Star Wars Mod - II (Sci-Fi Xover Mod)

[Andrés]

In the discussion about the SE4 Image Neo-Standard (Non standard Hulls thread), my Starwars mod was mentioned.
That mod was made some time ago, it was never completed (I was going to add a Force Sensitive racial trait that was never fully implemented) and it was never updated to work with the Last patch.
Of course that I thought about updating and completing the mod now.
But there's this idea that I've been having for a long time. But only now there are enough race styles and mods (completed or in progress) to make it feasible.
The idea is simple, a simple mod that combines Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5 and maybe some other sci-fi.
Not only the races (shipsets) but everything else that can be modded into the game: weapons, vehicle sizes etc.

This has always been my favorite game theme, I played sci-fi crossover wars since the times of SE3, but creating a mod that adds the actual techs of everyone should give it another proportion.
I know this project is too ambitious and would probably never get the time to finish it all by myself, so I need your help.
Balance will be a difficult topic here.
There's always a trekkie who will point that lasers are useless against their shields and that their superior phasers should be able to bypass sw shields and take down a star destroyer with one shot! (Sorry but trekkies tend to babble more than other sci-fi fans, probably because they think what they hear in the shows is scientifically serious)
That is of course wrong, and our objective must be to make all techs balanced and worth playing. Obviously that every one will have its own advantages and disadvantages over the others.

By now I'm in the research and preliminary design stage.
As you know I'm more a star war fan, and I'm more familiar with that technology, so I may need to be reminded of most important tech of the other SCI-FIs.
A good point of reference will be standard se4 tech. For example the damage/tonnage/firerate ratio of weapons must not exceed that of similar se4 weapons.

In the beginning let's try to keep things simple and use only the most common and representative techs for every race. More exotic technologies can be added once the basic mod is finished.

A good point to start would be the races. The 20 races needed already exist. (There are more, they could be added later but don't think they're really needed right now, and no more than 20 races can be in a game at once):
Star Wars:
1- Empire 2- Rebellion 3- Trade Federation 4- Sith Empire 5- Yuuzhan Vong

Star Trek:
6- Federation 7- Klingons 8- Romulans 9- Borg 10- Cardassian 11- Dominion 12- Ferengis 13- Sp 8472

Babylon 5:
14- Earth Alliance 15- Minbaris 16- Centauris 17- Narns 18- Shadows 19- Vorlons 20- L of N-A Worlds

So the first things I need to answer are these questions for every race.

What weapons they use? What are the most representative ship sizes they use? Tonnage or estimation if possible. How do their shields and armor work? How do they use fighters? What other technologies they have?

Analyzing the answers we should be able to determine which technologies will be available to all players, which will be available to all of the same sci-fi and which will be race-exclusive.

[ June 19, 2003, 05:40: Message edited by: Andres ]