[Timstone]

First let me point out that I have no plans to implement the First Ones just yet. They should be implemented when all the other races are done.
They're tricky buggers to put into The Mod.

Furthermore I would like to help making the weapons, the rest of the components are not really my cup of tea. I could give advise about it though, and with a little help of my B5W Books and the excellent support here we can go a long way.

Ragnarok-X said:
Major Race abilites:

EA: Strong telepaths and economics, average combat
Minbari: good telepaths and ecomonics, weapons and facilites above average as well. Different castes offer different abilities
Centauri: standart telepaths, expensive ships, population can easily be influenced. Maybe good trading ability.
Narn: weak economics, strong combat ability, both in space, on ground and when boarding. Above average trading
First Ones: Superior overall, not able to colonize or capture planets. Should be played in PBW rpg-ish, do diplomatics and stuff. First Ones should NOT ally with each other or they would become impossible to beat.
Vree: Superior engines or thrusters, maybe a better science, cool antimatter weapons
Streib: better science and boarding stuff, weak trading
Pakmara: cheap ships
Gaim: cheap ships
Ipsha: expensive and strong ships, especially powerful weapons
Drazi: average ships, maybe better evasion
Hyach ?
Abbai ?

I'll get back to this one. I'm planning to release every race as a module. This way we won't have to worry about all the races at once. One race at a time.


Shadow Phase Shift Generator

Add 2-4 Movement Points, +1 combat movement respecivly, more minor influence on cost and supply usage.
Should be useful on each vessel, therefor scale mounts need to be implented. Should take approximatly 10-20% of total available space.

No First Ones yet, we'll get to them in time.


Vree anti-gravitation thrusters

Add 1-3 combat movement, slightly enhance offense and defense bonus. Usable on every Vree vessel with the help of mounts. Costs and size usage and are not to big, maybe even make them easier to use on small vessels to show the Vree’s superior manoverability.Should take between 5-10% size.

Great idea. The Vree have advanced gravitic drives, the drives aren't as advanced as the ones of the Minbari though. The fighters of the Vree are NASTY to say the least.


Minbari Religous Caste Bridge

Slightly decreases maintaince and has a rather low cost compared to normal bridge. Gives a slight decrease in offense and defense. Meant to be used within civilian ships, like colonizers and transports. Cant be used on bases though.

I never liked the Minbari, but this idea sounds great. Hard to tell civi ships apart from military ships.


Minbari Warrior Caste Bridge

Slighty increases maintaince and has a rather high cost compared to normal bridge. Gives a slight increase in offense and defense. Meant to be used within each warship, weiter conventional or carrier. Cant be used on bases though. Another options would be to create a weaponmount called „Warrior-Caste controlled weapon“, which increases damage and hitchance.

Like my remark above.


Gaim Crew Quarters, Bridge and Life supports

Has a good decrease in cost and maybe only takes 50% standart size. No change in ship abilites, only to show that the Gaim live in a hive and place or living circumstances are not important.

Exactly like the Gaim would have done it. Don't forget the bulk-heads tech.


Earth Alliance Psi-Chor Bridge

Bridge to indicate the vessel is under control of the Earth allliance Psi-Chor. Majorly increases the cost of the Brdige and maybe the size. Gives a good offense bonus to show the ship is supported by several telepaths. Could even give a lvl 2 normal cloak ability to indicate that telepaths are able confuse enemy ships. There should be a quite cheap cloak-detection component for each race, which could easily.“defeat“ telepaths cloaking though.

Now that's a nice idea; different telepaths for every race. Too bad for the Narn though...
Grumbler and I decided that each race should have access to telepaths, therefore we made it a general tech.


Pakmara Crew Quarters and Life Support.

A really cheap and small crew quarter and life support component meant for pakamara species who do not care about it.

The quarters shouldn't be as small as those of the Gaim.


Streib Tractor Beam

A quite cheap component meant to tractor hostile ships towards the Streib ship in order to make boarding easier.

Done.


Streib Abduction Thruster

Special Streib thrusters which enable them to board hostile ships more fastly. They should give +1 or +2 combat movement OR a evasion bonus.

Evasion bonus? What do you mean? Good idea btw.


Streib Boarding Parties

Streib boarding parties, which are very efficient while costing the same as other species boarding parties. They are superior compared to other species boarding or defending parties and should be able to overwhelm the enemy almost always.

