Dark Nova mounts commentary

Miniaturized component
 Looks fine to me; reducing size by 1/3 while doubling cost seems reasonable.
 Worthwhile on particularly bulky (SY) or cheap (cargo bay) components, not so much on others.

Miniaturized weapon
 This mount is almost completely useless due to the 1/3 damage reduction.
 Its only purpose is for cramming heavy weapons into light hulls to take advantage of the heavy weapons' higher damage values.
 Without the damage reduction, it would definitely be useful, maybe even OP.
 What if damage was reduced to, say, 80% of normal? So damage/kT is increased a bit, but damage/shot is decreased a bit, making it weak against emissive armor but strong (if expensive) against everything else?

Hardened component
 I know you have way too many mounts already, but this one is just begging to be split up.
 It's completely OP for armor (which unless you're talking about love in French, you misspelled in the description ;)), but more reasonably balanced for other components.
 Also, it's annoying to have to micromanage tonnage when armor is 2kT heavier when mounted.
 What if you split it like so:
 * Hardened Armor - Normal tonnage, +50% cost, +50% HP, limited to armor
 * Hardened Component - +20% tonnage, +25% cost, +50% HP
 You'd still be able to use the regular hardened component mount on armor, but since armor is relatively cheap and you want to stack a lot of it on a ship, you'd probably prefer to pay extra than make the armor heavier.
 Oh, yeah, and maybe Hardened Armor should require Chemistry 2 instead of 1 so you don't immediately start using it on armor as soon as you unlock armor?
 
Hardened weapon
 Might as well balance this one to match Hardened Component.
 
Low grade component/weapon
 Seems reasonably balanced to me. Description doesn't mention shield reduction, but then maybe the descriptions don't need precise stats anyway, just an overall description of what the mount does?
 
Premium grade component/weapon
 Seems like a bit too much benefit for the small cost penalty, especially for the weapon which gets bonus damage, range, and accuracy.
 Perhaps bump cost up to +50% for the weapon and supply usage to 90% for both?
 Then again, the tech requirements are fairly high... but on medium tech start you do get them right away!
 
Extended range PD
 Seems mostly good, but the -50% damage is a bit iffy. Maybe -25% instead? And why can't I use it on flak cannons?
 
High Energy PD
  Double damage seems like a bit much. Maybe +50%?
  Also the cost is +25% but the description says +50%. Probably best to go with +50%.
  
TAG
 This mount seems completely insane, but I think it's surprisingly balanced!
 Great for one-shotting escorts with wave motion guns ;)
 Well, maybe it should be a bit more expensive and/or heavier...
 The description has completely wrong stats, though. Probably putting actual numbers in the descriptions is a mistake.
 Just say things like "increases" and "decreases"? That way you can tweak the numbers slightly without having to edit the descriptions too.
  
Gatling
 I guess it lets you put heavy weapons on light ships, or cram a few extra guns into that last 10kT, but really... what's the point? They hardly do any damage unless you install a lot of them anyway...
 They do have an accuracy bonus, so I guess they've got that going for them, but then they're also useless against emissive and crystalline armor...
 Seems like they're just cluttering up the mount list...
 
XR Gatling
 This one is kind of interesting in that it increases your range, but then there's already a full size XR mount, so it's really no more useful than the regular gatling mount.

Pulsed Gatling
 Again, this one just duplicates a full size mount, in this case the pulsed mount.

Spinal
 I don't have any problems with this one gameplay-wise (though the description of the stats is inaccurate again), but I think thematically it doesn't make sense.
 Shouldn't a spinal mount be scaled to the hull? What's a spinal mount for a scout would just be a regular old turret for a dreadnought!
 You already have scale mounts for shells and specialized turret mounts for weapons; maybe do something along those lines for spinal mounts?
 Of course you'd need to tweak the tech requirements so you unlock them at varying tech levels depending on the hull in question.
 This would also give you the added bonus of having an alternative to the specialized turret mounts - somehow designing all my escorts with 10 little peashooters seemed weird!

Light
 This one is OK, I guess, but it never really appealed to me. The "scale" mounts (escort mount, etc.) seem like a much better value proposition. Probably those should be nerfed ;)
 
Extended range
 This one seems pretty good. Pay a reasonable premium for a decent boost to range and accuracy.
 
Pulsed
 This one would seem almost like a no-brainer, except there's those silly tempting scale mounts!
 
High energy focus
 Ooh, this looks fun :) Don't think I've used it in-game yet... looks like basically a massive mount from stock, only not limited by hull size!
 It would be completely OP if not for the high tech requirements ;)

Scaled ship weapon mounts (scout mount, etc)
 These mounts are completely OP. They render most of the other mounts useless except in specialized scenarios.
 I suppose they're based on stock mounts, but it seems like you kicked it up to level 9001 when you designed them.
 10% supply usage for scouts, but 2/3 damage, for 1/3 cost and tonnage? OK... :P
 
Scout/escort shield mounts
 I thought these were OP at first, but then I noticed that cost is still 100%, even with the reduced shield points. Clever!

Small ship engines
 Seems kinda silly - why not just allow fewer engines on small ships but reduce their engines per move?
 Are you doing this to increase their range (since the mount reduces supply usage)?
 Did the QNP numbers not work out properly?
 
