Which brings about some new questions, such as:
What would be a good standard size for any PS textures? (I've heard the pixel size has to be in a power of 2?)
PS uses relatively small textures, pieces of size 512x512 px are rarely used.
Read about efficient textures in Crystal Space documentation, chapter
->"Efficient Textures"If this item was loaded into the game without any Z offset, where would the 'ground' be in comparison to the X-Y plane in Blender?
At
local cordinate z=0, it means, the point of origin of the mesh, look:
Surface of ground, table etc. will go through mesh origin.
You can adjust position of origin using the following buttons:
How do I find out how many polygons I've used
Select a mesh and activate edit mode. You will see number of vertices, edges and faces in upper right corner of the screen:
(so I can get the count down to a decent 200 or so)
If You mean 200 polys (triangles) for pile of dust - I'd say it is way too much for so simple object in PS. It does not mean, that it is too much for modern hardware though.
, and will planeshift accept quads and n-gons?
Crystal Space handles only triangles and quads, so build your models using only those two kind of polygons. Usually it is better to convert all polys to triangles before exporting model for CS, because UV mapping works better this way. Polygons of mesh exported as genmesh are always converted to triangles.
Would it be a good idea to extend the base of my pile o' dust past where it would sit on a level plane, so if it's dropped on a hill or something you won't see the underside?
Your decision.
That being said, do you think Talaad would be interested in my humble project or does he like the dwarf model better? 
If You want to create content for PS, go there ->
Internal Dev site, but only if You are confident that your modeling/texturing skills are high enough.
You also may want to speak to Talad personally on irc, channel #planeshift at irc.freenode.net.
Hmmm... good luck
and don't give up easily.
[Edit: also, is there any way to view weapons/armor/items in viewmesh? It seems to need a .cal3d file to tie everything together.
Any .spr file can be viewed with viemesh. You only must put textures in right places or modify .spr file (in text editor). Curently (AFAIK) cal3d files are used only for characters and monsters.
BTW: there is cal3d importer for 3d Studio Max in cal3d source tree, but I don't know how (if) it works.
Also, how can I reduce the number of polygons in my project? (I'm covered with expansion by subdivide)]
The best way is to make it low poly from the beginning. Tools which can reduce number of polygons not always give good results. If You want to experiment try decimator modifier on any high poly mesh (for pile of dust it should be fine):
You can also remove vertices/edges/faces manually, but it really is easier to
add more than to remove some without breaking a model.
