Quote:actually creating and implementing is much harder than it looks.
Not really. The most difficult part of mod-related changes, sans plugins, is hitboxing ships. That's it. There's literally a tool to do the maps for you, the rest is just crunching numbers or typing things in XML.
"They do it for free."
It actually DOES take a long time, especially when modeling one, you have to take many things into consideration i.e. size of the ship (balance wise), weapon/turret placement, the ships general looks (to fit in line), textures (even harder when you want custom ones). Then comes the texturing part, and as you may have noticed, not so many can master it. It takes awfully long time so you need a clear schedule for DAYS if you want to finish it. And then making and hitbox + hardpointing which takes hours because you have to constantly test it in-game if it works properly, that the turrets have the right arc and rotation values and make sure it doesn't fly ass-forward. Basically, the bigger the ship, the harder this process becomes. And then comes the intensive testing which is to be honest the fun part, not more fun than flying it in the game on-line if it ever gets there (you may have noticed the Bretonian, Outcast and Corsair battlecruisers are still missing, same with the Gallic cruisers.
This takes time and we do it for free, on our free-time. So deal with it.
