't research Extreme Colonization yet. They also left alone Xeno Communications so they have no economy techs.

AIP11 urge to research colonization techs can be probably reduced by lowering AI value in their specific tech trees.

 

I made a spreadsheet of my previous game, so it's easier to compare how AIs researched.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pgrtdf49k08ls5z/techs.ods?dl=0

 

They require a bit different approach now, as grabbing 1st Government tech and Stalks is more important then grinding through Efficiency Studies. With Maintenance Grid being GA and Efficiency Center gone, their worlds build up sooner so maintenance also ends up higher compared to vanilla - but their production also grows quicker . Overall they can compete better in the late game, while early game might be indeed a bit slower fpr them.

I just started a game as Korath, this time I'll play at least till 200th turn, see how AIs fare later in the game. I got Krynn, Altarians, Drengi, Yor, Arcean, Iconians and Korx, so only average and weakest races in my games. I'll post later how they fare.

I've taken a look at your sheet and Altarian & Iconian don't run at 100%, and they have real low tax income from their planet count and also low approval. I suspect that some of their planets are stuck in red moral and don't grow population. In this scenario getting better labs or factories will only make matters worse.

But it's hard to judge from a single spot. I don't know, but with 35 planets run at 100% I can easily research these colonization techs in a matter of a few turns by simply taking the RP from the initial colony building. Maybe their global spending was even worse in the past?

Latest test game using my "knife fight" scenario,  CU v5 Beta 2B.  Large/~120 planets/10 players/Painful,  with "scattered" stars to try to even out the starting positions a bit.

Moreso than other test games I've played so far,  the galaxy got very violent very early.  About 70 turns in,  several wars were started in quick succession:

* the Krynn declared on the Yor

* the Torian declared on the Korx

* I declared on the Terrans

* the Torian declare on the Yor

* the Altarians declared on the Korath

* the Iconians declared on the Korath

* the Drath declared on the Korath

By 100 weeks I'd taken a nice bite out of the Terrans and sued successfully for peace.   About the same time the Krynn and Yor kissed and made up as well.   But the Krynn and Terrans must have got bored,  because a few weeks later:

* the Terrans declared on the Korath

* the Krynn declared on the Korx

As of week 115,  all civs are at war except me.   I'm not sure what to make of this except that my MMR might be high enough to keep the friskier civs from attacking,   and I haven't been ignoring trade and diplomacy so much this game.

With that in mind,  here's the civ breakdown:

Krynn - 800 bc income (8% trade, 25% econ treaty),  8 colonies.   Must have been feeling pretty good when they declared on the Yor,  but the Yor absolutely punished them,  taking their HW and a couple minor colonies before peace broke out.   I'm guessing that this might be a direct result of the early Iconian/Yor Seeker missile fix (they're now appropriately cheap,  as their description would suggest) -- from the looks of things it is allowing the Yor to leverage their early (lousy) economy to actually field a decent fleet early game if need be -- note that the Krynn attacked the Yor,  not the other way around.  Tech-wise,  the Krynn had grabbed most of their special tech aside from The Way and Krynnian Disciples, were up to Ion Drive, had ignored X-Col so far, and had a good mix of econ techs (Xeno Fac, Academies, Xeno Econ).   They had Small hulls,  Logistics I, Stinger II,  Planet Invasion, and Mil. Starbase Construction.   Excellent early research mix.

Yor - 1527 bc income (5% trade), 15 colonies.   Were weaker militarily when the Krynn attacked,  but leveraged Seeker missiles,  logistics I,  and a nearby Military resource to spew out tons of relatively cheap 5-0-8 fighters in fleets of three.  After war broke out,  the Yor MMR increased at least twice as fast as the Krynn..  and then the Krynn MMR started to fall.  Quickly.  Tech:  Trade,  good selection of econ tech (Mfr II, Synthetic Ingenuity, Charging Stalks,  Eff. Studies V).    They finished Barren world X-Col but did not grab X-Col itself.  Had Small hulls,  Harpoon I, Planetary Invasion, Mil. Starbase Construction.  Like the Krynn,  I'd give them a gold star for early research.

