Modular Armour is, well, pathetic. Needs to run off solar power due to tiny grid size which means you need to research and make batteries (both item and research are generally unused later). Rather than do research and production that will become redundant in less time than it took to finish, most experienced players just research the next tier. The types of resources to build Power Armour are almost identical to Modular Armour, no additional production or anything is needed, just more.
Now, a set of Power Armour does require 100 Processing Units to build. This is where players divide I guess, some would opt for Power Armour but personally I just rush through module research while I expand Electronic and Advanced Circuit production to endgame status. Speed Modules first, build 5 which I can then use to speed up production of Efficiency Modules. While this is happening, an additional 100 Processing Units are built, then I can jump in the tank or something and collect a few Alien Artefacts. Voila, Power Armour MK2.
I am aware that the upcoming research change will likely make it much harder to just rush through the research to MK2, but there are a few reasons this isn't a solution. First of all, Alien Artefacts are no longer required and that was basically the only bit that Power Armour would have helped much with so this unbalances it again somewhat.
Secondly, the cost of Power Armour is a big investment for a paperweight, specifically the 100 Processing Units, though if you don't have bots yet Electric Engines can be a pain too (which are somehow absent from MK2 recipe?). With no reason to hunt aliens other than for expansion, bots are the only other attractive feature of the Modular Armours. If harder research puts MK2 armour further out of reach, I'm more likely to put a roboport network down first.
SO it boils down to giving purpose to the Modular and Power Armours, and the most obvious solution is to build them into the next tier. That way it's not going to be a total waste of resources building them and it's healthier game progression. Either way this will force players to build each tier of armour, and if we're building it anyway why not use it? Then it will be less of a rush to get MK2 armour.
- Power Armour = 100 Steel + 100 Processing Units + 20 Electric Engines + Modular Armour
- Power Armour MK2 = 5 Speed Modules + 5 Efficiency Modules + 50 Steel + 100 Processing Units + Power Armour