[dogscoff]

Sounds like a cool concept for a mod. A few things:

-You might want to wait for the next game patch before doing any more modding: I think you'll find the forthcoming changes to mounts very useful. (Might save you some work)

-There's nothing to stop you changing *all* the graphics to a naval theme, IE seascape instead of stars in the background, islands / ports instead of planets. You might have to manually create your own maps for it to make sense. You could. Not sure how you'd justify warp points, either...

-The space vikings are a nice boaty- themed (ish) shipset. Might be good for your mod (although it sounds like you're not interested in "antique" naval warfare)

-That would be a cool mod though... Imagine starting with nothing more than wooden ship technology and no weaponry. The you have to research your way through ramming hulls and catapults and cannons, metal hulls, steam ships and modern engines, all the way up to submarines (cloaked), aircraft carriers, long-range missiles and maye even some future tech that is now only on the drawing board.