Iconian - 1053 bc income (15% trade), 10 colonies.  Kind of hemmed in by Arcaen and Drath but did well considering.  Having a quiet game so far but jumped on the Korath dogpile with everyone else.  Tech:  have Merchant Trade Complexes and Xeno Ethics already,  plus Xeno Business, Molecular Fabs, and Hyper Mainframes.  No Research Centers yet but it isn't hurting them.  Have Small ships, Logistics I, Mini 2 (plus Org Materials.. nice!), Harpoon II, Planetary Invasion, and Mil. Starbase Construction.   Finished Toxic X-Col but haven't touched X-Col itself yet.   Their Heavy Fighters are 6-0-8 and they're fielding fleets of 4.

Drath - 2000 bc income (6% trade, 50% War Profit), 12 colonies.  With 10k BC in the bank they could probably start buying colonies.  I know they're buying ships from the Krynn and Terrans.    They have the 3rd biggest military in the game at present,  just behind the Yor and Torians,  but their best fleet is 12-0-20;   they have not as yet been able to turn their humongous econ into a tech advantage.  They have Interstellar Republic, War Profiteering, a good mix of econ tech (Xeno Facs, Research Centers, Hyper Mainframes, Xeno Trade),  Tiny Hulls,  Harpoon I, Planetary Invasion, Mil. Starbase Construction.   Except for the glaring lack of Small hulls,  they're golden.

Korx - 1200 bc income (25% trade, 10% econ treaty), 10 colonies.  Started in the corner in a humongous void.  Spewed colony ships everywhere and have a very spread out empire.  Good for trading,  not so good for defending.  Holding their own against the Torian so far,  and the Krynn are too far away to be much of a threat.  Tech:  Super Trade Starbases, Impulse I,  smattering of econ techs (Xeno Industrial Theory, Xeno Research, Hyper Mainframes, Xeno Entertaimnet, Soil Enhancement,  full Barren world col (a good investment,  it netted them two class 10s early on).  They have Small hulls, logistics I, Stinger II, Planetary Invasion, Military Starbase Construction.   Doing quite well I'd say.

Torian - 825 bc income (8% trade), 9 colonies.  Odd to see the Torians do only moderately well in the colony rush,  but they started next to the Korath who had quite a good position and aggressively colonized it.    They also lost a few to the Korx diaspora (probably why they declared war on them early).   Tech:  Wellness Falls, a few econ techs (Sci. Method, Xeno Econ).  Kind of concerned that they hadn't grabbed Xeno Industrial yet.  They hadn't started on Aquatic X-Col but had finished Barren (seemed to be lots of Barren planets on this map).  Stinger II,  Medium hulls, no logistics meant their "fleets" were single Frigates plus a Heavy Fighter for 12-0-32.  Not too bad,  not great.   They had researched Defensive Trance but had no defense techs.  At least 15 turns of early research wasted. 

You know what,  I hadn't realized the Torians start with 16 logistics.  That seems high for a non-militarily inclined race,  equal to the Arcaen and Drath.   Does that seem odd to anyone else?   Is it necessary to make them not completely pathetic in the early game?

Korath - 921 bc income (7% trade, 15% econ treaty).   12 colonies.   Despite being at war with 4 other civs,  the only one closeby that is going to hurt is the Altarians.  Korath light fighters are 6-0-7 and with three per fleet they're better than anything anyone else is fielding except for the Iconians and Altarians.  62% Weapons will do that.  They also have 62% soldiering which is going to make their planets awfully hard to invade..  and they have already built dozens of spore ships.   Critically,  instead of grabbing Xeno Ethics,  Evil,  and Psi weapons,  they're pushing ahead into Pulse Cannons at 3x the TP.  DOH!!   Other tech of note:  Administrative Slavelings, Xeno Intimidation, Trade, Slave Pits, Cut Throat Trading.   No PI but I don't think they care too much with all those Spore ships.