Corvette engines
 Wait, this mod has corvettes? I didn't think escort construction even went up to level 4!
 Did you add this a while back but never add corvettes? Enter the wrong value for max tech level for Escort Construction and never notice they were missing?
 Anyway, clever idea :) Though I wonder why you'd apply it to corvettes and not to scouts...
 
Frigate shield mount
 Free 50% boost to shield strength? OK, it's a bonus to frigates for researching destroyers. Fair enough.
 
Bombardment mount
 Another free bonus to early hulls for researching advanced hulls; I like that.
 Do range bonuses work on missiles? Might need to limit that to direct fire (and PD?)
 
Stabilization mount
  Hmm, nice. I think Mark had something similar for destroyers in his mod, but it was affecting colony ships too (due to their tonnage being destroyer sized), making it completely OP.
  Might want to make sure that it only affects cruisers...
  
Dreadnaught mount
 That's not how you spell "dreadnought"! And of course it's yet another OP scale mount... ;)
 
Worldship shield/armor
 I see that it reduces clicking and makes repairs much faster, but that's it? No bonus HP or shields per kT?
 
Mini-missiles
 OK, I think this is the one most OP mount in the game! Though since missiles are already oversized compared to direct fire weapons (not your fault, stock started it), it really only makes them competitive...
 Might as well reduce the tonnage of all missiles by 20%-50%, and get rid of the mount!
 Now if you want to do something creative, maybe after that you could add a mount which increases missiles back to their "normal" size, but reduces their supply usage by 90%,
 on the premise that these missiles carry an extended fuel supply or something, not having to drain the ship's fuel...
 
Light weapon platform mount
 Description says -1 range, but it's actually normal range. I guess it's -1 compared to the +1 of the normal weapon platform mount, but that's just silly...
 Also, it really has no advantages over unmounted weapons apart from being smaller (so you can fit big weapons on small weapons platforms) - but weapons aren't that huge anyway!
 Perhaps it should have +15% or +20% to hit to make it better than the normal mount in that regard, and comparable to the light ship mount?
 
Normal weapon platform mount
 Seems reasonable, but maybe rename it to Standard instead of Normal, since folks might think it's for the AI and doesn't do anything if it's called Normal.
 Or rename the other Normal mounts to AI mounts.
  
Large/heavy/massive weapon platform mounts
  I worry that these stockish mounts, like the scale mounts for ships, will completely eclipse the specialty mounts you've added...
  
Light satellite mount
 Like the light weapon platform mount, what's the point?
 Should be +10% or +15% accuracy instead of +5% (check light ship mount compared to unmounted ship weapons).
 Range should be normal, not +1.

Large, etc. satellite mounts
 Yet more stockish mounts eclipsing specialty mounts.
 
Normal base mount
 Looks good to me :)
 
Large, etc base mounts
 Still stockish. Even worse, actually, due to the massive accuracy bonuses.
 
Normal fighter mount
 What's the point of this? It's the first fighter mount in the list; the AI will only use it if there aren't any other mounts to use anyway! ;)
 
High yield warhead
 I think this ought to have some sort of prerequisites. Say, physics or something?

Micro warhead
 This looks reasonable, except for a few things.
 First, the description says 5% HP, but it actually has 25%. I think 5% or 10% would be appropriate.
 However that might lead to invincible ships, if the warheads wind up with 0 HP, so you'll have to check on that.
 Second, this mount is completely OP when used on plague warheads, since it doesn't reduce the plague inflicted, only the minuscule physical damage.
 Probably best to limit this mount to all warheads except plague warheads (and any others that have special effects that are independent of damage).
 Third, you might want a tech prerequisite. Maybe industry or construction?
 Actually, wait a second. What do you even need a smaller warhead for?
 
Slug Colony
 Hey, what happened to slug colony ships? Did you get rid of them?

Other colony mounts
 It's a nice way to make native colonizers smaller/cheaper.
 But I think there are other mods that do things in a way that's more convenient for the player (though a bit more work for you) - Fusion Mod, I think? Or maybe Adamant or Carrier Battles?
 Instead of using mounts to make the native colonizers smaller, they're separate components, unlocked via a racial tech.
 So Rock Planet Colonization would unlock a 300kT rock colony module, but then if you have the Rock Natives racial tech, you get a 200kT native rock colony module.
 If you don't decide to go that route, maybe you could at least make the omni colony module not require a native mount, since it's automatically native for everyone?
 Unless you want to have nomad races which aren't native to any planet surface...
 
Shell mounts
 These could actually be repurposed as general purpose scale mounts for pretty much anything (even weapons, if you make weapons huge!)
 I did notice, however, that the 250kT base shell can only be applied to ships, not bases. Oops!
 Since base shells are smaller than ship shells for the same tonnage of ship or base for some reason, there's a few hulls where it's better to use the base mount ;)
 And of course space platforms miss out... :(
 
Platform Construction Mount
 An expensive miniaturized spaceyard for before you research space stations? I like it :)
 
General notes
 I think it would make sense to reorganize the mounts list so it's easier to find things.
 Say, place all the weapon mounts up top, then all the specific types of component mounts (shield mounts, armor mounts, engine mounts, etc) and then all the general component mounts, each group in order of "advancedness"?
 Or mix them all together but sort by "advancedness" still?
 I would like to sort in reverse order (most advanced mounts first) to reduce scrolling, but that would probably break the AI...