Who would be interested in helping out with a starter mod lead by me, that Ruppetus or someone else can continue later? PM me if you are interested and what of the following you would be willing and able to help with. If enough people are interested, then I will set up a WizeHive workspace with the to-do list, and share a GoogleDoc spreadsheet with the design plan.

Necessary ToDo: (these will be needed for ANY EVE mod for Sins, and can be individually replaced and/or adapted on a case-by-case basis, if done well).
- Need a race.entity file for each of the 4 races
- Need a ship.entity file for each ship and drone squadron
- Need a structure.entity file for each structure
- Need ability.entity and buff.entity files for each unit ability
- Need to export the textures for each ship, altered to fit the Sins texture rotation and channel layout, and create an appropriate team-color channel (i.e. paint over some appropriate part of the team-color data channel, guided by the diffuse texture, with "team-color" [red])
- Need to export the EVE meshes for ships and turrets, paste turrets onto the appropriate locations, set the necessary null points for weapons, engines, abilities, etc., and apply the hull and turret texture sets [textures come in sets of 3].
- Need unit- and race-appropriate HUD GUI buttons and icons textures.
- Need HUD.brushes files coded for the new GUI components.
- Need a file containing all of the string additions to the English.str Sins file.
- Need stuff.manifest files complied once everything else is complete. 

Optional ToDo: (these are not necessary for an EVE mod, but might be nice and, most importantly, can be worked on more-than-less independently of the gameplay and graphics modifications).
- Want Sound.ogg files, both covering music, events, and unit interaction.
- Want new weapon and ability particle effects for the new EVE content as effect.particle files.

Tools: (you will need one or more of these to assist on the Add_EVE mod project)
- TriExporter -- http://dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/Svenstaro/TriExporter0.4.1.0beta2.zip
- TriExporter Update -- http://dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/Xabora/TriExporter_2009.zip
- GIMP -- http://www.gimp.org/
- GIMP DDS Plugin -- http://nifelheim.dyndns.org/~cocidius/dds/
- Softimage XSI v6.01 -- http://www.moddb.com/downloads/xsi-mod-tool-601
- MS.NET Framework -- http://www.microsoft.com/NET/
- ForgeTools 3 -- https://www.sinsofasolarempire.com/downloads.aspx
- WizeHive Account -- http://www.wizehive.com/
- Google Account -- https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount
* You may also find http://etherpad.com/ useful, until it is pulled down.

Well, cloaking only works where you can make something that you can't shoot at. There is the bool modifier "IsIllusionShip" that applies a phased-out effect to the mesh.

Also, there are 2 ways to make my resource capping ships competitive with planets- 1. Simply make planetary resource income pathetically low/make mining barge income very high. Quite simply I was planning that the planets would be about the same as now (but never top 7.5/sec), with barges/exhumers making 20-50/sec. Which really covers my 2nd idea of just making it high enough that it would be noticeable.

It also covers Ruppetus' idea for supply trains. I don't think it would be heavy on the CPU, as Sins itself doesn't use CPU as much as RAM. And since the only thing it is going to do is just sit there and autocast the ability onto roids, it really is rather little compared to the "stress" of responding to all the commands and microing a player will be doing.

Almost forgot this part- the other part of making barges/exhumers a competitive income source with planets is that you basically do the reserve of vanilla Sins- drop credit (or ISK ) prices and hike up resource costs. "Metal" (which will be "Common Ore") is the common ores of Veldspar, Scordite, Plagioclase; in other words the minerals of Tritanium, Pyerite, and Mexallon. "Crystal" ("Rare Ore") will be the more rare ores that one must typically go into 0.0 space to obtain.

I must emphasize, we will not get this rolling unless we are on a more fluid form of communication.

Aside from models, I've already been working on everything under both your necessary and optional ToDo lists, LCCX. If you wish to be a part of my work on that (which is currently on the stage of Amarr only), then you may contact me me through information in the previous page. Well here it is again for this page.

Contact Information:

Yahoo: Austinhs2002

AIM: Austinhs2002

MSN: Austinhs2002@yahoo.com

Email me at Austinhs2002@yahoo.com if you want other messenger information. Please visit me on irc.stardock.com IRC server on channels #sins and #stardock, as I am there almost daily and frequently just for quick questions regarding modding.

Stardock IRC alias: Tricit (usually)

I consolidate all my contact on pidgin, so you should be able to contact me from any of them.

I am just doing this in alphabetical order. As I've been the only one doing this for the duration between the last attempt at this and up until now, It's progressed slowly. If you want to be a part of a cohesive force to get this moving faster, we must communicate more fluidly.

http://i46.tinypic.com/24awjl5.jpg

http://i48.tinypic.com/24xzzt5.jpg

http://i50.tinypic.com/4fvmfd.jpg

http://i49.tinypic.com/30xakw8.jpg

You will notice I just overwrite existing music files with new ones.

Tonight, I am going to convert the entire mod over to Diplomacy.

I could never get into EVE, although I always thought the ships looked awesome. In fact, the only reason I even got the 2 week trial was because everything looks so great. I'd see the trailers and think "Wow! EVE looks amazing! If only it were an RTS." When this mod is finished, it is basically going to be everything I wish EVE were.

What is the current status of this mod effort? 

Thanks for the update Purdyaw.  Will you be setting up another forum to communicate your progress?

@Major Stress, Purdyaw, Eomega, LCCX, Ruppetus, Evil Jedi and many more........ have you thought of making any youtube video tutorials for modding sins.  In particular.....modeling and file manipulation.  There are many that would help.....if given a little intial support.  I realize that several of you ( Major Stress ) have written long posts about modding Sins however there is no substitute for 'showing' or demonstrating what you've written.  If any of you have done this then I appologize for my ignorance.

