I was wondering a bit about it, so maybe some ideas will be of interest.

Will there be sections of the campaign, that retell the pre-SoaSE, even first game narrative ?

Or is it all already after the split in the factions. The lack of SoaSE:R campaign, all the cinematics were a nice general way of telling a story, but I do think that you could or should be able to capitalize on the whole story. You could be having some missions that deal with first encounters, then moving through expansions that added newer ships, newer iterations. Will the capships etc in the campaign that represents SoaSE:R have old ship models remodeled back into the old ones ? You could pretty them up, ships that are currently no use, would not be present ofc., so it would be sort of 'retcon'.

as newer missions happen, you could have slowly refit or state how old models ran out of upgradability, say, why lasers on cobalt did not fit with the simplification in logistics, where lasers were not able to keep up with the demands, while gun technology was getting perfected Same for Kol on the frontal firing arc, TEC defense faction retrofitting ankylon lasers, as well as starbase.

Or TEC factions ran out of the resources required, making lasers too expensive to make, while standardizing on gun armament makes logistics much more straightforward.

So, in case you will be making new iterations of old ships for the campaign, balance needed for MP is usually not as crucial, though still very useful.

Kols with gun skill that impacts hull like phase missile, that go through shield, while beam is a weak weapon there.

Corsev introduced and phased out because it wasnt great. As a result of design flaw etc...

When you have hull+weapon phased out, I at first thought that pirate ships would be operating at first at least, remnants of captured or otherwise.

What else comes to mind : Since Factions split, it would make sense that if there is a replacement of the hull, even under the same name like a Cobalt, along with a 'retrofit' Cobalt of defense faction vs Cobalt of Aggressive faction should already probably have some differences. There are many other examples.

New replacement for the Kodiak (heavy cruiser) is already after the factional division. Was the replacement already in development before the split ? Say, the cruisers should be similar. But, based on tactical-technical requirements, each faction will focus more accordingly - one on dps, the other on tankiness. Functionality may be the same, say, offensive could be more reminiscent of the old kodiak with its afterburner. Bigger engine block for aggressive tec heavy cruiser, while defensive one gets more hp, or bigger guns.

So, I do think the campaign could bridge the gap story, equipment-wise.

When 4th faction becomes available, assuming the engagement with it is not pure auto-lose, that there is a time to do a fleet overhaul, where you would update most of the ships as I mentioned in another thread, into Mk.2. or 3. Perhaps with this, if the Harbingers arrive later, you could have hypothetical T-VI, T-VII tiers, as an adaptation to meeting the new threat.

What I mean, you could have that faction come as a game-ender crisis, or play as every other one.

I would hope that this is not meant as some sort of last DLC module, after which the game would be considered already finished. Sure, that depends on how terribly existence-ending the Harbingers are in the campaign.

This is among some of my other ideas, regarding cap ships, that could or should be able to retrofit to at least a bit different roles, where they either get upgrades to their weaponry, or a sort of downgrade vs heavy targets, while improving effectiveness vs less than capships etc.

Or it could be done via a consumable upgrade of a ship, that is built, the upgrade then disappears, or the upgrade of a ship capital or basic, is done like say Heavy armor / forged blades was done in BFME series, or Overlord upgrade from CCG:ZH.

On one hand, capships, planets, titans, all have slots. Currently both consumables and pretty much what constitutes permanent upgrades and they compete for slots. I mean yes, this is hero inventory for WCIII, very much so and in that game the passive upgrades did compete for space with active use items. It depends whether you would like upgrades for basic units, addons to increase effectiveness of non-capships, or turrets.

I will bring up again my old idea about basic non-heroes getting upgraded via kills/damage/ utility usage, that would upgrade said units as a vet bonus. Not in RA2 style, even if it is largely symbolic. It wouldnt break anything, but at least reward playing with non-caps as well. Too much work for little gain ? I dont think so If your small ships survive long and do something in the meantime. Small ships mostly disappear in tens and hundreds, so it is not like this change say with 5-10% improved effectiveness overall would matter that much. They could get a new fancy paint

Perhaps some of these ideas are found useful, could be thought about.

