Yep--tentatively, It looks like it might.  I'll know in a few minutes here when I get time to run it through.

It happens to be the quirk I need for my Yggdrasil setup in Rebellion.

Darn...it works all the way up to the cast and then minidumps.

Classic.

That's how questions of about hardcodes are usually answered. Fleet beakons being flexible enough to handle anything was one of the few cases where I've been surprised, thank goodness.

Yep--one of the many obstacles to stop people trying to figure out modding.  ;)

If you check the Kol Battle Damage thread I have screens of the fixed model with particle effects up y along with a link to the mesh.

How do you give a planet module the "Experimental weapon is being constructed..." alert?

My guess is that you give it the "CANNON" planetModuleRoleType or the "ModuleCannon" statCountType.

What purpose does a ship's mass serve, outside of abilities like Telekinetic Push?

It factors into the normal movement mechanics too, as well as deciding what moves when two ships try to occupy the same space.

That leads to a second question, does it influence a ship's maneuverability (aka. anything other than linear speed), speed, or both?

From my experience, mass influences acceleration more than anything. Might also affect turn rates. I don't believe it does much with max speed.

Just maneuvering.  Capital ships have more acceleration than fighters, but about a fourth of the max speed.

Is there anyway to access and mod around the damage effects portion of the game--the thing that makes the fire and smoke and all come out?

It's somewhat moddable in the Gameplay.constants. 

Look for:

NumCriticalHitEffectNames 3
EffectName "Explosion_CriticalHit0"
EffectName "Explosion_CriticalHit1"
EffectName "Explosion_CriticalHit2"
NumCriticalHitEffectSoundIDs 3
SoundID "EXPLOSION_CRITICALHIT0"
SoundID "EXPLOSION_CRITICALHIT1"
SoundID "EXPLOSION_CRITICALHIT2"
NumPersistentHullDamageEffects 5
Definition
effectName "DamageEffect_Fire1"
maxNumEffects 1
minHullDamagePercentage .5
Definition
effectName "DamageEffect_Fire2"
maxNumEffects 3
minHullDamagePercentage .7
Definition
effectName "DamageEffect_Electrical1"
maxNumEffects 3
minHullDamagePercentage .4
Definition
effectName "DamageEffect_Smoke1"
maxNumEffects 3
minHullDamagePercentage .9
Definition
effectName "DamageEffect_Steam1"
maxNumEffects 3
minHullDamagePercentage .9

I'll do that--is it a generic sort of thing for all ships or can it be varried for different ones?

I'd give you karma for your helpful and prompt response but my fluffy count is to close to your own now.

Generic, assuming we don't want to consider fancy ability work.

I was just pondering creating a "destructible ship".

A destructible ship means multiple meshes to create a composite object around the base model, your destroyed ship.

You'd then cause damage by blowing off your chunks.  It wouldn't take locality of the weapon impacts into account, and would need some clever thinking to model in relation to hull.  Lots and lots of work for something that will never be right.

Is it possible to make a linked squad ability that only applies to a single type of squadron/fighter? I'm planning a passive hull regeneration ability, something that acts akin to shield recharge and isn't effected by the in-combat hull regen penalty, though for this faction only 1/4 of their fighter types has this shielding.

No, not possible currently.

We are missing a buff instant action type of ApplyBuffToSquadMembers.

Nope. You could make a carrier have limited selection of SC choice though.

I actually did this in Requiem to simulate fighter astromech units. What you need to do is be a bit clever with your constraints. What I did was set it up so that every fighter that I wanted to have an astromech unit on had energy weapons, and could thus use the constraint to ensure only they were targeted. Fighters that didn't have them, like A-wings and B-wings, I gave physical weapons, and were immune. The way I did it was actually a periodic applybufftotargetsatorbitbody, since Requiem has a lot of spawned fighters that would otherwise not get a linked target buff, but that was when I was starting out and didn't realize how system intensive that was.

Three wrong answers in a row.

The piece of cake way is what was done with the Jedi Fighters, constraint "HasPhaseMissiles" and constraint  "HasEnergyWeapons" both work just like any other ApplyBuffToTargetsLinked.  You give them that constraint, and the ability will only filter down to the specific fighters fitting the filter.

If the constraints aren't an option(you need energy damage types on the others and can't use phase missiles), the more complicated method is by using OnWeaponFired to get a particular buff applied on a particular fighter.  You just use the buff checking system I used for slave circuits and a few others and your ability will filter down to the proper targets.  The overload is a little higher, but with proper nesting and termination it will function with high efficiency as either an active or a passive.

If you can't use different weapon types either, my well be dry.

Isn't that exactly what I said?

True, strange extra information threw me off.