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Ages of Space Empires (Space Age Preview)

The Ages of Space Empires is my latest mod project. It's based on a technology structure similar to the one used in the RTS game Rise of Nations. It's designed to make SE4 more fun and give it more of an epic multigenerational feel.

The most important (and expensive) tech levels are the 8 Ages. Each Age represents a significant leap forward in technology that changes the face of space combat, yielding new battle strategies and obsoleting old ones as the game progresses. The Ages only become available after a race has achieved predetermined levels of technology in the General Science categories.

The Ages are:
0 - The Space Age (starting Age)
1 - The Nuclear Age
2 - The A.I. Age
3 - The Antigravity Age
4 - The Antimatter Age
5 - The Warp Age
6 - The Hyperspace Age
7 - Ascension

I've completed the conceptual phase. Right now I'm planning out the individual components, facilities, hulls, and all that. Eventually I'll add AI races, but I want to get the core of the mod done first.

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Age details:
Space Age
strategy: Boarding, Ramming, Blockades and Troops
description: Space travel has been achieved. Space propulsion technology has developed far enough to create ships capable of leaving and re-entering a planetary atmosphere. The discovery of Warp Points allows easy access to the resources of other star systems. The possibility of developing off-world colonies exists, but it's much more efficient to leave manufacturing, construction and resource processing facilities on the homeworld. Most off-world bases are simply outposts used to resupply spacecraft, observe stellar phenomena, support remote resource extractors, and scout for new resources. Ship-to-ship combat in space is limited, since the effective range of most weapons is relatively short, and most space vessels lack the speed and endurance to travel far from established supply lines. It's more common to blockade an enemy homeworld and invade with large numbers of ground forces, or eliminate enemy outposts one by one, destroying an enemy's economy.

Nuclear Age
strategy: Dreadnoughts and Missiles
description: Safe and cheap Nuclear energy leads to a rebirth of space exploration. Huge Nuclear reactors power some of the largest starships ever built. Nuclear missiles dominate space warfare, but smaller direct-fire weapons still play a small role in space battles. Large dreadnoughts are designed with heavy armor to withstand a Nuclear attack.

A.I. Age
strategy: Light Cruisers, Destroyers and Torpedos
description: While your race hasn't achieved computer sentience, artificial intelligence technology has developed to a point where machines can take over most menial and repetitive tasks, leaving your race free to focus on creativity, leadership, and science. Smaller more sophisticated ships can easily outmatch Nuclear Age dreadnoughts. While Nuclear weapons are still useful in space warfare, their power has been tempered by the emergence of energy shield technology and AI controlled point defense grids. This age also sees the advent of Plasma weapons to counter shields and guided torpedos to counter large armored ships. Nuclear weapons become small enough to use on fighters, which are typically launched from colonies and converted cargo ships, rather than dedicated carriers.

Antigravity Age
strategy: Carriers and Beam Weapons
description: The development of practical Anti-gravity technology creates a revolution in space travel and industry. The development of the inertial dampener and artificial gravity generators means that manned space craft can travel faster and operate for much longer durations than ever before. Gravitational technology leads to the development of effective medium range particle beam weapons. Carriers also come into their own with the introduction of gravitational arrestor catapults for launching and retrieving fighters in combat.

Antimatter Age
strategy: Superdreadnoughts, Base Ships, Missiles and Planet/Star Destroyers
description: Antimatter power becomes safe and effective. While the Antigravity Age's massive particle beam weapons pushed the envelope of Nuclear power, the development of the Antimater reactor has made such weapons practical even for small and medium size ships. Once again missiles become effective for use against large vessels and hardened targets with the introduction of Antimatter warheads and point defense evasion technology. Both shields and armor evolve to counter the vast destructive capability of Antimatter, but they require the use of larger ships, the largest of which surpass even the ancient Nuclear age dreadnoughts. Antimatter weapons also make destruction on a planetary, and even stellar scale possible.

Warp Age
strategy: Faster Ships, Missiles and Stealth
description: The technology to Warp and shape the space-time continuum has developed. This leads to the development of incredibly fast Warp drive systems, as well as the technology to Warp space around objects, making them difficult to hit with direct fire weapons, giving missiles an advantage. The development of smaller, more powerful Antimatter weapons that are able to warp past armor and shields has turned space warfare into a game of deception and strategy, with each side trying to decimate the other with a first strike, and both large and small ships emphasizing offense more than defense. Antimatter weapons become small enough to use on fighters, making carriers deadly once again. The invention of warp point generators allows ships to slip into a system behind enemy defenses.

Hyperspace Age
strategy: Individual Cloaked Ships, Beam Weapons
description: Warp technology takes a great leap forward, letting ships actually punch through the space-time continuum into another dimension called Hyperspace. Ships are able to travel through Hyperspace, making travel across the galaxy even faster than before. The ability to tap into Hyperspace for energy allows the construction of space vessels that have practically infinite range. Warp point generators become compact enough to use on small ships. Powerful weapons can disintegrate matter on a Hyperspacial level. Some smaller vessels are able to stay "submerged" in Hyperspace permenantly, making them invisible to nearly all sensors. Eventually Hyperspace weapons become so potent and so compact that any single space vessel can take on whole fleets of ships using earlier age technology.

Ascension
strategy: Star Killers, as close to MAD as you can get in SE4
description: Technology that allows beings to shed their material bodies and exist as pure energy becomes available to all. However they still need resources, particularly radioactives, to thrive. Space warfare becomes a tool used by Ascended races in their pride and jealousy against one another. The machine decendants of those computer systems that emerged in the A.I. Age have developed full sentience and taken their former masters' place in dominating the material world. Ascended individuals are able to posess a material spacecraft and fight without the use of technological weapons, making the ship largely immune to nearly all material weapons and able to regenerate quickly. The only way to kill a ship embued with the spirit of an Ascended being is to cause a nearby star to go nova and catching it in the blast wave. Stealth technology of any kind is useless against an Ascended race.

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colonial development
The default population growth rate will be set very low, similar to the Proportions Mod, but each Age will introduce a different Space Port facility that increases system pop growth rate to stock levels and beyond. This way developed systems will grow quicker and have greater production capacity than isolated outposts.

electronics
Electronic systems like Combat Sensors and ECM will be much smaller than stock SE4 (similar to the Pointer Mod). This way ships using more electronics can be smaller, but will also be more expensive and take longer to repair.

ship sizes
Hull costs will increase exponentially, similar to the Economies of Scale mod, but less drastic. Larger hulls will also have greater defense penalties, making them more vulnerable to direct-fire weapons. More details here.

starting tech levels
low, medium, and high tech starts will work like this:
Low Tech - Space Age
Medium Tech - Antigravity Age
High Tech - Hyperspace Age

troops
Troops will be available right from the start. In fact, the Space Age will feature very few planetary weapons to encourage the use of troops and planetary invasions. Instead of representing vehicles like in Stock SE4, each troop unit represents and Army and require varius command and support components, depending on its size (similar to the Pointer Mod or the Units Mod). Troops will also become more important in the A.I. Age as planetary shields develop to protect planets from being glassed by Nuclear weapons.

stealth
early Warp Age stealth technology will simply be glorified ECM combined with low-level EM cloaking ability. Later Hyperspace Age stealth will be similar to an idea for "Subspace" that someone mentioned on the forum in connection to the Carrier Battles Mod (can't find the link).

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That's what I have right now. I also have a list of components that will go with each Age. Assembling the actual mod data files is slow-going. I'm using a combinaton of text editing and DavidG's Modder. If you have any ideas, comments or suggestions, that could improve the concept of the mod, or make development go faster, let me hear 'em.