....

a bit of political/economical commentary

When you defeat a faction, saying how an opportunity presents itself, this is exceptionalist zero-sum game talk btw. Fitting to either TEC Primacy or exodus vasari. It implies that by engaging in negative activity vs your neighbor, youre benefiting. Such a faction that schemes to ruin others tends to have everybody else stack up against them. Everybody except them is an animal after all Ragers that lust for war and keep looking for it. TEC overall society seems to be run by a ruthless oligarchy. Oligarchization, financialization of the economy, like the Pervasive Economy says, as if everybody uses your money, you get a tax and spy on them, this is how industrial capitalism is destroyed, real production - industry is outsourced to cheapest place to make money. Real product is overshadowed by financial services that is then torn away from real economy, which in turn destroys real production and wealth. Money is a derivative of real value, on its own, it is useless. Real goods, real production really does matter. TEC is heavily modeled on the U.S., and its economy especially of 1990+ reminding of August 1971, after ww2 being biggest creditor, having most gold, in 1971 it started paying others with paper, thus taxing the whole world, while giving away nothing of real value. All the wars depleted its gold, but it kept forcing everybody else to use its then really worthless currency, because they tied it to S.A. selling energy - oil in their monetary unit. Something that incredibly weakened the host country. It also unites everybody to get rid of said parasitic relationship. Do some people remember, the self-deceptive, yet full of grandiosity, so-called End of History.This was supposedly a serious study. End of history ended, Imperial ambitions to rule everything from one center of power usually end up disintegrating such an empire from within, because that stuff is extra expensive, not only your PR machine has to insulate your population from reality, you have to pay real armies, capabilities. Financialization in time robs the wealth from within the population/state, making the empire seem strong, until it tries to start chewing more than it can. Living standard of ordinary people drops and keeps getting worse. Until collapse.

- political/economy commentary over - 

So, I wonder, if after some time, if TEC factions (not a coalition, perhaps a name change in time of the confederation or what is was) keep evolving into something else that would make their science and industry competitive to other factions. Defensive ones could be leaning into Vorkers of de verld, yunayt, while keeping generally non-expansionist policies. At least that would be something to get old soviet jokes around, especially if economy is excessively run by ideology. Quotas, fulfillment : 110% Space cold war between remnants of TEC, the oligarchs trying to impose phashist oligarchy in Primacy, while 'Councils' (you know, actual People's Democracy, , btw soviet = council) for a replay of a space cold war between two parties armed to the teeth, the other trying to make The Ppl or the Worker the privileged class, instead of the oligarch, at least within the means of the State Capitalist Workers Party For proper ideological bs-ery on either side, you could bring up all sorts of things from history if youd like. Not the propaganda versions of either side. Parallels and such. Space comrades trying to free the rest of TEC remnant of the aggressive oligarchs, whose greed knows no bounds, wars for their profits.

If similar treatment awaits other factions, it would be pretty funny, even if politically incorrect. You could have dialogues to attack based on what class vessel, structure, it is, when same for when enemy fleet approaches, you know, enemy faction x/y is sending just a few or a fleet depending on size, Difference between a singular ship, based on supply. Is your capship under attack ? It could say based on how many they are, as they already do if they still have a chance, if enemy titan is in grav well, you could have some additional dialogues, if yours is in, etc.

If the harbinger faction have some T-II titan class of sorts, stuff like that could be interesting in the dialogue too, to make their endgame both hard to get to when playing as them, but harder to deal with than vasari 2.4 fleet. Like their fleet suply being more efficient, or cap ships being outside the normal 50 pop cost. Say 75, titan 225 supply, That is, if they are a big ship faction Or their ships are more supply efficient thus, if not countered, meaning with 2k fleet, theirs gets statistically.better, even if they cost more. The longer the game, thus playing vs a stronger late game faction however is not fun however, because to keep up you have to play better while the other side is allowed to make mistakes, meaning, not that great balance. Anywa,y long text ran its course, perhaps some of the text was found interesting and worthwhile. At least I wrote it with such an idea in mind