First off, special thanks to Stardock and Ironclad for making such a great (and addictive) game.  Also thanks go out to Uzii, xXAequitasXx, Skyline_HUN, and icedude94.  Without their hard work and research I wouldn't know where to start.

Since this is my first time to mod a game I thought I'd go for something a bit more on the challenging side to implement.  That being said:

I wanted to address some of the weaknesses I feel are in Sins, especially on large & huge maps:

• At some point money and/or materials become virtually limitless.
• Planet takeover & development gets repetitious.
• Fleet maintenance as a percentage of income allows very small empires to maintain inordinately large fleets and consumes far too much money when ships are not present / destroyed.
  
• Research is too easy. Once you have 4-5 planets behind a defended choke point you can research the entire tech tree w/o concern ... also, tech rush to dark armada.
  
• Planetary defenses are ridiculously inadequate.  
• I didn't like the restrictions on what type of structure I could build at any given planet.

General Gameplay
    All military structures have a maintenance cost.
    All military structures reduce culture/allegiance.
    
    Time between pirate raids increased.
    Strength of pirate raids increased (including cap-ships)
    Time to complete quests increased.
    Penalty for incomplete quests reduced.
 
    Changed the # of science labs needed at each level. Research levels now require the following:
        1 - 1
        2 - 3
        3 - 5
        4 - 8
        5 - 12
        6 - 16
        7 - 20
        8 - 25
       
Planets

1.     Reduced distance of hyperspace exit radius to fall within the firing radius of long range defensive turrets.
2.     Reduced hyperspace exit angle to allow for full coverage from jump inhibitors.
3.     Logistical and Tactical slots are now combined.  As a general rule (logistical + tactical) * .75 = # planetary slots
4.     *NEW* Strategic slots
• fewer available slots at each planet.
• strategic mega-structures take up more space
• strategic mega-structures effects (weapons/bonuses) are large enough to justify the costs
5.     Plan to include Uzii's planets & bonuses (or a variation, balanced for new game play)

   
Structures

    Planetary - structures which generally apply only to the planet where they are located.

• Defensive Turrets
• Long Range  - Existing defenses with range/damage/fire rate tweaked.
• Short Range - *NEW* Heavy weapons turret w/ less range than existing defenses but higher damage.
• Point            - *NEW* Anti-fighter/bomber with limited range for protecting specific locations.
• Shields and other race specific buildings
• Small shipyards
• Jump inhibitors
• Slight increase in range to cover jump points.
• Increased effectiveness by 25%
• Hangers
• Increased number of squadrons by 1
• Repair buildings
• Science Labs

           
    Strategic - structures which have an area/empire level effect

• Trade ports
• Refineries
• Heavy Shipyards
• Cultural structures
  

       
    *NEW* Strategic Mega-Structures - Structures that are expensive to build, occupy a large # of strategic slots and shape the "role" that planet in your empire.

• Regional Capitol
• Bonuses to allegience
• Bonuses to tax rate
• Greatly reduces local production (yeah bureaucracy)
• Imperial FunPlex
• Bonuses to culture (best zero-G roller coasters in the system)
• Reduces production
• Increase to tax rate
• Reduces # of tactical slots
• Logistics Center
• Increase to available tactical slots
• Faster local production/build rate
• Reduces culture (fun?!? get back to work slacker)
• DeepCore(tm) Strip-Mining Unit
• Huge bonus to asteroid mining
• Reduces population growth/max
• Reduces culture
• Reduces available tactical slots
• Superweapons
• Increases to existing weapon effects to offset negative atributes
• Reduced tax rate
• Reduced culture (how happy would you be living with a giant orbital gun over your head)
• Reduced allegiance
• Move the dark armada power to its own "super-gate"
  

           
Units

• Cruiser-Carriers
• increase squadrons to 2
• Increase weapons damage for capital ships
• Self-repair 1/20th present values
• Repair cruisers -
• increased repair rate / range
  
• reduced speed
• decreased armor & hitpoints
• remove any anti-ship weaponry
• increased price and build time (would like to make it a cap-ship in the future)
• disable repair during combat (except for Vasari repair-cloud)
• General increases in weapon damage to make engagements resolve a little faster.
• Fighter/bomber speed increased slightly.

   
Goals

Make research more challenging and/or vulnerable to attack by opponents: 
    Increasing the # of labs required forces the player to expand his empire to get the realestate he needs
    to build the labs.  Also your labs potentially have to be more spread out making them a more attactive
    target to your opponents.
   
    NOTE: The number of labs is being balanced for large/huge maps.  I haven't found a way
    to automatically scale the # of labs based on map size so versions of the mod may be needed for
    small and/or medium sized maps.
   
   
Allow for planet specialization:
    With all existing slots merged it will allow the player to specialize planets if they want.
    This does come with a cost however either in reduced defenses, high maintenance cost, and or reduction
    of allegiance/culture which I think may make "inciting revolt" tactics a possibility.
    Can build out pure civilian/industrial/military planets.
   
    The random planet bonuses + planet type + mega-structure bonus should allow for uniquely purposed planets
    and make some planets much, much more valuable than others.
   
   
Allow for effective planetary defense:
    Some defenses can now reach out to the jump limits of a planet.
    Layered defenses calibrated to different ship types.
    Narrow jump points allow for "in-orbit" choke points.
    Can completely defend a planet but at great cost in maintenace fees & local culture/allegiance/production
    You can turtle up behind a particular planet but your are going to need 2 or 3 economically pwoerful
    planets to support it and your fleets.
   
   
Place limits on how far forward you can project force:
    With practically no self-repair capability (there is some, after all, we've all since what a certain
    Scottish ship's engineer can do) repair ships become vital.  Reducing the speed, armor and hit points
    and increasing the supply/build cost on repair ships means they need to be protected.  I'm hoping to
    create a situation similiar to the WW2 pacific theater where "island-hopping" becomes necessary and
    any attempt at a deep strike into your opponent's empire means you don't expect those ships to come back.
    This also means you won't be able to race past a defending fleet/planet without leaving your repair ships behind.
    Limiting the # of really important structures that can be built at a given planet also requires the
    player to expand his empire and decide if a mega-structure is worth the cost/risk.
   
   
Make superweapons mean something:
    The super weapons right now don't feel "super".  I plan on increasing the effects dramatically for
    each of the weapons (for example the Advent "cannon" causes the instant revolt of any planet below
    50% allegience).  Cooldown times will be increased to offset the increase in damage. 

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I'm about half-way completed on modding the TEC and hope to release an initial version in about a week.  Let me know what you think and how I can improve things.  Ideas and constructive criticism are always appreciated.

-Chris