OK, I'm now looking at most of the Mercenaries ships, in light how things are now.
I'm going to use this thread for regular status updates on the various ships, and I'd like it if other people looked at them and put their opinions here.
Please label things as BUG if they are obvious broken - that is, if the actual behavior is different than the stated (or obvious) purpose, or the values are such that they cannot be used for the purpose they seem made for.
Things should be labeled MISFEATURE if the issue is one where the values don't really make sense and which may cause the ship in question to be misused or underused.
Label things as BALANCE if the current values seem plausible, but may cause unintended consequences, and the value should be tweaked a bit.
To start with:
Friendly Mike's Travelling Emporium, Avatar-278, and The Txlrp, all have a sensor range of 7. Why? These are intended to be parked at a single planet, not out exploring. The various science vessels at least had the excuse that their SCIENCE, but these are wealth or manufacturing bonus ships. Has zero reason to have a large sensor radius. Should have it's sensor radius reduces to 2 (the minimum). This is a misfeature.
Avatar-278 provides it's +5 bonus to RAW Production, which means it aids Research and Income as well as Social/Ship construction. Given that there are other ships specifically for those abilities, this is a BUG. It's bonus should be applied solely to Construction (Ship and Social). Also, is this ship Avatar-278, or RG-278? The text can't make up it's mind, and is noted as both in various places. This is a documentation BUG.
The Txlrp is only a +15% manufacturing bonus, but costs MORE than Avatar-278 (which provides a flat production bonus and is radically more powerful). Even considering the fact that Avatar-278 costs Antimatter, this noticeably unbalanced. Either reduce the cost for this ship (say by 33%) or restore the bonus to a minimum of +25%. BALANCE.
As mentioned in another thread ( https://forums.galciv3.com/485237/page/1 ) :
The Facade, Path to Rhuin, Prospector, and Ysengard all have a sensor radius of 2 (the default minimum) despite being equipped to Survey. This cripples the primary purpose of buying these ships. All should have a base sensor radius of 5, to make them at least equal to the ordinary Survey Ship that most civilizations start with. This is a BUG.