I think that sounds good...

Bounty hunters will probably be more able to repair their fleet in the field... I'm also thinking of making the bounty hunters use the vasari mobile fleet type research...  and I agree their ships should not match up to house military ships one on one. But they should have lots of special abilities to even the playing field.

I also like the idea of Corsairs being the 'knife fight' type... Suits them to get up close an personal. I'll also probably give their freighters and up abilities to steal credits or resources or something. Probably give alot of their ships cruise disruptors too for those ambushes... I think their abilities should revolve around de-buffing enemies and stealing resources.

About repairs... I'm thinking of making the self repair very very slow (if at all) and making repair modules and support ships all the more important. Also thinking of making repairs cost metal and credits rather than anti-matter so that repairing a battleship will actually cost you.

Passive ability with a ChanceToHitAsDamageTarget modifier; can't be made to be physical only.

Actually, ChanceToHitAsDamageTarget (AKA chance to dodge) really doesn't simulate "Dodging" as you'd expect. Rather it seems to be just a capped damage increase/reduction. A 10% chance to dodge != you'll avoid all damage 10% of the time, but roughly a 10% reduction to all damage.

Because of that, you may want to use the Physical Damage Taken (don't remember the exact name right now) modifier, as this in affect does the same thing for only physical damage.

Here's another wall of text for ya.

I was wondering, as the capital ships are starbases, what if the house factions can deploy Luxury Liners as one of their starcaps? (I think I'll just call them that from now on ) Certainly not combat ships, but instead could be used to perform the other starbase tasks the combat starcaps like the battleships can't. Liners with the Vasari population ability, trading, culture spreading, all that stuff. Although, now that I think about it, you'd need to be able to limit them or you could make a super economy out of them... As they're generating money, you can't really have their upkeep cost be the limiting factor.

Maybe a population-based timer, or something? Have a planet module or something that has a similar ability to your recruitment idea take population from a planet, turn it into antimatter to use another ability of itself, which spawns a Liner with a long cooldown?

Hahaha, maybe you could give nebulas and other unusual gravity wells an ability that targets Liners, and makes them generate more income? Ooh, the pretty sights of the Crow Nebula!

I suppose the other factions could make little asteroid bases or something that function as trade depots in a similar fashion to the Liners. Perhaps they build an asteroid miner ship which turns into an asteroid base when deployed?

It seems with population being a much indemand currency, high pop planets like Terran worlds will be of even greater value than before. Perhaps they should not have metal asteroids, (Except starting planets, of course.) and things like asteroids and dwarf planets should have many more than usual, to make up for their low population capacity?

You said you were planning on having the Sins artifacts be powerful items that will unlock new ships or abilities, etc., but are you planning on making custom planet bonuses at all? Cardamine trading outpost, Hogosha blackmarket, Ageira R&D facility, all sorts of bonuses would be neat. Explore your planet, and discover an IMG mining operation!

Easily done for a single planet.

Can only be done via ability, i.e. not through a planet bonus and this is non-random.

Only humans can use SttC.

News Update:

I've recieved permission from one of the Discovery Modellers to use the assets he created, (yay for Kusari liner and battlecruiser! and a couple of ships I can throw in for Rheinland)

Also, I recently requested use of the assets from Shattered Worlds http://www.moddb.com/mods/shattered-worlds
and they have responded giving me permission to use the models for Sins of the Sirius Sector.

>=D

About half-way prepping the Liberty Cruiser for importation. Going to be primary a missile ship with the main gun, a 'Ionic Burst Cannon' acting as an weapon ability.

The Ionic Burst Cannon fires a highly energised blast of ion pulse energy at capital ships and stations,  heavily damaging their shields, disabling and imparing various systems. (disable cruise engines, slow speed and turning rate, weapon cooldown and disable regeneration) As a side effect of the massive disruption of computer systems and functions it will cause a small amount of secondary damage over time (due to electrical discharges, fluctuations in life-support/airlock magnets/fire systems etc.) untill the energy dissipitates.

The role of the cruiser will be to hit other capitals with the burst cannon, weakening them and them providing fire support with it's multiple missile launchers.

I may make another variant to the Liberty cruiser later but for now this is the plan =D

(Will have to add credits to SolCommand as I'm using some of his weapon models for missile and torpedo launchers on capitals as freelancer lacks any cool capital type missile weapons)

Well, thinking about it more, I have an improved solution.... I could make 2 levels of the Burst Cannon ability... First one being the disruption version, the second upgrade costing a little more, but altering the ability to inflict heavier direct damage and reduce the disruption effect time...

I wanted it to act as a powerful anti-cap ship, but make it a little different than just raw damage.

Of course nothing is realy set in stone yet, I'm just working through ideas. I love freelancer, but there are some aspects I will probably take some creative liscence with. One thing in particular is to me if a weapon is a 'laser' I always prefer it to be a beam weapon.

