Please make the engines at the higher tech levels be smaller. They are to big to make a decent small ship. A photonic drive is 40hs. That is to big for a small ship, and at that size it is to big for a gunboat as well. Even the preceding engines are to big for a gunboat as they are 20hs each. Could you please make the engine size stay stable and not grow as the tech level increases. You can still have the same power to weight ratio's and have a usefull increase in speed over time, but currently it is hard to build a high tech warship under 150hs. One engine is almost a quarter of the total volume. Take a look at the design below. You will notice that it is not heavily armed at all.
Talron class Cruiser 7500 tons 779 Crew 9993 BP TCS 150 TH 4000 EM 1350
26666 km/s Armour 10 Shields 45-300 Sensors 75/0/0/0/0 Damage Control 0-0 PPV 44
Replacement Parts 10
Photonic Drive EE0.1 AR-0 (1) Power 4000 Efficiency 0.10 Signature 4000 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 80,000 Litres Range 460.8 billion km (200 days at full power)
Omega R300/15 Shields (3) Total Fuel Cost 45 Litres per day
Twin R36/C6 Meson Cannon Turret (2x2) Range 360,000km TS: 80000 km/s Power 12-12 RM 36 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Neutron Torpedo R120 C16 (2) Range 1,200,000km TS: 26666 km/s Power 30-16 ROF 10 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12
Fire Control S08 700-40000 lr (1) Max Range: 1,400,000 km TS: 40000 km/s 99 99 98 97 96 96 95 94 94 93
Fire Control S04 175-80000 pd (1) Max Range: 350,000 km TS: 80000 km/s 97 94 91 89 86 83 80 77 74 71
Vacuum Energy Power Plant Technology PB-0.75 AR-0 (1) Total Power Output 60 Armour 0 Exp 1%
Thermal Sensor TH1-75 (1) Sensitivity 75 Detect Signature 100: 7.5m km
Active Sensor MR1080-R0.3 (1) GPS 108 Range 1.1m km Resolution 0.3
Active Sensor MR18000-R10 (1) GPS 1800 Range 18.0m km Resolution 10
ECCM-10C (1) ECM 100
As a note, the 10 points of armor is only using about 25hs of the total and makes this ship well protected against most secondary weapons that would be used as point defense untill you are at point blank range.
And here is a very bare boned freighter, please look at the speed and fuel economy.
Freighter class Freighter 5250 tons 320 Crew 2345 BP TCS 105 TH 4000 EM 0
38095 km/s Armour 1 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/0/0/0/0 Damage Control 0-0 PPV 0
Cargo 25000 Cargo Handling Multiplier 20 Replacement Parts 10
Photonic Drive EE0.1 AR-0 (1) Power 4000 Efficiency 0.10 Signature 4000 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres Range 411.4 billion km (125 days at full power)
This design is classed as a freighter for maintenance purposes
If I wanted to build a small, stealthy ship for the purpose of scouting, I can't do it under 100hs. This is a little big for good stealth, especially the way you have revamped the active sensors. A good stealth ship should be smaller so it won't show up on the lower resolution, longer range search radar that ships will mount.
Brian