Altarian - 790 bc income (12% trade, 8% econ treaty).  8 colonies.  Started in a huge void in the SW,  did fairly well considering.   Quiet except for their recent addition to the Korath dogpile.  Tech:  Xeno Ethics, Impulse Drive I, good econ (Xeno Facs, Research Centers, Xeno Trade, and of course Dark Energy Research).   Had Small Hulls,  logistics II, Mini I, Harpoon II, Mil. Starbase Construction,  no PI yet.  Interestingly enough they'd researched... Deflectors.   Even though nobody had built a single laser yet.   Odd.   Because of the Logistics it meant they were fielding 24-0-32 fleets of Heavy Fighters,  right up there with the Iconians,  and several of them were headed into Korath space.

Terran - had a good start but ran afoul of the Arcaen early on and lost 5 planets.  550 bc income, 6 planets.   They had researched Interstellar Republic, Impulse Drive III, Manufacturing Centers, Research Academies, Xeno Trade, and had grabbed X-Col.   The Terrans,  more than any other civ,  seem to LOVE econ techs.   They had Small hulls,  Stinger III, Planetary Invasion, Mil. Starbase Construction,  and Interstellar War Colleges.

Arcaen - me.  Getting better at tech pacing, order, planetary building, diplomacy,  and most importantly figuring out how long an early war can go before I mangle my economy.   19 planets and 1300 bc a turn,  I'm not in the lead but I've got quite a solid empire going,  and have cordial enough relationships with my immediate neighbors that I'm not worried everything is going to collapse.   I daresay looking at AI development and playing all these test games is actually making me a better player.   For comparison with the AI,  I have Interstellar Republic, Xeno Ethics, Subspace Drive, Space Mining I, Soil Enhancement, Xeno Industry, Research Centers/Hyper Mainframe, Xeno Econ, Xeno Entertainment, and Xeno Medicine (good for growing troops!).   I have Small hulls and Singularity Driver III, plus Cathedral of Valor,  which I have built.    <Best Al Pacino voice>Say hello to my 76% Soldiering! </Best Al Pacino Voice>

No,  I think they're more or less OK.   When they do sit on Tiny ships for a while,  they are at least making decent fleets of them.  In this game,  only the Drath still had tiny hulls by turn 115.

I thought the Krynn had an excellent research mix this game.   They bit off more than they could chew when they attacked the Yor,  but that's another matter.

The Altarian and Korx both grabbed Xeno Facs early.   Torians.. not so much.   The Torians had a pretty lame start compared to their usual explosive expansion,  though.

The last several games I've played,  they have never not researched it.

Large, fast research, loads of planets and stars. No tech trade as I like to see how AIs do on their own.

First map on which both Yor and Drengi were not completely in a void:

After 80 turns, it changed to this:

Yeah, that's Krynn and their Influence. At that point they were looking really scary, even more so as they dominated almost if not all of the ratings.

Arcean and Drengi went to war around 50-60 turn, Korx and Iconians around 70-80, but that lasted only around 20 weeks. I had 7-9 planets in Krynns influence, but because I always start a bit late with military production, I couldn't do anything until I have spotted defection icon on few of my planets. That set me off, so I payed Krynn to attack Altarians, Yor, Drengin and Arceans. Couple turns later, I parked my Spore ships and missile fleets around Krynn worlds, and stole 8-10 worlds from Krynn, changing minimap a bit:

This is tech summary from last game:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tjykntqoecb0sp0/techs1.ods?dl=0

Because of tech trade off and me forgetting about training spies, I was in the dark whole game, apart from advanced intel on Krynn and low on Yor and Drengin. When I checked techs of each race, Iconians completely surprised me. I never expected them to have so advanced research - even more so that they don't even have a Research Center tech lol! They done a really good job and I'm scared to think what will happen when we go to war together. Mind - Blown

Krynn also done very good but that was to be expected, in particular with early colony rush, as seen on second image. If it wasn't for almost whole galaxy joining together (only Korx where not in war with them), and me stealing couple of their worlds like a ninja, they would be a serious threat. Note that I haven't defeated them yet, and I just abused parking my fleets and spores around their worlds before declaring war. They are no longer 1st in military thanks to all the enemies shooting down their fleets. Altogether, they done very well. 