Simulates the effect of the unconsious victims quite nicely.


Shadow Organism CPU

A Master Computer for Shadows. Resembles the lifeform incorporated into a shadow vessel. Should give a slight bonus in offense and defense to show the increases capabilites when compared to standart bridges. Needs to cost a lot. Should make small vessels MORE expensive than other races ships while big vessels are more cheap. This comes due to the amount of life support and crew quarters needed for other races capital ships, while the shadow can still use just one component for the entire ship control thingy. Another idea would be to include normal bridge, lifesupport and crewquarters for the shadows as well, to allow them to construct small ships without the expensive CPU. In addition i dont think small shadow vessels like the fighter and the scout have a grown-in lifeform, since even the Battlecrab only has one.

Already there, Shadow Living CPU.


Shadow and Vorlon organic reparation systems

Repair systems which can easily be incorporated into any ship. Small and cheap. Maybe the ability should be incorporated into special Shadow and Vorlon ship hulls, would require alot of work though. Components would be easier. Another idea would be include the repair ability into the ships Life support, or central component.

Later, my young padawan. Hahaha... I just had to say that.


Centauri Crew Quarters

Would be quite expensive, to show that the Centauri love to life in wealth and like food and stuff. They offer no benefits.

No real Centauri should leave home without his concubines, ehh... wives.


General Race Mass Catapult

Mass Catapults are anti-planet weapons. They should deal major damage to planets and have a very long range. Unless a planet has mobile defenses it should be able to destroy a planet while staying out of WP range.
Fighters or ships or drones would be needed to defeat a siege ship. Should have a quite long reload though, 4 seems to be fine. Should be big and expensive as well. Apart from Drakh bio-viruses, the Shadow Deathcloud and the Vorlon planetdestroyer it should be the way to handle planets, at least for not-first-ones Valid target oc only planets.

Already implemented. It's pretty devastating if I say so myself.


Centauri Mass Catapults

Improved Version of the general mass catapults. Smaller and less expensive would be the only change.

Hmm... maybe. I'll se how many weapons I can find for them. Should be a nice extra weapon nonetheless.


Earth Alliance artifical-gravity generators

Some kind of component to indicate the not-so-advanced artificial gravity systems of the earth alliance. Should be able to slightly enhance combat ability or something like that. It should indicate that a starships crew is more comfortable when having
AG generators.

That is not such a good idea since the AE got grav tech from the Interstellar Alliance to get them to enter the IA, the serie never told if they entered the IA (I haven't seen Excalibur). Remember the spinning section of the Omega? That created gravity in the livingquarters. I say, leave them out.


Earth Alliance Cobra-Bay launch systems

Cobra-Bays replace standart fighter and drone bays. They are superior, a bit smaller and less expensive, but have a slightly better launch-ability, overall they are the way to go.

Already there, I just don't know their advantages.


Earth alliance telepath on board

A component which should indicate a certain status, which would be that a telepath is on board as well. Should cost a lot, but gives a nice bonus in offense and defense. Each major race should get a component like this, with the EA being the most effective. The Narn get some kind of „mercenary telepath on board“ which is more expensive because the narn naturally have to telepaths. Maybe there could be different telepaths, some who give combat %, and some who can analyse hostile ships from several sector range, i dont know but i like the idea.

Look at my remark about telepaths.


Captains

Similar to startrek mod captains. You research stuff and get access to different grades of captains which cost nothing to put on a starship or base but have MAJOR influence on the ships combat abilites. More researching means better captains to choose from. Somewhat unrealitc, but after all ist cool to have an EA Major commanding your omega destroyer and beating the [censored] out of that lower-grade Minbari commander. Then again, how are minbari ranks called anyway ? Well who cares, they are minbari after all:

Hmm... nah. I like the idea, but it isn't very cannon. Well on the other hand, maybe it is very cannon. I would like to hear other opinions on this matter. Let me sleep on this for a night.

Maybe Tim can help here with his AoG books.

I hope these remarks are helpful. Expect me to work on the weapons for each race steadily. Although my graduation period is getting more and more stressful, so untill april I won't do one race in one week. Maybe one race every three weeks. Sorry, I just can't help that.
But I can and will give input whenever I'm Online and that is almost every day (about 10 hours a day).