As I deep dive into the Conqueror code base and am porting it forward, I realize I'm going to inherit all if its bagagge too. So now's the time to correct those mistakes.
Tell me about the parts of Conqueror that were frustrating to you!
(A ) Equipment, Rations, Wages (ERW) as a concept made sense but its currency didn’t relate to ‘normal’ FO4 building. Too meta.
If the SS2C3 Conqueror currency will be expressed in a similar manner, consider making an outpost/vassal/settlement quest that lists the rate limiting issue as a quest task (e.g., quest name: ‘Outpost issues’; task name: ‘Not enough X - build more Y or do more Z’; all outposts w issue marked on map).
(B ) SS-C had the same issue as Nuka World; interesting but disjointed mechanic. Having various faction outposts and vassals is great (love war games as much or more than the next guy), but it can leave one w the question ‘Why did I spend all that time on settlement building (both gameplay and modding) when now it doesn’t matter? All that effort locked up into vanilla settlements that won’t directly impact the impending war effort.’
(B1) Ideally, the player needs to make a workshop (settlement-outpost-vassal) decision having a rock-paper-scissors impact.
(B2) At a minimum, find a way to bring them under the same umbrella and make all of them needed at some level in order to successfully prosecute the war effort. Maybe the following: Settlements are needed to create trade agreements; HQ cannot develop without trade agreements; HQ development necessary to enable outposts (via security threshold met); waging war (conquering other faction settlements) requires outposts; outposts can’t acquire resources from settlement trade agreements and so need to establish vassalage; vassals depend on outposts for protection.
(C ) Vanilla faction support within Conqueror was missing. One needed to download the customized Institute faction pack to get them, customized BoS faction pack to get them, etc. Support for them was uneven months after release.
(C1) The vanilla factions should be built into the Conqueror mechanic (preferably as integral part of SS2C3; alternatively, as SS-team curated SS2C3 addons). As Automatron is now required, the rust devils (including robots) should be included as a faction.
(C2) The squads for each vanilla faction should be leveled (weapons, outfits, attributes) and have at least 1 high value and relatively unique (if not truly faction unique) weapon and outfit.
(D) Faction imbalance. There was too much unevenness in the weapons and outfits used by the factions, even after controlling for development level. This made fights between some faction squads of the same or similar level like shooting ducks in a barrel.
(D1) To be more competitive, squad dps output of a particular level should be within some reasonably similar range across factions. [That would enable smaller super mutant squads with high relative dps output per NPC to fight evenly with larger, lesser armed Institute squads of the same level.]
(D2) To gain the upper hand, faction level development needs to occur. HQ plots-quests-achievements provide a great way to achieve this level development. Level development should offer more than just weapon-outfit upgrades. There should be buffs (or getting rid of lower level debuffs) as faction development increases. (This is effectively what FO76 does with enemy mutations in daily operations.)
(E) Disposition and drones. Hard to remedy and stay within targeted memory size, but...
(E1) At times, the liberator framework felt like it was forced or shoe horned into the conqueror mechanic. Please address.
(E2) Shallow faction identity beyond iconography. Aside from iconography and maybe general combat disposition (aggressive, neutral, defensive), there was little feel for who these soldiers were. Asking for gameplay with D&D-like alignments (chaotic evil, etc) might be too much to ask for, but Raybo’s good-evil-indifferent proposal would be a significant improvement.
(E3) Our warring behavior should elict some reactions and responses. So, for example, Aiden should be turned off if we turn warmonger and decimate the 'wealth. Reactions could be a cool off period (to talk to him), desertion, etc. Responses could be as simple as lines such as those in FO76. For instance, the FO76 Santatron (Santa-skinned scavenger Protectron) says "Have you been nice this year? Evaluating... No, oh my, no. Why did you do those things?! WWWHHHHYYYY?!" Great response in goody two-shoes faction camp.
(E4) While it maybe hyperbolic of me to call the Conqueror NPCs drones, it’s not hyperbolic to say there wasn't enough (or I missed it) Conqueror/combat related (idle) banter, especially at outposts/vassals. For a light weight version, imagine Buddy repurposed as a re-skinned morale officer. He (or she) walks around, offers refreshments, and spits out comments reflective of your faction’s alignment and war progress.
(F) Special NPCs and working at cross purposes. SS-C leveraged leaders. It was a cool feature that enhanced the military command vibe. SS2C2 introduced HQ which has incentivized the hoovering up of all the good NPCs. That change has unintentionally or not diminished the value of the leader mechanic. In war, there are leaders, and those leaders matter. SS2C3 needs to help players in their leader-vs-HQ-resident decision making.
(G) Narrative dissonance. SS2C2 puts the Gunners front and center, and was set up for enlisting the support of various vanilla factions in an ASAM-dependent, open settlement world. SS-C created a backstory for the raiders and implemented a conqueror mechanic to configure hostility against the various factions settlements in a (partially) pre-built ASAM-free settlement world. Something’s gotta give in SS2C3.
(G1) An allusion to ASAM boxes lost, stolen, etc could explain away the pre-built settlement style of SS-C. In my current playthru (started at 2.1.1), I have 3 ASAMs and have yet to meet Jake or visit Concord.
(G2) the hostile-friendly-neutral attitude of a vanilla faction (BoS, super mutants, etc) should apply to all that faction’s NPCs throughout the ‘wealth. Having raiders hostile in the vanilla game locations such as Corvega but friendly at a pre-built settlement/outpost/vassal (or vice versa) would kill immersion. If we intend to avoid reconciling attitude, we should at least give a different moniker to our vanilla factions using settlements-outposts-vassals.
(H) Loadouts. The custom faction packs had some loadout capability, but it was a static, pre-set list by the modder. Whilst great for conveying the vibe the mod author wanted, it made in game adjustments impossible without manually trying to override rank weapon assignment.
(H1) Being able to include gun mod guns (i.e. non-vanilla weapons) in the loadouts would be very much appreciated.
(H2) Being able to use the trade mechanism to switch role (rank) loadouts of your faction on the fly would be great … even if linked to custom workbench at HQ.
(H3) Being able to set or augment vanilla faction weapon loadouts would be fantastic.
"kidding" but not too much.
and improve the survivability of soldiers that have had some effort and resources put into their training by the PC? That said I still believe in death and mortality. hahah, not all will make it. 
incoming paper clip 
The following comments/suggestions are filtered through my best guess/assumptions regarding Chapter 3 including: (a) I have not taken/established my first HQ, but expect to finish that his week, and (b) a major theme is the Gunners are returning to contest control of the Commonwealth and they don't take prisoners.
www.nexusmods.com