Yor had a couple of nice planets close to their system, and there was couple more just outside of their influence. If they had those extra worlds, they could be really strong, as their research is quite good and only thing holding them back is weak economy, thanks to all the production costs and ship maintenance (they were 1st military up until 90th or so turn). My only beef with them is that second game in a row they didn't touch X-col techs apart from Barren II and haven't touched government techs.

Altarians are a disappointment again. Only Xeno Research and Industrial Theory, no economy techs, again they don't have Ion Drives, they skipped Shrine of Milisomeone, again grinded bit early x-col techs but! At least this time they have both Dark Energy and Divergent Evolution techs. They even started on Inherent Magic. They also have Medium hulls (whoa!), but I don't see them building many of them as their economy is lowest in the galaxy (apart from Arceans).

Drengin started in not the best position, so they don't have many planets, but they still are doing ok, all things considering. They research a healthy mix of all techs. Although they skipped x-col completely. 

Korx had 2 or 3 of their planets flipped by Krynn, they never done anything in the game except for declaring a relatively short war on Iconians. They make a lot of money but don't know how to spend it well (just like me in my previous game with them). The didn't start on Industrial tech, and research tech only went to Xeno Research, so you could say it never really started. Same as morale tech, (I almost never see anyone researching Xeno Entertainment). Overall their bad.

Arcean didn't do good on colonization (they almost never do), but all things considering, they are in a good spot. Industrial, economy, research techs - nice variety. They are more tamed with x-col techs then Altarians, but what pisses me off about them, is that they almost never research Xeno Entertainment (such a good tech, 15% morale for so cheap). On my previous game they and Terrans also skipped it.

 

AIs did ok, apart from Altarian and Korx. Iconians done extremely well though. I can see how Mabus always repeats they can get strong, now I see how. It all boils down to what techs their AI picks in first 20-30 turns, and if it does a good job, they can get scary.

 

I built an assist module starbase on my upper border with the Krynn and I noticed something strange. No matter if it was a single ship or a fleet of 3, bonus from starbase was same: +1 beam, +2 missile, +1 mass driver. Can anyone else confirm it? It that bonus applies only once, then the whole Starbase tech branch is way too expensive for the bonuses it provides and it needs to be reworked.

 

Also, AIs didn't concentrate on x-col techs that much, my previous game got me worried (especially Torians and Altarians).

Sorry.  Double negative.  They have always researched it.

  No kidding... well in a sense the Psi weapons *are* two generations up;  you skip three techs and go straight from Harpoon III to the equivalent of Photon I (but a bit more expensive),  skipping right over Photonic Torps.   I think they're fine where they are.   What isn't fine is that the AI is willing to spend thousands more TP pushing up the Photonic (or equivalent) line instead of grabbing Xeno Ethics and Psionics.   Oh well,  maybe that's too complicated for the AI to plan for.   This is pretty strong evidence that the AI routines don't consider potential techs opened up by Xeno Ethics prior to actually researching it.   Players do and its Yet Another Meatbag Advantage.  C'est la vie.

I see. Yeah when I switched from DA to ToA I noticed that the habitable planet count got drastically reduced and right now, I always play with habitable set to abundant always otherwise the bad luck factor can totally gimp a game.

I think that Yor should go for a lot of planets, their +100 loyalty protects their planets even in foreign space. Korath should also have alot of planets because their technique of invasion only leaves quasi-non-pop spored planets, so if Korath successfully play a midgame-game they'll have to fincance their annexions from the income of their core worlds.

These 2 races also get 2 extreme planets technologies from their SA thus I consider them both at #2 spot (below Iconians) as a predestined colonizer race. It's a more or less broken design that they do not love up to this standard (my opinion). Although one could argue the the Korath only get Toxic Planet Col so their spored worlds aren't stuck at 100%, but in the case of the Yor their Barren World Col means they should be able to grab these kinds of worlds before others, otherwise it doesn't make much sense to me^^

I also did a little bit of testing with the repair stat. I used the iconians.

