Quick addition to the post. George has added some <DeviceSlot> stuff but only to 1.8b1. Before that IIRC you need big slabs of code to set properties to device slots. NMS suggested it somewhere in the Ministry and there is more info in the API 40 Ministry topic.
Otherwise:
WOW! DigaRW is right. Definitely worth the wait. Well done. I agree with JBW that the mod quality and content are very good and it merges really well with Part One and Two.
Some quick observations (trying not to include too many spoilers):
"At least we won't be killing you as well". Awesome. Very undiplomatic!
Love the minefields. Excellent. Not so happy about them destroying the freighters I'm escorting. Shrugs. There's a war on!
Point Juventia system looks great.
Sindikat Lord bombs are very original. Nice one.
Great looking effect on the EMP missiles as well.
"We've mostly cleaned this system of its filth." Excellent!
The 'change ship' A... to P... is done really well. Well thought out and executed brilliantly.
Making the crates radioactive is very sneaky. Thumbs up!
And for people who can't read properly when they are so excited about a new adventure (that would be me too), my mistake was to extract the additional resources into the Resources folder directly from the zip files. That didn't work. My bad. You need to take the images out of the folders TheFinalStrikeResources1 and 2 and copy them directly into the Resources folder, otherwise the game can't find them (if you leave the additional folders in there you get duplicate UNID errors as well).
So basically I should have read the instructions.
. What you need is one Resources folder with all the images and no extra folders.
A few comments:
The BM attacks might be better as groups of two or three. ATM its difficult to get them as they come singly from all directions (which admittedly is good tactics). If they are in a group the player can get more firepower onto more enemy at the same time.
Some of the missions are long. The freighters are slow. Add nebula and you might as well go make a cup of coffee!
Possibly you could spawn the weaponized-Polars used by the Fleet near the station (200 ls?) and have the player meet the ship there. Then start the attack. The Polar might get destroyed by other nearby ships before the player gets there though.
Maybe add a bigger thrust effect to Celendinne's ship and up the speed a bit. That along with a distance restriction to his station would help. When the station is on the other side of the system it takes a long time to get there. This side quest is definitely worth doing.
Escorting CSCs to stargates takes forever.The CSCs are really slow. Once they start changing systems they have a habit of wanting to go from system to system without doing much in each system. So long trips between stargates become very common. With a max speed of 2 and 1400ls to the gate you can have a nap while it gets there. A "We'll meet you in the next system" option might work. As the playership gates to the next system the CSC appears behind it. Like when your autons/wingmen appear immediately behind you even though they were a long way behind in the previous system.
There could be a scanning requirement to find Vermein. So scan for 5 or 10 seconds to find him, get a target lock, then if you lose him by say 150 ls or more, the target lock breaks and you need to scan again. ATM it seems too easy but that might only be in faster ships.
I found armor repair to be problem in some systems. There were a few armor repair kits around but they don't do much to octocarbide or higher armor. And damage levels were high, make that extremely high, in a lot of systems. Possibly the Comm settlements in the non-standard systems could be upgraded so they can fix armor up to higher levels.
Played the Wolfen. Although it has a targeting computer already installed, a visual display/SRS enhancement as standard would be nice.
The leveled-up loot is good. SOTP has segments of ceramic armor and other really low level stuff as standard loot in higher level systems which is pretty pointless (and worthless). Finding higher-level useful stuff is a very nice change. I'm assuming this is because of your code.
I also failed the 'protect the settlement from the capital ship' mission twice when the attacking ship (G...) destroyed the station long before I got there. Use playership speed or playership distance from the station, maybe, to calculate when the enemy ship starts attacking so there is a chance of success?
The Sisters mission showed a "Mission failed" pyMessage even though they gated out.
Also the journalist mission failed if only one ship made it out of the system.
What is the 800 which appears over the Aquila? Hull strength?
As JBW said, no major problems only a few glitches. To be expected in a mod as large as this one. Well done. Some bug reports and suggestions over in the Drawing Board topic.
Game balance suggestion: I've played a fair bit now and the number of Fleet missions you have to do to progress to the 'larger' missions might be a bit too high. It seems like more than a dozen missions before you get access to Point Juventia. Maybe cap it at eight missions or so. This is only an initial impression though, definitely needs more gameplay to check it.
Stupid code. Do what I want, not what I typed in!