We all know load times have suffered a bit and the only way to decrease them is to cut initial start units. This however decreases game play because we all know that more units = a better battle. So I simply added ships to stations and erased them from the campaign file. My GFFA full loads in a little under 60 seconds, yet every space battle I participate in is decent.
Starbases - all starbases spawn ships. R/E/P all spawn ships and they are all different. Each base spawns factions based units. You will see what I mean. Since the Pirates don't have the proper building AI, I gave their stations basically only illegal ships which will present a huge problem for your fighters. It will basically make them worthless.
NO FIGHTERS - stations only spawn corvettes and up. Why? Because Ghost turned most of the frigates into carriers anyway and when I had the stations spawning fighters I ended up with about 2,500 units on the screen (fail ensued). Spawn time is around 30 seconds so if you run in with fast ships it will take a minute for the (reinforcements) to arrive.
Golan II and III spawn ships, but only for the Pirates, once again because their AI is yet to be ironed out.
Now here is where it gets izky, you will have to modify your campaign files and take the starting forces out. Otherwise you are going to have A. long load times B. ridiculous amounts of ships in tac mode.
My campaign - when I took the starting forces out I also changed the planets initial stations. Essentially all of my GFFA planets start with Pirate level 4 and 5 space stations (E/R Colonies and Asteroids) I also gave pretty much every planet Golan II and III guns as well. I like a challenge so I made it harder for myself.
Finally my friend and I are working on adding new ships to the game (Tyrant missile cruiser, Mandator star dreadnought) so I haven't even tried to edit any of the other campaign files. If asked I might throw my attention at that too. I am welcome to all forms of feed back and indeed want it. Download drag and drop. Enjoy.