If it is an ability, the buff needs to have two seperate damage instant actions, one for hull and one for shields, but you can have one be 0 for for some levels but not others.

Progess has slowed a little on the mod due to my Primary Computer being out of comission at the moment (Due to moving and other issues)

However I have the nessecary files on my laptop to work on Rheinland and Kusari ships. I'm currently working on the Rheinland battleship (wich I'm calling a Bismark Class)
Due to freelancer being very turret focused, and Sins lacking any true turret capability the Rheinland Battleship will be primarily a broadside vessel with the following weapons loadout:

Powerful mid-range port and starboard Plasma Cannons. (Inflict heavy damage against capital and station sized targets. Cannot target fighter craft)

Long range Tacyon Pulse-Beam Turrets with forward and side arcs. (Low damage, fast refire. Can hit fighters due to instant hit)

Forward Micro-Nuclear Torpedo bays wich can fire on stations and other capitals, and can also be used to bombard planets from orbit (fairly powerful missile attack at larger craft and stations only, long refire delay. also has bombing points)

very short range, very powerful 'Plasma Lance' with one each forward, port and starboard (To help boost firepower at very close range.)

This battleship will have weaker sheilds than other factions battleships, but will have high Hull points and higher armor than the others. While it's top speed will be roughly the same as a Liberty Dreadnaught class, it's higher mass will mean it takes longer to reach top speed.

The Bismark class is built for staying power and heavy bombardment. In a one on one slug match against other battleships it will win most of the time due to sheer firepower, but because of it's poor mobility and lack of much anti-fighter weapons, you will want to fly support with it as most other ships will outrun its primary guns. (Kusari in particular will run rings around it)

will try to get a demo vid and some pics up soonish

Yeah, since Tachyons are 'hypothetical particles that move faster than the speed of light' I figured they would make sense as a beam weapon. for the moment I'm using the vasari flashbeam effect for the weapon.

I like those ideas on Artifacts, pretty much aong the lines of what I was thinking.

Here is a brief timeline concept for the mod

the mod is to be placed about 10 years after the end of Freelancer.

Not all of the Nomads were killed by Edisons work, in fact those events led to another group being awakened and concequently getting another shot at taking out the colonies. However this group is larger and more experianced than the previous ones awoken by Rheinland.

About 5 years ago: all the trade lane and jumpgate technology 'inexplicably' failed, however thanks to some breakthroughs by Ageria Technologies, Cruise drive speed has been increased to fill the gap left by the failure of the tradelanes. They also developed a system to alow a cruise drive to be 'super charged' in close proximity to a star, allowing for long distance jumps between systems. While not as fast as jumpgates it helped to keep the colonies in contact.

4 years ago: the relative peace shared between the colonies since the nomad infestation started to breakdown. The Kusari Empire raised the export taxes to Bretonian space, raising the cost of vital H-fuel. Bretonia responded in kind cutting back on the raw resources they were exporting to assist in Kusari rebuilding. Once Liberty de-regulated Ageira Techs new cruise drive upgrades and shared the designs throughout the colonies Rheinland was no longer held back, and started flexing their muscle again. Focusing on moving their newly rebuilt fleet to gain a foothold in contested space.

3 Years ago: the first Corsair capital ships were seen. A large Bretonian military convoy carring supplies and materials were ambushed by a Corsair fleet led by a cruiser of unknown design. The cruiser destroyed the escort gunboats with ease and raided the transport ships. Corsair raids become more frequent and daring requiring the houses to devote more resources into their military and police.

Current day: relations between factions has deteriorated even more. With increased military focus due to piracy and border disputes and the political situation quickly turning sour, all-out war could break out at any moment.

About culture... I am thinking I might make it an aspect of the Nomad incursion. basicaly, other factions wil get buildings or ships that can push culture back, and boost loyalty. Where as the Nomads will get stuff that spreads their culture (to simulate their infiltration/infection)

Nothing set in stone regarding that, but I thought it could help make things a bit more interesting as culture as it is normaly works doesnt realy fit with freelancer and this concept along with the 'nomad pacts' could help represent their subversion tactics.

:EDIT:

Also, I'm pretty sure you can have artifacts as a prerequisite for tech research...

I'll have to play around with the artifact techs to see what is possible... but from my quick look it seems like they operate similar to regular research...

I am thinking of making Nomads ships very strong (lacking shields but having high hull regen) but limiting them early game through their fleet supply. Then give them a late game tech that massively boosts their supply

A question for you.

As you are importing these models into Sins (I assume with some turret editing.), does this mean you have access to all of the game's textures? For instance, the textures used by the weapon effects? It'd be much easier to make the weapons with access to those...

Mmm, just me thinking about how to do stuff.