So before I start offering the feedback, just let me say, I love what's here. Aetheric Technologies have quickly become my favorite thing in all of Rimworld, ranging from the manual accumulator emptying early on, to aetheric links and even the ability to merge it with your standard electric power grid later. I really can't imagine playing without it anymore; it's just so much fun.

So yeah, just wanted to clear up that any criticisms come from a place of love, and not a place of hate.

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Number One: Aetheric Research and Buildings.

I'll just cut to the chase: I wish that it was possible to research aetheric devices/build aetheric structures (accumulators, etc) without Flowing Aether. I understand not being able to synthesize without Aether since that's basically a diluted form of creation magic, (Spoiler tagged for Shadowbringers) but let's consider the Garleans for a moment.

Despite their inability to manipulate aether, characters like Cid were able to use crystals in various magitech devices (such as the one used to penetrate Garuda's storms in A Realm Reborn.) While, yes, the entire world is largely Aether-based (confirmed in Endwalker) and as such the Garleans would be *technically* aetherically based as well, I'm pretty sure that if someone told Cid that he could only do that because of his aether, he'd make a device to strip himself of it just to prove them wrong. (Okay, so maybe that's more Nero's attitude, but Cid would probably want to prove them wrong, too.) And, of course, they're not the only ones incapable of manipulating aether; a certain scion comes to mind, who can still use already aetherically-charged items; an ability to manipulate aether doesn't seem to be a prerequisite to interacting with Aetheric devices.

After all, aren't the devices themselves just that? Devices? Devices that have schematics that can be followed, and powered by corporeal, physical crystals that can be loaded or replaced by anyone and everyone? I feel like these limitations only hinder you if you don't have an entirely Eorzean-themed colony (less available researchers/builders out of your total roster) and prevents other fantasy races from using this for some cool fantasy theming. Kind of drives you towards just using electricity, in my opinion.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not asking to be able to synthesize equipment; I just think "oh hey, fire crystal goes in this device, room warms up" is simple enough for anyone to follow. As such, I think the following should be researchable by anyone:

- Aetheric Synthesis (for the lamps and because it's the start of the tree)
- Crystal Synthesis
- Advanced Accumulators
- Aetheric Devices
- Advanced Synthesis (Purely because it's a prerequisite for the next one)
- Arcane Machinery
- Aetheric Transmission
- Aetheroelecrictity

You might be thinking, "okay, but is there any real benefit to doing this if you can't make proper use of all the Eorzean-oriented equipment anyways?" And honestly, it WOULD be more efficient to just go up the core research tree to get to more things that anyone can use. Using the crystal-based tech is just fun, and I don't think it'd be a huge issue to let anyone research and build accumulators and the non-production elements of what's in the mod.

Sorry for nitpicking this; I just wanted to cover both the lore and balance angles to explain why I feel this way.

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Number Two: Lalafells

I know Lalafells are still a Work In Progress and are in Beta. I'm not trying to crap on your efforts. I just have a major concern stemming from the Popoto Body Type.

Let me explain where the concern came from before I get into it:

I was messing around with a mod that revamps the textures of all the vanilla gear, and because of that, it overwrote the gear entirely and it no longer had a texture for the Popoto Body Type. The end result was that they only had the gear available to them from A Rim Reborn (and even then, not the Hauberk since it used the Vanilla plate armor.)

Obviously, this isn't any fault of yours, but it does expose a major concern: not every mod will make a lalafell-compatible model for the gear, and you can't be expected to make lalafell patches for every single mod.

Gear limitations make them an objectively inferior option. If you use gear mods, enemies can spawn with them, and... to be blunt... this is sort of the big balancing factor; many mods are overpowered, and only balanced out by the fact that the enemies can also use them against you. Except now you can't use them against the enemies.

As such, I have two suggestions:

1) I've once used another body type mod (was required for a race mod a friend suggested) that, in the absence of special models for it, just borrowed the default body type textures. Sometimes this was imperfect, to say the least, but it at least allowed gear to be equipped regardless. Could be an emergency failsafe in the case of modded gear.

2) Instead of manually revamping all the gear for them (since I know they still use the plate armor instead of Marine Armor) it might save time and energy to make a rescaling tool that will just try to cram any gear, including from mods, onto the body type.

"Well, if it's so easy, why not do it yourself?" I'm not calling it easy; it's simply a suggestion based on what I've seen in other games. It's easier to scale up or down an enemy than it is to make an entire new enemy, right? Same basic principle.

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Anyways, just my thoughts based on what I've playted so far.