So I've played a couple of games and I have a few thoughts. As a preface I really enjoy the mod. I appreciate all the work that went in to this, and I've been watching its progress since sins came out. That game seriously should have been a Star Wars game, and Lucas dropped the ball and should have bought it up as soon as people were aware of it. So all my criticism comes from a place of enjoyment. So things to note: I've only played 4 games. One trial run with a friend to make sure it ran and to "learn how to play." An unremarkable comp stop. Then a comp stomp where me and my friend lost horribly. Finally, a fourth one where we tried again with same settings but different strategies that we managed to win. I've only played the Alliance, my buddy has only played the Empire. We're not terribly interested in the Clone Wars civs (or even the Vong and whatever else is cooking) except to blow up their stuff. My biggest complaint is the redundancy. This mod what I consider a similar problem to the HW2 mod (which I also enjoyed to death). There are too many ships and they are either redundant, or it is not clear enough how they are different. For example the Corellian Gunship and the Nebulon B Frigate are both anti-fighter platforms. They have minor stat differences. As far as I can tell the Neb is a slightly superior ship. It is also cheaper than the Corellian Gunship. I can't figure out why I'd ever want to build Corellian Gunships, aside from the fact that they are cool. Likewise with the Assault Frigate Mk2. I have no idea what role its supposed to fill. I know when I build them they tend to die a lot. They seem to serve no purpose. They are also (IMO) not that cool a hull, so I don't build them. The Assault Frigate cruiser seems pointless too. I build maybe 2 or 3 in the early game and then never again. The MC30 seems to be a more effective ship, and only a little more expensive. The Assault Frigate's speed boost is cool in the early game but in large fleet engagements its a liability, because it closes with enemy ships and then gets killed. Aside from the stat blocs, the tool tips are virtually useless. They give me an in-universe description of the ship. This is cool from a fanboy's point of view. But this is bad game design. As a player I need to know why I should build this ship. "A tough ship with hanger bays" or something similar is used in the description of like every Mon Cal class ship I can build. This is not helpful information when EVERY mon cal ship in the game is "a tough ship with hanger bays." I have no idea what specials ships get from the tool tips, or how many squadrons they get. For example, I had to build one of every Imperial ship to discover which one had the colonize ability. I discovered on accident that one of the Mon Cals gets it. This is bad game design. The tech tree has a similar problem. Ships with locked specials do not tell me how to unlock them. In the tech tree, the "unlock ability" techs do not tell me which ships or abilities they unlock. This is also a problem. The in-universe information is COOL but it is not HELPFUL. This was also a problem in the HW mod. The tool tips were cool (I frequently asked wtf is this ship??!? and the tool tip told me) but they did nothing to help me make informed decisions about my units. I don't know if this is just my poor play style or if its a function of the game. Maybe the Requiem mod has tainted me? By the time I get to high level play I can craft fleets that are virtually indestructible. I either lose very few ships or all of them. But in this game ships seem softer. I have to replace them more often. Thats fine for frigates, they are all very cheap and build very quickly. Which I like - it allows for large space battles and just straight up more ships to patrol my worlds. Cruisers though, suffer a similar problem but they are all somewhat expensive and time consuming to build. This is not a problem exactly, it's just something I've noticed. I can't speak for the other Civs, but the Alliance needs a healer type unit. Ships I think do way more damage than they did in unmodded Sins or in Requiem, and while they also have more shields they have paper thin hulls. So my ships die a lot. In one match, my level 7 MC80 battleship capital ship caught with its shield restore ability down and it went from full health to dead in less than a minute and there wasn't a darn thing I could do to save it. The enemy fleet was of equivalent size (if not smaller actually) and it was focusing on my capital ship. I didn't expect it to survive, to be honest. But it would have made me feel better as a player to know there was a unit somewhere I could have used to restore some shields or hull or something. Even if it only bought me a few more seconds to try and maneuver away. A dedicated bomber unit would be very helpful too. I know it's not really cannon for the Alliance to have one. But there are a select few Rebel ships that can bomb planets and they all suck at it. Sometimes cannon has to make exceptions for playability. Taking a world, especially late game with all the planet strengthening techs and upgrades etc, grinds gameplay to a halt. My friend who plays Empire has had a similar experience, although more of his cruisers can bombard a planet. I DO like that Starbases are gone, but fixed emplacements are stronger, and hanger bays cost like 3x as much. A Starbase in a system essentially ment you couldn't take it without serious losses. It slowed gameplay in an already slow game. I also can't spam hangers anymore because they are so expensive. but I don't feel bad building a bunch of turrets. But they could do with having a few more HPs. Just my own opinion there. I LIKE that they get more special abilities (even if they are broken ATM. At least the broken button is there telling me it might have it.. or it might get it in a patch later). They FEEL more useful. I also really like the Golan as an intermediary. More HP, more damage output, more expensive. But not the giant road block that a star base represented. Also not the giant money sink. I do miss the ability to expand my trade lanes or put a token defense in a nebula or something to guard against random colony ships jacking my collectors, or act as forward recon. I hope a more durable version of the Golan appears that allows me to do that in uncolonizable systems. But it doesn't need to be an unstoppable battle station. Just an outpost. I like the super capitals. The executer is really cool. Its a win button, essentially. If you build one, you're probably going to win. It breaks fleets and lines by itself. Supported, it is ungodly. But if you managed to build one, you probably were going to win without it. So its not that big a deal. I like that with two ion cannon emplacements you can lock it down almost completely. That at least gives you a prayer of escaping or destroying it. Building a capital ship now feels like a big deal. My fleets feel better for having one or two in them. I just wished they had more hull points. If the shields drop, its essentially dead. Which is kinda lame. I guess it makes sense for the smaller ships, given the SW flavor and all. Shields down = dead. But I feel like large capital ships should be more durable. They're still ballin' though. I love the "Its a Trap!" ability of the Independence. Which reminds me. Dead levels. The way capital ships level up means there are some dead levels. The two early game capitals have like 2, and 4 dead levels each. They keep getting stronger but they have nothing to put points in. I feel like this needs to be dealt with some how. In the late game it makes it hard to tell which ships have leveled and which ones just have floating random ability points. Some of Requiem's mod enhancements might be good here too. Colonizeable gas giants, more world types, and more random planet traits would be really neat and help the Star Wars atmosphere. But I can live without them. The midi Star Wars music is terrible and has to go. I don't know who likes it or who thought it was a good idea... Most of these comments are negative. So I'm sorry. But I really do enjoy the mod and it will probably replace Requiem as my mod of choice. I know it's still a WIP. But I wanted to share my thoughts and experiences. I know a lot of times people will just polish your knob because they don't want to be offensive. But that doesn't help an artist improve and thats all I want to do. Edit: In response to this quote in this thread: http://warlords.swrebellion.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=587&t=27342 My comments on tool tips and such, I agree that rock paper scissors gameplay is lame and I'm glad its not there. I like it when the "anti fighter" ships can engage frigates and not horribly fail. Or when capital ships can actually damage fighters. But it would be helpful if the game explained to me, even if its only just a line, why I would build a corellian gunship over a Neb B. Or why I want assault frigates at all? "This is an anti fighter frigate" and "this is an anti fighter frigate that sacrifices some anti fighter weaponry for more robust ship-to-ship weapons." Tells me that if there are lots of fighters, X is better. But if the enemy has a mixed fleet with some fighters, Y is better. Right now I don't have a clue. Edit: After reading through the rest of the forum I sound like an ass. So I'm sorry.