From my experience, the hardest hit is the Vodyani due to how Food interacts with their Pop Growth and unlocked techs. Not far behind is the Unfallen and Riftborn from immediate start.

I can understand why some of these choices were made, but Systems certainly can be too random, to the point of offering a further detailed Systems, more strictly structuring the process of generating Systems would be a good help.

What I mean is like only allowing one planet to be within the 'Goldi-locks' Zone per system at the start, and adding how many harsh systems are then habitable with various star lanes could be one method to help early balance issues across the board.

I read a thread with a great point on how star lanes are established that certainly can make greater use of existing systems in the game and ideally add to what can be really great for Endless Space 2.

If I need to link the post that inspired this following thinking, after imagining this for some days I would, and the idea is this:

• All factions begin with only one star lane - (purpose being that all factions have at least one system to colonize, Vaulters then could have two, for example and need to Probe to get more Commercial Lanes to available without Probe tech).
  • Idea here being that each system develops a sort of Lighthouse for trade lanes, and then Star Lanes are any point a ship can see from their vision.
  • So Military and Exploratory Ships need some method to find systems to target for Invasions and so on.
  • Exploration ships (Modules) then can have a greater role in establishing commercial Star Lanes and attack routes, where a sort of Merchant Marines deals with day to day trade issues, and major factions hunt down the bigger Pirate factions as currently established in-game (that way star lanes can be any ship with the right engines can reach, and proper developed 'commercial' Star Lanes are for Military and commercial use, like Highways could be as needed.
  • I can see new system improvements provide such star lane deployments, and then stable wormholes can too be another system improvement that exists as a step below what Vaulters develop with their Portals.
    • Such additional System Improvements can add to base techs and flesh out more in the Research tree, while helping to work with the lore of various Heroes that exist in ES2
    • Remote systems, like Traitor's Reach can then build a proper star lane through system improvements, adding to how Trade may build and flow within an empire, as it feels, natural that some sort of improvement might be possible as an empire expands, aside from how a Galaxy is first generated in-game, and might be a fascinating factor for developing an Inter-Galactic thru-way through the expanded use of explorer ships (something again Vaulter could bypass with their tech options).

I'll stop for the moment, just hope that my love for this game might help it grow and see some nice tweaks that ideally work for the intended setting.