The difference between 0 and 100% repair is quite noticeable. At 0% ships regain HP at 1 point per 2 or 4 turns. Yes it's a bit wonky. At a 100%. You'll get anything between 2 or 7 HP back PER turn. I.o.w. your ships REALLY repair themselves a heck of a lot faster if you have a high repair score. Combine this with high HP ships and they'll level and become really tough to deal with.

So maybe repair isn't that bad.

 

Yeah,  you're getting the equivalent of an RCC (cost 300, maint 3) with a Discovery Sphere (cost 200, maint 6) slapped on it,  for half the maint (NLC is 5).   And you're getting an extra tile out of it.   And you can build an RCC as well and now you have +50% labs on the planet.   I build it. 

If it is overpriced,  so are RCC ands Discovery spheres. 

My nickel,  you have it.

First,  some math to drive home my point about NLCs:

Three different scenarios:

1) You have 6 tiles free for science

Build 5 Sphere and an RCC:

Build cost:  1300.  Maint: 33.   Research: 75.    Cost per TP:  17.3

If you instead build 5 Spheres and an NLC (must have at least 5 Spheres to make RCC worthwhile, cost-wise):

Build cost: 1500.  Maint: 35.   Research: 90.    Cost per TP:  16.6

2) On a larger planet,  lets say you have 10 tiles available:

9 Discovery Spheres plus RCC:

Cost 2100.   Maint:  57.   Research:  135.  Cost per TP:  15.6

8 Discovery Spheres, RCC, and NLC:

Cost 2400.  Maint:  56.   Research:  162.  Cost per TP:  14.8

3) On a single planet with only 1 tile free for science:

1 Sphere:

Cost: 200.  Maint: 6.  Research: 12.  Cost per TP:  16.7

1 NLC:

Cost: 500.  Maint: 5.  Research:  15.   Cost per TP:  33.3

 

Summary:  if you don't make the mistake of building them by themselves,  the NLC in its current form is a powerful tool for getting MORE research out of larger planets for less cost.   I think it's fine.

I think that's an awesome way to differentiate the two.   Question though,  is repair a straight # of HP or a % of the hull HP?   I don't pay too much attention to it right now other than "damn,  that ship is almost dead,  send it to the rear for a while until its better."

 

I forgot about that

I really like those proposals

All the changes seem balanced, being honest I seldom researched miniaturization for the last couple of updates (only if it took 1-3 turns). Me like

I had a look at the Ethics techs and there is a couple of things that bother me.

 

1. Generic Good looks weak at first glance. But here's the thing: races that start as Good get extra access to +25 Creativity and +10 PQ bonus techs. This I guess is intentional to make it more attractive for Good races to stay in Good alignment. Problem is, Terrans are now Good, and don't get this bonus. Drath are now Neutral, but get access to those techs.

2. Neutrality Learning Center can be obtained easily, as it is relatively cheap tech (500 tp), and I guess that's why the NLC building cost is high. If you get Ethics fast, you can start building first NLCs 3-6 turns later (if you don't have Hyper Mainframes yet). If you want to decrease improvement cost (ex. 250), you need to increase research cost to compensate (ex. 1000). If you tone down NLC and decrease the bonus, then Neutral will need to wait a long time till it catches up with Evil weapons or Good Defenses. Make improvement quicker to build, but increase TP to get it. Edit: Or leave it as it is (seems reasonable after looking at what Silas wrote).

3. Secret Police and Propaganda Center bonuses and build costs could be swapped around. Here's why: 

Propaganda Center is all about making people believe life is good(ish). So it should give higher approval.

Secret Police is all about "suppressing the spread of dissident ideas". It makes more sense for it to raise Loyalty, as potential freedom fighters/rebels are put into custody/brainwashed etc. Like in real life, police officer standing next to you doesn't make you happier, he makes you less likely to commit crime (being more loyal).

