The End of Galactic Civilization..... Mod!

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Yesterday, I was just reading back old pages of Schlock and came across one episode (I can't remember exactly which, and I can't find it again ) in which Petey speaks about the fact that a war with the Gatekeepers would inevitably cause the collapse of any and all galactic civilizations. This made me think.

Moreover, this made me mod.

The "End of Galactic Civilizations Mod" is currently very much under construction, but I'm posting already because I'd like to get some opinions and ideas to put into the mod.

General outline:

The mod (best started at Medium or High tech level, to represent its purpose better) places the player in control of an empire that has been traversing space for a long time already. At Medium start, most technologies are already researched, putting the player in a position of leader of an Empire which already has fairly highly advanced technology.

To emulate the "galactic civilization" thing, the player will be able to choose from a wide variety of options in various areas. To take an example, Bridges (All bridges have Self-Destruct ability and boarding defense):

-Civilian Bridge. Smallest and cheapest bridge but gives enormous penalties in combat. Best suited for civilian ships. Boarding defense bonus of 5.
-Military bridge. Like the stock bridge only +10 attack bonus, to reflect the fact that the crew has been trained. Boarding defense bonus of 20.
-Mercenary Warship Bridge. Largest and most expensive bridge. Gives 40% offense and 20% defense bonuses. Boarding defense bonus of 40.
-Deep Space Ship Bridge. Best suited for deep-space exploration ships. Contains a Crew Quarters and supply storage. Boarding defense bonus of 10.

These are just the bridges I already have.

There will be a lot of specialty components, including many types of weapon lockers for boarding defense - and offense. You'll have a lot of specialized weapons systems, and all ship sizes are useful throughout the game. You can field tiny, super-fast deepscout ships, larger, slower, long-ranged deep space exploration vessels, hit-and-run strike craft, massive merchant vessels and enormous, lumbering warships with weapons that can vaporize small ships in a single shot, shields or no shields.

Well? Opinions, suggestions, ideas? Please?