When I heard this game was going to be "highly moddable" I had hoped for something similar to, say, Unreal or at the very least Tiberian Sun (yes, I know they're different genres, but that doesn't really affect the issue at hand). But all we've got is .xml editing which, quite frankly, doesn't qualify as highly moddable. At best, it can be seen as somewhat moddable.
In its current state, we can't (AFAIK - please correct me if I'm wrong) create any new weapon or ship component types with original effects (gameplay effects - I'm not talking eyecandy here), no unique and interesting race or tech abilities and no particularily interesting buildings. We can't change the way ships travel or combat is carried out, we can't change the AI and we can't introduce new game concepts.
The only thing we can do is edit existing statistics. That's great for rebalancing but worthless for big, thorough modding.
There is a relatively painless way for StarDock to remedy this. Give us a .dll interface. I know, I know, it's not something that's simply coded overnight unless your programming is particularily modular and maintainable, but the effort would be very well worth it. Allow us to create .dll's with our own functions and classes which can refer to and manipulate classes and variables in the game, and allow us to create calls to these functions through, for example, the xml interface by adding a tag that specifies what function will be called when, for example, a ship component "fires" each turn. At the same time, release info about what the relevant internal variables and functions are called and what parameters they require.
This addition still wouldn't give us anywhere near the moddability of Unreal or its ilk, but at least we'd be able to do some pretty significant stuff like add autorepair components, new weapon types, carrier ships and unique, radical and innovative race/tech abilities. This would increase the longevity of the game tenfold.
So please StarDock, give us this or something of similar power and flexibility. You won't regret it - there's a whole horde of programming geeks out there like me who want to make a great space 4x game but don't want to go through the tedium of producing an entire 4x game engine (not to mention finding someone to do all the artsy graphics and stuff).
What the... I'm positive I posted this in the modding forum. Ah well, I'll try again.