4. It is easy to pick all evil during colonization events, then research Xeno Ethics and choose Good, paying laughably small 10bc a turn. I heard somewhere this is hard coded, is it true? If not, we could change so if you commit to being evil, you need to pay through your nose to get Neutral or Good bonuses.

 

Also, can anyone else confirm this?

"I built an assist module starbase on my upper border with the Krynn and I noticed something strange. No matter if it was a single ship or a fleet of 3, bonus from starbase was same: +1 beam, +2 missile, +1 mass driver. Can anyone else confirm it? It that bonus applies only once, then the whole Starbase tech branch is way too expensive for the bonuses it provides and it needs to be reworked"

I never payed too much attention, but in my past 2 games no civ with access to Xeno Entertainment research it (I only play till 110-140 turn to see how they fare in early/mid game). Can you please look out for it in your games as well?

Ah.  So it looks to be a flat repair amount.   I'm ok with the increases then -- if it were % based then larger hulls could heal truly massive amounts per turn,  which might be a wee bit unbalanced.   Flat repair is more "interesting" -- smaller hulls will heal up more quickly,  but larger hulls still have their usual advantages.   Percentage repair just means "use the biggest damn hull all the time".

Ok,  enough posting from me for now.   Have some baking to do,  and then a test game with the latest patch.

Also,  good work all!!  Mabus especially for the extra work of condensing pages and pages worth of ideas and discussion into XML changes!  I did a happy squee when 5.3.0 dropped,  I literally couldn't wait for the latest round of changes to get integrated.   That's a good sign.

Are the AIs choosing different alignment that their current one a lot? If not it wouldn't hurt to increase it to like 50bc/turn.

I think a better idea would be to increase bonus that only Arceans get from the tech to 20% each. If all other civs lose 20% hull hp bonus, it will screw the balance a little: Thalan ships will get a little bit stronger compared to other civs, if they all get massive hulls. Alternatively, add Arcean only tech at the end of the tree with 15/20% hp increase. Nothing fancy, like:

Fortified Hull Design

We perfected Q-field theory, allowing us to take our hull potential to a whole new level.

This is a display bug. SB Assist bonuses are always per ship.

No, they never do. AIs are bound by their ethical alignment and the only thing that can change this is the random event.

Anyway, I don't see how that could be changed short of decompiling.... (?)

It's only the Initial Colony-improvement, so 50bcs saved

It's based solely on your repair-ability, although the formulae seems to be random and with a cap.

At 240% repair the maximum amount is 17, although 16 is much more common. Mid-ranged repairs 7-8 also appears as does 0 or 1. It has nothing to do with the hull, or the total HP of the ship (through HP mods etc), the only thing that it affects besides the racial ability is the planetary orbit - which doubles the amount of repair.

From here you can see why a high repair ability is wonky stuff, it will "overrepair" ships, and in the case of tiny/small craft even to the point of a multitude of their original hitpoints, a tiny fighter will have equal hitpoints after repair than a brandnew medium frigate (!).

If a player knows about this and takes the tiny into orbit this ship might get HP in the range of a large vessel - 8* the amount of original HP (!!!).

TBH a repair ability without proper bonus to HP is not really much worth. Hitpoints generally is a much stronger stat because it saves your ships from destruction, repair will do this only if alot of factors positively align.

Repair only works after battle while hitpoints grant bonus beforeahead and can therefore influence the outcome of the fight.

Repair only works if the battle has been won.

Repair only works on a single vessel while hitpoints affect all ships.

The Iconian design means that their vessels can have so many hitpoints that they might win a battle without losing a ship. Afterwards this ship will need a ton of repair, and while all other civs will probably loose this ship in the next battle the Iconian repair takes it back to maximum. You see two stats positively affecting each other.

If you take now hitpoints away from Iconians (which is a heavy nerf) you also reduce the efficiency of their Repair-ability which is a double-nerf IMO.

I'd rather give the Arceans additional weapons-stats - or logistics - because both will positively influence their SuperAbility (which is kinda weak for the AI). Hitpoints won't do anything in this regard.