Wow I'm liking this idea... so your aiming for in terms of gameplay and weapon working more realism. Like the shields making it hard to actually damage people, then being completely vulnerable once there gone.
I have a suggestion for gameplay, aside from the planning and such, I'd reccomend having betas, and try to looks for things like where people end up having to walk. (IE ur ship gets shots down and like only one of u survive, and ur in the middle of no where, with no one to fight, its bound to happen on a big map) to counter that figure out what areas this happens in the most, try to either use more cover or enviromental options to fix the problem first, if that doesnt work, then use teleporters.
idk, its probably common sense but just figured I throw that up there.
I'd also love to help with the modeling but I'm not sure what you need, if you'd consider me skilled enough, and how much you would want me doing, I'd be interested in terrain modeling... mostly with detailing though.
http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/7...detswu7.th.jpghttp://img171.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif
e: http://www.modacity.net/forums/showp...&postcount=278 put fire bombs in :O