Hey all, just posting an update as to where I am with my building status.
I have a couple of ships *almost* ready to release, both at around 98% completion, those being the bomber ship and the assimilated Isanth Type-Zero. However I'm still not entirely convinced on the stability of these builds coming out recently, so I'm not gonna be finishing them entirely and releasing until I feel a bit more comfortable that they aren't going to get shit on by a game changing patch a few days later and rendered useless, yet again.
In the meantime, I spent a couple of hours starting the long time coming Unicomplex build this evening. At the moment I've just finished the super-structure skeleton for the station at the core of the complex, which will house the main computer core for the collective hive mind. Tomorrow I'm going to create a "power station" structure skeleton attached to it via one of those long pipe-like things, then over the next week or so I'll be filling out the skeletons and detailing the outer hulls of each station.
These are just the first two of many planned stations to be included into the Unicomplex, also, the vast majority of the structures in the build will all be linked together at one point or another by the pipey connectors, and since they will be a faction homebase, they have no need for shields. I will leave large areas open and available to build shields though should the game mechanics change in the future and cause homebases to lose their invulnerability.
There will be the occasional station that is still part of the unicomplex, but a separated entity, these ones will definitely be well shielded, since they wont share the main structure's invulnerability.
There will be quite a few of the "power station" structures dotted around the complex, basically copy pasted stations, to generate and store the absolutely immense amount of energy needed to run the complex' defense turrets (and maybe future shielding).
I wont be building any interiors until I have a good chunk of the unicomplex already complete, or I get a random urge to just do some, but I will be releasing the build as a sector export whenever I finish a new station addition, so anyone who downloads it is free to put in their own interior, but the fully finished product will definitely be fully designed internally and externally.
To give you a rough view of what I'm aiming for visually, see these pics. It will incorporate some of the Transwarp Apeture thingies of the second picture, sort of like a mix between a Unicomplex and a Transwarp Hub.