Astro Galaxy - a realistic space exploration game

At least a version of the cargo bay should be "foldable". I mean, have you ever tried to cram a box into another box that's the same exact size?  Gotta fold it. This would let you have one cargo bay that has one or two more equal size ones in it, peraps with room for other stuff. That way you can more easily "hybridize" your ship; installing the cargo modules to ship freight, and then later packing them up and installing other modules for research, combat, etc..

I think maybe the first few levels of labs and/or crew quaters should also have folding versions. This can be a one time upgrade, or there could be various levels of compression. Seeing as there's already 10 levels, you might go for the one-time upgrade and maybe limit it in some way like only up to level 3 or 50% compression etc..

Also, there could be a separate gas compression/pressurization module. This module would possibly use a fuel rod per 100m^3 let's say, and compress or even liquify the gas, perhaps with a timer. This would be useful if used on a station orbiting a gas mining operation to avoid having to empty/harvest the cargo so often. Of course, this might require some balancing to make sure it's not really practical when you have a level X cargo bay.

First let me say welcome to the game.

Second its still to early in your game for you to realize this but there is too much compression in the game as it is. For example I have small ships that can hold mk 10 stations. Small ship with high mk hangers can somehow hold titan class ships. Compression as it is now is quite overboard.

Just build cargo tech and bigger cargo bays. I regularly use the "modular" style in a lot of my smaller ship designs. Hot Swapping of certain modules to suit the occasion from fast WHG, to intra-stellar FLT flights, to large cargo hauling and back around to combat profile. For eg i dedicate 1 ship slot to engines and hold a FLT/WHG/CDR in cargo for mounting in that slot. It all starts with a big cargo bay, a LVQ and a MHQ. The rest of the ship can be totally stripped and re-designed for multiple purposes if you have a large enough cargo bay. So in a way, the modules do "fold down" to 100m3 packages, even if it was a cargo bay that could hold 12Km3 worth of materials
The downside to modular builds is, if your ship gets attacked and emergency jumped, you stand to lose your cargo-ed modules.

And yeah, welcome to the forums and game Joolz

Yeah I figured as much, which is why I suggested it might be best for the lower mk modules as an optimization/upgrade or something because, of course after you research enough it'll be pretty much obsolete/trivial to have a 10% bonus when you have a super huge 1200m^3 cargo module.

I did not however, know that you could lose your cargo'ed modules in a battle. Is that just from the emergency jump, or does the winner get the spoils like POWs?

Thanks for the feedback, guys!

You lose your cargo bay content when your lose a battle.

it happens after an emergency jump (especially when you use marines)...

Also limiting such a thing to just low level wouldnt work. An upgrade is just an upgrade.  Makes no sense a more advance mod wouldnt have it.  Also there is an optimization for more cargo space already.

I also would like to welcome you! The Imperial Trade Organisation is open for new members!