My thoughts when comparing Sol/Gen. Feel free to point out things you disagree or to complete for higher tier ships Sol/Gen Captain skills : Sol get bonus LP for everything while Gen have bonus XP for crew kill or for dying. Sol have bonus Init for all ships and Gen have rally which can be used 1 time between dock for huge mobility/acc/damage boost I think they are even cause Sol ships costs a lot of LP while Gen need less HP but XP allows to quickly get higher tier ships Sol/Gen officers skills : Big advantage for Sol : Each level allows to upgrade 5 officers (aka 5 bonus) will Gen have only 4 officers. Also Marine officer is useless on some ships and the Tactical gain only 1 pt/level making him no better than another officer in the early levels Sol/Gen T3 : T3 is all about speed and Sol have a lot of T3 with higher power than Gen (Orchis 1-2-3 / Some mendis variants). Also those ships still pack some damages. Big advantage to Sol Sol/Gen T4 : Gen T4 have many good choices in T4 (First honor 1 / 3 - Firebolt). They all have good power/damages and still enough hull to not be so easy to kill. Sol T4 are pretty crap except the liverpool 3 (2 front beam / decent shield / highest power of all T4). It is a draw because liverpool is best T4 but Genari have more decent choices Sol/Gen T5 : Interdictor 3. Lenin 2 (I think it is this variant with laser and big shields) is good but as I said Interdictor 3. Genari advantage
Don t get me wrong it is not a post to rant about imbalance, it just to have feedback about comparing ships tier by tier. In fact when you look at the overall, Genari NEEDS to have dominant t4 and t5 ships to push Sol in early and delay as much as possible Sol to reaching t7 and more. Also Sol NEEDS to have strong T3 to fight early and have a "cheap" way to farm until they reach big ships.
Look at the activity in the Sol faction, they come out in droves when there's free food. This is skewing any 'feel' of the game you have. I have to announce to faction that there's ONE sector available to free cap and MAYBE I can get it to fill up Sol need that Leadership to be equal to Gen for XP earning, at times. Just like Gen need a high rank Tac officer + accuracy to be equal to Sol in that department. Gen can achieve same base init +8 as Sol, but requires a lot more officer investment (3 points instead of 1 officer and 2 captain for Sol), Gen rally can kick you over the top with +5 BUT Sol ships have significantly better engines now, especially at later levels. Best summary: Gen plays the early/burst game while Sol plays the late/sustain game. Not saying things are perfect, but better than what it was (a little too much changed all at once, several small facets adding up to a large swing favoring Sol a bit)