Hey everybody-

I wanted to give a Sins update- for v1.19&v1.05 Entrenchment, the hardcode limits have been upped- specifically, mesh&texture limits.

Mesh limit- WAS 400. NOW its 800.

Texture limit- WAS 1000. NOW its 2000

EDIT: @LCCX- Oh, you can count on me for that. I am THE BUFF WIZARD!!!

This mod is doable, what ever you can do in eve and can do in sins you cna find a work around that will have a similer desired effect.

Starbase style upgrade should be doable on all ship since all enteties are veiw exactly the same by the game be they be a structure, a frigeat, a cap ship or a SB. They just have different properties given to then in their text files that dictate what they can and cannot do.

Hardestthings to simmulate will be jump gates and the Eve cap ships abilaty to jump around but not being able to use jumpgates.

You can actuly have all T1 and T2 ships int he game that are most valuable. A few patche ago IC realeased the abilaty to make models change on ships when they gained a level or where upgraded. Starbases are a clear case as you can see the weapons on the TEC SB appear only when they are built. Using that system you cna make T2 ships be upgrade from T1 ships in space.

came from eve today cuz of downtime. BIg fleet battle gona happen in a few hours .

This is great work, truly nice to have somthing to bring some more players into sins. i myself had a little test eve mod but found a few problems. But nevertheless! this is awsome cuz when i have to wait to pay for my subscription i can play this in the mean time .

Also for the tech 2 and 3 stuff i think that the best thing to do is have abilitys or reacherhe for the ships and possibly the same with the rigs which would be so much stuff to put on a ship in sins. Also I think that we shouldnt try to make sins more eve like because eve is more like a first person and sins is one person controlling thousand of ships. The max ships on player in eve can control is 3 per account so... ya far off of 1000. 

getting all the ships in game is even more of a pain perhasp putting one of the highest tiers for each categorie of ships exept the battleship one. So 3 battle ships 1 dread one titan  and some of the tech 2 battleships.

What about the tech 3 ships !! 

Then OMG the cynosuaral field how the hell is that going to work !!! i mean instant jumpping from across a star and possibly galaxy . Perhasp somekind of abillity with 100 to the power of 100 light speed

@ Archangel1980: Yes, I exactly intend to have 1 separate mod for each race adding it, and only it, to Sins. Since you can enable multiple mods at once, if you want to play/interact with multiple EVE races, you just enable the mod(s) of the races you want to play with for that game. Especially given the new increased hardcoded limits, I see no reason to do otherwise. Is there some reason you think there should be a unified mod (with all 4 races) available? Once the first 4 are done, making a compiled mod should be trivial, and I would be happy to figure out how to do that.

@ EadTase: Unfortunately, I have no idea how to go about extracting the faction and Tech2 colouring alterations out of the .red and .blue files, so the only models and textures will be Tech1 stuff, but they do have turrets!

I would like it if someone could look into the feasibility of the following:

1) Allowing certain ships to make interstellar jumps while simultaneously preventing other ships from being able to make interstellar jumps.
2) Implementing wormhole mechanics as an ability. e.g. instantly teleport ship unit group X to ability-using ship or structure unit Y, or something else like that.
2b) Allowing players to build wormholes (using a pair of jumpgate graphics).
3) Implementing an AOE ability that makes interstellar and/or inter-gravity well travel like 10,000x faster.

Amarr Sins Ship Screenshots:
http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i96/lostcommander/Screenshots/SinsArbitrator.jpg
http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i96/lostcommander/Screenshots/FirstSinsPunisher.jpg

Sins of New Eden - Mod Plan (in progress, subject to change, notices, etc,)
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AuAKzLdiE8rjdGxMSEJhU2xBVko1VDFKU2NJM2piSWc&hl=en 

Don't forget you need a GalaxyScenarioDef file made up with incredible variety for both starting players off with assets and populating maps with appropriate enemies, militias, "bases" or population centers.  How cool to fly a massive fleet into a "JITA" template loaded with tons of haulers and assorted racial ships AND CONCORD! and rip the hell out of 100 ships.

Creating a "Mod" for each race would rock, then a unified one with massive GSDef support for mad mapping.  If you played 7DS and some of the new maps made with my GSDef or made maps using my file, you see the potential for kick ass maps and encounters.

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/2561/gsdefpred.jpg  for image of the 7ds GSdef file -gives lots of options for mapping.

@ SemazRalan: Yeah, there are a ton of setting things that would probably be sweet, but are also probably beyond the scope of my interest in sinking time into this. I would be happy to hand off the project to someone else for further improvement and refinement once I have what I want out of it.

@ EadTaes: Since I have played VERY little of anything not-Amarr, that kind of information may well come in handy in a bit. For now I am sticking with looking at the few top rated loadouts on BattleClinic for unfamiliar ships. I will let you know if that is not working out as well as I hope it will.

Jesus Guys, I go offline for 3 days and the thread goes mainstream? This is great!

@Purdy: Great work with the Amarr already, I know enough Gallente/Matari stuff to balance those out.

@Archangel: Couple of days ago it was just concept and a bit of interest, now we have stuff  

In regards to issues exporting barges from Triexporter: the guy who originally made it didn't have the rights to a certain .dll required to export some of the older models. I don't really understand it, but I know no-one's ever managed to export some of them. Yo might, however, be able to use the T2 Variant models instead.

The Internet and browser here is really rubbish, which means I can't really read over the whole thread. I'll be checking up on things every few days, and hopefully will be able to get access to faster internets by tuesday, when I'm hitting a city. In the mean time, I'll try and get in touch with people who already have code and things together.

Rather than PMing me, can people get in touch with me via email when possible? It makes things far easier for me while I'm on the move. You can get to me at RupertCW@gmail.com