I wound up modding my copy for a ~50 pop cap for all of the mods I have. If your computer can handle it I'd suggest you do the same. The bigger battles are
awesome. I'd go for more but my computer's usually on the edge as it is.
I've included my primary impressions of the mods' main ships. I despise ground battles, and always auto-fight those, so I can't really review for them.
(z3r0x) Adds alot more stuff.
Rebels. Liberator Carrier in slightly escorted groups of four or more. Doom fleet. Carriers/Stations have unlimited fighters/reinforcements, and those fighters are unbalancing strong.
Frigates (Of which the Rebels' Nebulon B2 is indisputably king) shine here. A dozen B2s, 5-6 Corellian Corvettes, and 5-6 Liberators is an unstoppable doom fleet. If any enemy ships make it past the swarms of fighters the Liberators endlessly pour out the B2s will easily pound them into scrap. B2s easily have the highest firepower for size/cost in the game, good point defense, and the shield regeneration ability allows 3 to pound an ISD into scrap without losing shields.
Ironically the Venator is their closest match, but it's finicky turret array fires only every now and then making them second best.
Liberators. Dear god, where do I start? Endlessly maintaining 3 A-Wing, and 3 B-Wing squadrons (Best fighters and bombers in game), four of these can swarm even the largest fleets under with only minimal escort against lucky fighters. When confronting them in anything more than twos, auto-battle is the only option.
(Absolute Corruption) The joys of 7 slot capitals ships are dampened when you bring in your 21 slot behemoths. Did I mention they come with full fighter and bomber complements? And that the AI actually builds them to throw against you?
I like the scale of this, ISDs are truly just medium ships, but on to my opinion of the mod!
Of the 21 slotters only the Rebels' Viscount is worth a damn, and the Empire is totally broken otherwise. Titans with anti-starfighter escort can pound through dozen to one odds of enemy ISD size craft without even losing its shields, and the Imperial Nebula is hands down the best Destroyer for weight. The Rebel's counter, the Mediator, isn't bad but the Empire has a larger production base of Battlecruiser (7 slot) type craft (Kuat, Fondor, Mandalore, Korriban, Maw, Mon Calamari, and a few I'm probably missing) as compared to maybe three for the Rebels and nothing for Zahn (Trade Federation ringships just suck).
I've found that even the Viscount with escorts (approx. 90k credits) dies hilariously against a pair of Titans and attendants (approx. 72k credits), though it is good for eating single Battlecruisers and Executors (Did I mention how fucking useless that ship is? It is).
I do like the way fighters and bombers were executed, as well as the dynamics of everything below the Battlecruiser weight class. Starfighters can tip the balance but alone will get buzz-sawed, are scaled appropriately, and just feel right. I've contemplated several times moving everything below BC class into tech 4 and disallowing tech 5 to get rid of the imbalance, but have just never gotten the motivation to do it.
(Phoenix Rising) The closest I have ever seen someone attempt to model the "real" star wars galaxy. Will your computer be able to handle it? Probably not, but if so you might find it interesting.
This feels like X-Wing Alliance, if it was an RTS instead of a flying game. I would dearly love to play a GC with this, but my computer just can't handle it, and Skirmishes suck balls. I can't really speak to this mod as I just can't play it like it's meant to be.
