I will probably not publish the entire mod because I have used many spaceship models, icons and sounds from Kobayashi Maru and from third parties for which I have no copyrights and whose developers are no longer available.
if it has been tried to contact modders to request use of their work to no avail, that's really the best and only thing you can do...
or, please list the ships you have in your full mod, and we can all also try to contact the authors to ask permission... i am in touch still to these days with alot of modders,so i can help contact some people to ask their permission for use...
but quite honestly, pretty much 99% of any and all BC modders from way back when are just simply long gone...
these days, so long as proper credit and due respect is granted, that would be ok to go ahead and incorporate someone's work into your mod - i doubt anyone would come out of the shadows to yell and complain... quite the contrary, i would think modders from long ago would be happy to see their mods still being used and enjoyed