Gotta say, I really like the design on the Xaan, and the extra focus on kinetic weapons is a nice change of pace. Great stuff so far.
Thanks! I will say that in an effort to intensify the ākineticā weapon feel, I think Iām going to play with some of the weapon ranges and damage. Iām finding that the Xaan ships are winding up much more effective at long range, and thatās not exactly what I was going for with their powerplant/detonator modules. But that adjustment wonāt be happening for awhile, so thereās plenty of time for beta tester feedback.
(Hint, hint.)
New Informational Post:
As the numbers above show, the Savants are nearing full implementation. The dreadnought hull needs completion, and then I can begin preliminary balance testing (Iām not planning to pass out severely OP toys for everyone to play with, sad to say). During that phase I will post some screenshots that I think will make folks happy, judging from the graphics testing Iāve already done.
And donāt forget that the next beta version will follow shortly thereafter, so this would be a good time for anyone who has doodled around with the Xaan to make their voice heard and tell me about any issues that have cropped up (OP? UP? Useless modules?)
I got a feeling Iāll like the Savants, cute little jar brains that they are 
UPDATE: The Savants are now live and in-game. Evidence:
And the whole happy Savant family:
A few balancing issues left to address, but hopefully Iāll have an updated release ready in the next day or two, tops.
I will say that at the moment, the Savants are definitely playing a bit differently than some other races - many of their unique weapons donāt do a lot of regular damage, so pulling down shields and armor is something of an exercise in creativity. But once the radiation weapons punch through any hull damage (and I do mean pretty much any hull damage), itās ādead ship flyingā.
UPDATE: Beta v0.2, including the tweaked Xaan Solidarity and the first release of the Savant Council, is available. Download link is in the first post.
As always, if problems are encountered, please let me know so that fixes can be applied. For details on the extent of revisions applied to the Xaan, refer to the included readme file. And as always, have fun!
This is good stuff, itās always interesting see peoples new ideas for ship designs.
and i love the race descriptions and icons too, those are really good 
Well thank you very much sir! Since youāve seen fit to give us such a high-quality game, I do feel it appropriate to put my best efforts into adding material to it. 
Just a quickie post here - I have not forgotten about the Expanse, but other pressures etc. have pulled me away from modding for a little bit. Rest assured I am still working on this and other GSB modding projects. Hopefully I will have the next iteration of the Expanse ready to go sometime in the next couple of weeks (the ships take a lot of time that I havenāt had of late).
Ace, no need to rush it; real-life pressures simply are what they are. For my own part, Iāve been crushed nearly flat by them ever since late last autumn, and their expected effect upon my own leisure pursuits has been impossible to resist. I formerly got a great deal done for our modding communityās various members, but due to unpleasant things IRL Iām now perforce out of that role for the time being. 
Anyhow, I know what pressures youāre talking about, and I sympathize. Your quality assortment of connected mod races can afford to wait for youā¦itās more important to get things done right than to get them done quick.
On a lighter note, I have been literally LOLing with great gusto at the myriad number of inside references youāve loaded this group of mods with. Oh man, you sure know how to efficiently mine a very rich vein of inspirational ore, thatās for sure. Iāve found enough shout-outs therein that I may have to take my liver out of service for nano-based detox, so Iāve decided to safely just accrue those bonus points instead. Well done, mate ā may your Core Waste Dumps and Deep Core Mines never fail you!
Some revisions have now begun on the Expanse, notably a few changes in the Xaan. Turns out that when your destruct shockwave size is limited by your hull size, the ādoom generatorā (brand trademarked by Uni-T) is not a good fit for a race whose ships are half the size of everyone else. So Iāve shuffled some technologies around to keep the good concepts live but in more appropriate places. Hopefully a new iteration of the Expanse will be out in the next couple of weeks (yes, I know Ace, weāve all heard that one before).
Weāll be here ā thanks for the FYI. 
Quickie update: As the progress logs show, the Corannan Union is ready to go for my initial testing. How long until itās released depends on a couple of things, not least how many typos I put in the various files.
Hopefully there will be at least some quick pics later this evening or tomorrow.
Sweet! Thank you for the update, Ace. Your āminor powerā races in the Antares Expanse are shaping up into something thatās seriously cool.
definitely ditto that =D
Thirded.
Looking very nice and with 5 races to play around with, definitely a mod I am interested in getting my hands on.
With some graphical issues cropping up and being away from my GSB machine the last few days, I havenāt quite gotten the next version prepped. But Iām cautiously positive about getting it out by the weekend.
Glad to hear that folks are looking forward to it. Iāll try not to disappoint. 
A quick teaser for the new iteration of the Expanse: Witness the fleet of the Corannan Union attacking the Alliance in the Tutorial sector:
Cruisers:
Frigates:
No fighter images just yet on account of the aforementioned graphical issues, but rest assured that the hulls themselves are in-game and functional - just not looking right yet.
Cool =D
All right, after much hemming and hawing and last-minute tweaking, the next version of the Antares Expanse is good to go.
Beta version 0.3 adds the Corannan Union, a race that likes missiles and torpedoes perhaps a bit more than is really healthy. Their ships are super-loaded with hardpoints; with only one exception, every ship has at least half of its slots for guns, guns and more guns. Iāll let the general public determine what the best uses for Corannan tech are (Iāve found a few in my limited playtesting, but Iām sure yāall will come up with some nasty surprises).
I have also included a new toy for the Xaan Solidarity. With all the talk elsewhere in the forums lately about fighter rockets slaughtering frigates and going ping against cruiser shields, I got to thinking, What if there was something similar that would be useful against cruisers? Well obviously Iām not about to make nastily overpowered fighters with rockets that pierce Cruiser Reflective Shields. That would be silly.
Now a shield disruptor rocket on a squadron of fighters, thoughā¦
The link in the first post has been updated to the new download. I hope folks enjoy, and as always, I look forward to any sort of feedback either here in this thread, or PM me if itās something that might be better spoken behind closed doors.