[lucretius]

I too have been hit by the modding bug. So far I've been tinkering around with a few of the existing mods. My two Favorites (to both play and tinker with) so far have to be the Pirates and Nomads Mod and the Ultimate Mod.

I like P&N b/c of the quasi-Newtonian engine mechanics (the bigger the ship the more engines required to move it) and b/c of the various grades of componenet quality in his CompEnhancements.txt file. The like the ultimate mod b/c of the sheer scale and also b/c of the cool Malfadorian techs.

I like your idea of creating three classes of ship hulls each with their own strengths and weaknesses. I can think of five variables that can be balanced in ship hulls: cost (in resources), speed, defense (to hit bonuses or penalties), offense (availability of larger weapon mounts), and size (which influences either or both offense and defense by allowing more room for weapons or shielding). In your embryonic mod the superiority ships seem to be like the escorts, frigates and destroyers of unmodded SE4 in that they surpass the other ships in terms of cost and defense (and at least surpass BB on up in speed). The capitol ships seem to be like the cruisers (lt, regular and heavy) in SEIV in that they surpass the superiority ships in size and offense. The seige ships seem to be like the BB, dreadnaught and base ships in that they surpass all in terms of offense (massive mounts) and size but at a hefty pricew in resources and sacrificed speed. How do you forsee making the three classes of ships even more distinct than already exists in SE4? Have you gotten to playing around with any numbers that you could share yet?

Here's an idea I've been kicking about which may be of interest to you as you go about modding. Balance the three resource types against each other by creating three different race types: an organics race, an energy (radioactives race), and a minerals race. Each race would have its own tech tree which by and large would be the same (althought the organics would still have organic armor, et al.; the mineral race would still have access to crystaline tech; etc.) however, the main difference between the three races would be that most of what the organics race produced would require organics. Hence when building space ships their hulls would require more (or exclusively) organics. The hulls of energy races would require more (or exclusively) radioactives etc. As it is in SE4 every race is by default a minerals race b/c virtually everything is made of minerals. Consequently the harvesting of organics or radioactives becomes fairly unimportant and the economy becomes essentially a function of one variable (minerals). If implemented right, I think this idea could make the economics of SE4 more complex and much more interesting. The only problem is that doing it right seems to require alot of time that I don't have.

Best of luck with your mod and I hope my ramblings were of some help to you.