Building a base

Building a base is certainly not an easy starting point for modding
Tools:
3D program of your choice -some manage it all in Milkshape 3D which you will need plus the import / export plugins for MS3D, as well as the 3db and mat plugins.

For textures -whatever your favorite full-featured 2D program is, and either Nvidia’s DDS plug-in, or a DDS converter (textures can be TGA, but it adds the annoyance of having to flip your texture before export)

For tweaking the materials file and model (.mat .cmp .3db) then UTF editor -I recommend getting at least version 1.3 and 1.4.

For tweaking Hardpoints and quickly checking textures and orientation - HardCMP

For SURs -there’s the toughie even for vets sometimes = SUR splicer can be helpful, and of course the SUR import / export plugins for Milkshape.

Then for placing the base within a system -Freelancer Explorer for a visual interface. I’d recommend getting familiar with all the .ini files and their uses as well though, to be able to further tweak things after this program. Plus within it you will be able to define the actual base’s bar, rumor, market, faction, and news sections.

I’m assuming you meant making an entirely new base? If not, then the coding requires only either an unBINI tool to decompress the ini’s or the SDK over on EOA forum that includes all ini’s fixed up and in plain text format. SDK is also included in the Quickfix patch, which is in the DL section here, or also on EOA.

As you can see, it’s a daunting task that takes a bit of getting used to.

Both can be found here in the downloads section

But if you’re just attaching pieces together like on say Freeport 9 and such, you won’t need to modify the surs or anything like that. Possibly one of the system building tutorials might explain the finer details.

But what you’ll be doing is attaching those parts via the \DATA\SOLAR\loadouts.ini An easy approach is to have a couple windows open: one in the \data\solar\misc which is where the connecting beams and many of those parts reside; the other the \data\solar\dockable directory, also contains shipyard addons, as well as the main bases.
Have HardCMP handy so you can open up the .3db models in the misc directory and check what weapon mounts they have etc, as you’ll be adding the weapons mounted on them … under the main base’s loadout -if the hardpoints have unique names, or its own loadout entry -if they’re generic. Make your list of all the model filenames you know you’ll be using, then you can search through SolarArch.ini for their Archetype. Once you know the archetype, you can use that to mount it to the base via loadouts.ini
While you’re looking at the models in HardCMP, note the locations of any HpConnectXX hardpoints, these are the points you “glue” together the station.

Just rummaging through Solararch.ini should give you a nice idea of possibilities. Come tomorrow someone should have a link handy for a tutorial, personally I like digging through junk taking the long route and learning after many headaches ^_^