Modding questions...

[PaladinX]

Ok, I've been toying with the ship files and store files and whatnot, and basically just having fun hacking away at the game, and I think I'm finally ready to try to mod the game in earnest.

I have a few questions on methods first though.

First, can I create new slot types? If I just set up a slot on a ship with an arbitrary type string will the game only allow components with a matching placement locations string to be placed there? If so that's great, because I want to have reactor and point defense slots (With the point defense slots having specific firing arcs... This should solve the problem of having all your PD guns fire at one missile and having nothing left for the other missiles/fighters swarming you).

Also, is it possible to do as in the SEIV quasi newtonian propulsion system and cause heavier ships to require more movement points to reach a given speed than a lighter ship? I intend to only have one or two engine slots on any given ship, and simply have a large range of engine types that get vastly more powerful as their tonnage goes up.

Can you set a campaign to be unselectable? By which I mean you could only play it by going through the campaign before it and being sent on to the next one. It's not that I care about people jumping ahead, it's that I was thinking I'd like to do it as a chain of small intimate missions, in the style of something like Freespace, rather than long complex missions, and I was thinking I could render each mission as a separate campaign, in order to increase the immediacy of the mission, but doing that would result in a ton of campaigns cluttering up the selection screen if they can all be played from there...

Oh and Last, can someone tell me how to import 3D models and textures into this game? I'm not a modeller, but I suppose I'll need to know how at some point... Ideally I want entirely new ship models for my mod, so I guess I'll have to find someone willing to do the modelling for me, but I'd still like to know how to import models, as I can probably find some stock models to play with as a start.