Is there a mod or a way to increase the number of bots beyond the default, especially in the space battles? This would make them a lot more epic

yes, it is:open the lua and edit those numbers
from the XXXc_cmn.lua:

myTeamConfig = {
rep = {
team = REP,
units = 32,
reinforcements = -1,
pilot = { "rep_inf_ep3_pilot",26 },
marine = { "rep_inf_ep3_marine",6 },
},
cis = {
team = CIS,
units = 32,
reinforcements = -1,
pilot = { "cis_inf_pilot",26 },
marine = { "cis_inf_marine",6 },
}
}

How to you want to increase them? Normally the amount of bots is set by the server. Do you want to have a set limit, say 40 per team or do you want to have a set amount above the server's value?

Thanks for the timely response. What I meant was to physically increase the number of ships flying around so that there may be more action

I will try this later tonight to see how it goes.

If you want more ships then you have to mess with the vehicle spawn points.

And I'm assuming I would do that through a map editor?

Essentially I would have to add more spawn points, or...?

I'm betting its going to be more complicated than that. Sorry for being so dense, but I just found this game unopened laying around from Christmas a while ago and just decided to play it.

I've never directly edited a vehicle spawn point which is why my answer didn't have much detail. I think you can do it through ZE. Read the 'getting started' documentation. It talks about editing command post spawns and I think vehicle spawns too. Changing the amount of vehicles that spawn should just be changing a number value in each spawn point.

More spawn points would increase the number of ships available at one time, but the EntityFlyer memory pool would probably need an increase as well. It'd do no good to have more spawns only to find the fighters won't spawn because of the memory limits. If you want to increase the number of transports, the CommandFlyer memory pool would need to be increased.