[grumbler]

Ragnarok, I wasn't offended and meant no offense, I was just astonished that you would even consider starting this over from scratch, particularly given the size and complexity of the mod.

I have not, to be sure, played the Last Version that Pathfinder posted (which I am pretty sure was incomplete in any case), and I don't blame anyone for being frustrated with the existing status of the mod. I was working on this with Tim for about six months, and between us we talked about a number of things and ended up with a pretty complete game with the exception of the weapons files.

Now, the Version we ended up with has not been playtested by anyone save us (or maybe even me) so there are sure to be some elements that need to be tweaked (in particular the "findable" Ancients technology needs to be balanced both between the various techs and netween the cost to find and the effect of finding them) but the mod is playable and even kind of fun (until about turn 200, when the AI runs out of good weapons for its ships).

Races need to be balanced as well, of course, but that is something carried over from Val's mod. AI_D_C is the same for all races at the moment, with component families varied by race to create some variety. Facilities need to be added/modded to give more racial flavor as well.

There are no First Ones in the mod as it stands.

I will package up the thing as it stands this weekend and send it to IF. It uses all the existing graphics so is almost entirely data files and hence not so big.

Again, my point was that I was surprised that you and Tim would be talking about starting over, given that I know Tim is aware of how difficult this would be.