Well if you're an extremely talented modeler & texturer who can make dozens of modular improvement put into hundreds of different meshes
Have nothing to do with talent... just need to make a model like usual but make various save in various state...
The real problem is the amount of mesh... who by the way is limited to 800 for the full game...
Option don't work in a cumulative way like in plenty of other game... by example, let say that you have a hull called A and 3 option called B,C and D... with a cumulative way, you only need to have 4 mesh : A,B,C and D ... with sins, each mesh need to exist for each option, it mean that you need 8 mesh : A, AB, AC, AD, ABC, ACD, ABD, ABCD ... 4 option and you need 16 mesh ( A, AB, AC, AD, AE, ABC, ABD, ABE, ACD, ACE, ADE, ABCD, ABCE, ACDE, ABDE, ABCDE ) , 5 option and you need 32 mesh, 6 option and you need 64 mesh... well, you can see the binary pattern : 2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024... since sins trinity is already around 400 mesh, at max, you can add a model with 8 visual upgrade !!! If you have 5 basic hull who can share a max of 6 upgrade option, you need already 5x64=320 mesh !!!
Well, there is somehow a work around... using particle effect... the trick is that the version with only a basic hull need to have all weapons hardpoint like the full model... that you need to calculate yourself the bounding area and radius for the basic hull since part added via particle will not modify the value and can create problem for collision detection if the option add something outside the original bounding ( like wings, solar panel, etc )...
So, it is possible but not worthy the work... Stardock/Ironclad way will make you hit the mesh hardcoded limit very fast and the workaround is not a simple task, specially if you don't know the .mesh structure, particle and fx...
On the other hand, the work around can be used for make a model who use more that 50k triangle ( limit of the convertxsi.exe , not the game engine )... by example, i am working on the Babylon 5 station, where the main body is around 50k tri... the rotating section is around 50k too and is called via a hardpoint/particle/GS_Ship.fx ... weapons is a other 50k ( before and after station weapons upgrade )... small detail of the main fixed section is using a other mesh too...
I try to use the same work around for make a animated model ( in early stage now, modeling the joint are a pain in the a$$ and have sync problem between the moving part as i am not a expert in particle effect )...
In short, forget the idea if your are using the normal sins way due to the mesh hardcoded limit... a work around is possible but talent have nothing to do with it, it is more related to a good knowledge of how the game work along with knowledge of particle, fx and .mesh format...
