Zombies,
I've been playing with this mod on and off as it's progressed. I'm not actually set-up with the SVN, but I pulled down one of the recent versions just by going to the dropbox URL that was floating around. And I've played the older Entrenchment (or was it diplomacy) version.
First, let me say that I love the mod. I think it's coming along great. It's hard to say much about the Cylon gameplay just because they're so unfinished, but I think the Colonials are a lot of fun. The capital abilities are fun, the tech trees are great and they make sense.
There are, however, a couple things that would, in my opinion, improve the gameplay a little. The first is that I would consider reducing the number of strikecraft per squadron and upping the damage. I played a game the other day and at one point my fleet had about 180 squadrons of strike craft spread between by 15 capitals, my titan, and all my cruisers. Any time I got into a fight with the Cylons, it was almost impossible to really do anything other than sit and watch.
There are so many ships capable of fielding strikecraft that the numbers get out of control pretty quickly. Reducing the number of actual polygons out there by downsizing squadrons and increasing damage might help.
My second complaint, and this isn't necessarily limited to your mod but includes Sins in general, is that there's a critical mass where trying to micromanage abilities on capital ships becomes futile. Early on, you can micro your capitals' abilities to great effect. But as the game progresses and fleet sizes begin to swell, it becomes less and less practical.
I've had numerous battles where the Cylons attack me with a couple capitals, a titan, and dozens and dozens of heavy basestars and carrier basestars. It's incredibly hard to manage and micro in any meaningful way when there are hundreds of ships on the field. This also contributes to the overall lag in the endgame.
I don't know how feasible this is, but I feel as though the gameplay might be better served with an across the board increase of damage, hitpoints, cost, and fleet supply cost to a lot of ships. Reduce the number of ships on the field but make each one a little more potent to compensate. Your fleet could still be pumping out the same amount of damage, as would the enemy's, but you'd have fewer ships to actually manage. It would make micromanagement of of ship abilities a little easier and it would improve performance to not have a Cylon force of 2 capitals, a titan, 20 heavy basestars, 20 carrier basestars, and a ton of smaller ships fighting 15 capitals, a titan, 15 or so Asgard battlestars, and a handful of support ships. Plus literally hundreds of SC squadrons between both forces.
I don't really know what I'm talking about here, just general feelings I've had playing the mod. There's a point in the endgame where I find myself throwing my hands in the air and just watching battles because it's very hard to actually exert any meaningful control when there's just a gigantic blob of ships. And maybe it's because I want big capital battlestars and basestars in general to have a more epic feel to it. It makes sense from a Sins perspective because Sins is all about having incredibly huge fleets, but seeing 30 Heavy Basestars on the field doesn't make a lot of sense from the perspective of the BSG universe.
It just makes a little more sense in my head for both the capitals and larger cruisers on both sides to be a little larger, meaner, costlier, and less common-seeming.
I don't know if this is helpful. Feel free to disregard me if you like! But keep up the good work. I'm excited for the finished product.
