Hello, my name is Rolfe Bergstrom. This is the 1.1 version of my third Wierd Worlds mod. 

I started work on this in July 2007. The 1.1 version was uploaded on Aug 30th, 2007.

The point of this mod is to change-up the decision-tree of the game in regards to equipment/system choices.  I know I quickly fell into a pattern of which weapons and systems I utilize, and which I trade to the Klakar or abandon on alien worlds. Hopefully all the new equipment in this mod will breath some new life into that decision-making process.

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Changes in 1.1 version 

+New Tan Ru ship (old hull, new weapons).
+KEYS system in place to keep superweapons limited to two (and sometimes a pylon that gives you a single shot of a third superweapon).
+Corrected point-value for Babulon.
+Better implementation of the Drives'R'Us event.
+Added Planetary Civil-War event.
+New art for Jackhammer and Rangefinder.
+New sensor systems.
+The Duster is no longer a Micrometeorite clone.
+Added the Submunitions pylon. 
 
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Content of this Mod:

+Added 10 new starship drives. Did a variety of combos of drive properties that I thought would feel different from anything currently in the main game. Some are very powerful, but others will rarely get used. Had attempted 4 different hyper-variants too, but PAR2 and PAR3 seem to actually do nothing, so I pulled them out of the file. 5 functionally identical hyperdrives would be a bit much. Modders, if you have luck making hypers work differently, please post it to a forum. (Drives, coincidentally, is an area where there's still lots of design space wide open. I could make another 10 drives for this mod and still keep them interesting, unbroken, and functionally different.)

+Added 6 new thrusters. Since thrusters have only a single mechanical stat, these aren't nearly as interesting as the drives. Still, it provides a touch more variety in relative combat and manuever speeds.

+Added 5 new shields, providing new options for smaller ships, as well as some intermediary steps between basic-model shields and the big impressive ones. Shields have multiple parameters, so there's some design space left here that could be explored further in future versions.

+Added Dual-Missile and Triplex-Missile, basically toned-down versions of the Multi-Missile Launcher. 

+Added the Jackhammer Missile Rack, which is a rapid-fire low-power missile system. 

+Added weapon pylons. Effectively, these let you mount an extra weapon on your ship. The catch is their single use per battle, and they can be tricky to aim. Based on the gong, these came about due to Piranha Bee research while writing my Teeming With Life mod, and it had obvious applications here.

+Added the Submunitions pylon. Vaguely inspired by something in Ground Zero Games' scifi miniatures system Full Thrust... it's a one-shot weapon that fires a lot of smaller projectiles. I think thier version was intended to be more of a shotgun in space. This is zip-gun w/ cannister-shot in space.

+Added the Duster. It's a wide-angle, rapid-fire micrometeorite variant. Makes a cloud of particles that is hazardous to cross, and difficult to see. Very different from how I had it in version 1.0.

+Sped up the Gauss Cannon: just the movement rate of the projectile, not the rate of fire of the gun. Read the (as originally written) description of the weapon, and you'll understand why. Intended it as a cosmetic change, but turns out it made it better against those dodgy fighters.

+Added the Laser Range Finder, which exists partly to take some of the guess work out of the various Missile Pylons, and partly just to provide a really cheap long range weapon.

+7 Multibarrel weapons. Double-barreled versions of old favorites. As with drives, this is an easy area for expanding the item list without much work.

+Enemy weapons.  I removed the "nogen" tags from a bunch of weapons so that fancy high-powered items (formerly quest-specific) can occasionally spawn at random. They, the gong, the multi-missile launcher, and the PVC now have some KEYS to keep it from getting too disgusting. 

+Variety on Haven. The items available in the Glory system change from game to game. 

+Priceless Bauble - it's like the Timeless Bauble, but cooler.

+Babulon himself. Need I say more? I probably should, but I won't...

+New ships for many races, including some mercenaries. These new ships use new systems and weapons, but old hulls. They add more diversity to enemy fleets, and hopefully make certain allies more useful.

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Soapbox Alert: Having a readme file in your mod is a great idea. I wish the rest of the modders out there would do so consistently. It provides an opportunity to spell out clearly for other modders what's been added and removed. Those of you who have readme files, thank you, you made it easier for me to debug my fledgling efforts. 

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Like something in Drives'R'Us and want to use it in your own mod? That's great! Please mention me and this mod in your credits or readme.txt, but definitely feel free to use any or all of this stuff.

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Many thanks to Digital Eel, Shrapnel Games, the person known as Fingers, and the Modmaker's Guide to the Galaxy. If not for those folks, this mod obviously wouldn't exist.

Additional help was found by perusing the forums at Infinite Space Federation and Shrapnel games. 

Biggest thanks of them all to my wife, Sarah. Not only does she encourage my gaming, she made many of the images for the new starship systems in this mod. 