The idea of this mod is to create gameplay for those who wish SoaSE to be more of an empire building game rather than an RTS that takes a couple of hours. Everything takes significantly longer to do and various parts of the game are balanced for more strategic gameplay. Whether I release this or not depends on the kind of feedback I get for the current or planned changes, as I doubt most would enjoy this kind of gameplay. Here are some changes I've made so far:

Current Changes:

Ships

- Top speed to 33% of original, acceleration down to 50%. This allows ranged combat to become more of a factor.
- Production time significantly increased. A general idea is 1-2 minutes for frigates, 2-4 for cruisers and up to 10 minutes for a capital ship.
- Weapon ranges increased by roughly 50% and speeds decreased to 33-50%. When combined with slower movement speed it creates a feeling of navies slugging it out rather than the melee feeling of the original game.
- Jumping between planets or systems cut to 25-33%.
- 90% jump angle.
- Jump preparation time greatly increased.

Buildings/Plants

- Hanger supports 4 squadrons.
- Orbital defense platform (Gauss etc) increased range, damage and hitpoints. Increased slot requirement, but still more effective than the original game (slot requirement simply to stop the construction of 30 around a single planet).
- Buildings take longer to construct.
- Planet development takes longer, particularly higher levels of development. Colonising doesn't happen overnight.
- Greater variance of what type and how many asteroids a planet supports. Some planets are highly valuable while others are worth little.
- Planet type has an increased effect on population, development, culture etc. Many planets specialise in one or two uses, such as population, fleet production, resource colony etc.

Quests

- AI gives more time and hands out missions less regularly.

Pirates

- Attack much less often, but in greater strength.

Unit Tree (unlikely to release due to balance or popularity)

1. Carrier as the centre of the fleet. Big, slow and vulnerable but unmatched firepower and range due to strikecraft.
2. Battleship as a heavy escort for the carrier. Shields the carrier from attack and has the longest attack range apart from the carrier.
3. Cruiser performs a similar role to the battleship but at a cheaper cost, a little more attack-oriented and less range of attack.
4. Frigates which serve similar roles to those in the original game: standard, long range, flak, scout and coloniser. All frigates but the long range frigate have a smaller range of attack than the cruisers. The long range frigate supports a system that rivals the battleship in range but is very vulnerable. The flak frigate (which might be remove in favour of another vessel providing anti-fighter capabilities) has quite a small range. The standard frigate is a general workhorse and is cheap, but lacks the range and firepower of the larger vessels.

For the moment I've removed the capital ships other than the battleships and carriers, and removed all cruisers apart from the heavy cruiser but this is until I decide what kind of variations I want to use. I don't like the idea of a siege frigate and I'd prefer to keep that to cruisers or capital ships. Changing the unit tree though requires a lot of balancing so I wouldn't include something like this yet.

Remove many of the researches (unlikely to release due to popularity)

I've never like researching in strategy games that don't cover more than one techological age. Weapon improvements, cargo sizes, abilties etc are things that should already be pre-researched. The only researches I like in the game are the max ship caps (simulates the increased inefficiency of larger forces). I know people like researching so this is another thing I wouldn't be including.