Asiriya, I agree that vanilla races tend to follow a sort of "template" when it comes to unit classes and their overall abilities. Though there is some difference, as you said, every ship has its exact counterpart. This is common in RTS games because it makes balancing a lot easier.
The Last Stand, however, aims to do change that. So at the risk of having a few underpowered or overpowered units at release and having to iron them out later on after some public exposure, I will try to make each new faction feel and play completely different, as much as it is possible to accomplish within modding constraints.
This new cruiser is a good example. Vanilla cruisers are unarmed; but Xin ships are balanced according to 2:1 ratio in their favor - every Xin ship should be worth two of its class counterparts (since it also costs a lot more), so the Suryata is armed. It also will have a special ability to launch a swarm of "suicide" larvae plasmids which will home in on enemy ships and gnaw at their shields or armor before dying and falling off. It should look cool and give an extra push in the direction of making this ship feel like it can rip other ships apart with ease, while not actually being overpowered.
Then you have the Seeder Pod, which can also act as a secondary bombarder (I am still working on providing incentive to use Seeders for planet conquest rather than dedicated bombers for annihilation).
Other concepts have stuff like Heavy Scout Frigates for the Remnant, which are tougher that regular scouts, but also (like all Remnant ships) armed with primitive weaponry and able to deploy two Vanguard Gunships, medium-sized fighter craft designed to bolster the HSF. This will make the zerg "rush" tactics even more appealing to Remnant players, since their scouts will be tougher than those of other races. Xin "colony" capitals will not have the ability to colonize directly, but will have the ability to produce some if not most of the basic drones, which will make them a sort of a mobile base and allow a player which has been nearly wiped out to re-emerge. And so on. Some class similarities remain, but purely for practical reasons. For example, you have to have scouts, attack frigates, something long-range and so on.
As for dodging projectiles, right now it cannot be done. Damage is applied either over time or is "backloaded" which means it is applied regardless of visual cues on screen. This presumably helps with lag issues online, in any case there is no "on hit" model and even if there were, the unit movement is hardcoded in entity types right now and cannot be changed. Which is a pity because I would love to modify all smaller ships to actively move about in a battle.
Anyway, as it turns out, you are spot on when it comes to race variation in tactics. Xin will be your classic turtlers. They will be very tough, replenish slowly and will be even tougher on their home turf thanks to their network of Quantum Gates. They will be at a disadvantage outside of their turf though, as they are considerably slower than other races, especially in phase space.
Remnant are the Zerg of this mod. They are cheap, fast, replenish quickly and are at their best when fighting at close range.
The Hegemony are at a balance between the two. I envision them as a well rounded force, excelling with smart combinations of ships and able to adapt to virtually any circumstance. Though the Remnant will always be able to outmaneuver them and Xin will smash their teeth in if they come after them in Xin owned sectors.
Hopefully the system will be fun to play and balanced out, but that remains to be seen.
Oh and...
