Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Hahaha... hey, no bad stuff about the Borg, they rule! Their queenie is sooo sexy!

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Captain, I really like the style of your images.

Wouldn't Borg be "none" atmosphere?

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Nope, they're cyborgs. They need their organic components as much as they need their mechanical parts. The one dies without the other. So, the need breathable air. You've seen them walking in space a couple of times, but that was probabely because they can store air and isolate their bodies from the extreme cold.

Now you all see the Borg can't be stopped?! Not even by those pesky Feddies?! Hah, the Borg will conquer the galaxy! All hail to our sexy queenie!!

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Borg do have a preferred atmosphere, the one their ships contain.

It happens to have enough oxygen and sufficiently little CO2 to be breathable by humans, but that's probably because they assimilated humanoid species on the ships visiting the Alpha Quadrant.

The natural atmosphere of the original race could have been just about anything, and making it Methane sets them apart http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

I gave the Borg methane because of a line in First Contact that stated the atmosphere contained high levels of methane in the borg-covered earth.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Hey Captain, thumbs up on the Akira! That is one thing I love about your ship models. They really make your TNG mode unique and sort of give the mod some of its own life too it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Kinda reminds me of the Airbrush drawn pictures the SFB use to do for their game. I can't wait what type of designs you are going to do to fill in spots for the Dominion, Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians.

I agree with Capt. Peter, Gas Giant races in SE4 have a severe advantage in Storage size. I personally think most races should only colonize the moons of Gas Giants instead (after all, the presures (and Static Electricity) of a Gas Giant is so great for humanoid races, I can't see it being practical to setup colonies their). I somewhat disagree with making some races have different atmospheres then other races. Most Humaniod races we see in Star Trek (with some exceptions like the Borg) breath oxygen. I can see what some people say that it makes star systems have a variety of races in them, but why? In Star Trek, usually only 1 maybe 2 planets in an entire Solar System can effectively support a large colony of millions of people. Most of the other planets would only be used for outPosts or mining operations. This is just my opinion though.

Great too see such improved progress with your mod man.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

I just wanted to say that the Galaxy Class ship has so many frickin' windows. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

That is all.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">LOL! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Awesome update man! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

LOL!!! Can anyone say "Space Hotels"! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I wonder, after the Dominion War, did the Feds keep building the Galaxies or did they completely revert to Soverign class for main crusier/explorer operations?

I know this really can't be answered, but I would have to imagine the Sov's have to be too expensive to build in large numbers. Just bringing this up on whether Kwok should even bother making a Galaxy model.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Actually, I think the galaxy was made in limited numbers. They were never the primary ship of the fleet, I don't even think the federation has a primary ship of the fleet. I think it is just a collection of a few ships of various classes.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

How should the Borg assimilate ships?

Should they use the allegiance subverter and captured ships using that method?

OR

Should they use regenerating boarding parties to capture ships?

I'm leaning towards the second option but I don't like the fact that Borg boarding ships could easily be destroyed by a self-destruct device - but at the same time, might be helpful in balancing out the advanced Borg techs...

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Will the AI even try to board if there is a self destruct device present?
Anyways, the borg can simply use smaller craft to do the actual boarding attempts while the larger cubes provide suppression fire.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think it will. I have seen my boarding ships go and board large ships with SDDs on them, and they go boom.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

I think that the SDD should be jetisoned from the game altogether! What a silly and widely abused device.

That said, I know that some people just love 'em (mostly because they abuse them IMHO http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif ). And so here are my very opinionated opinions.

i) I think that the SDD should be much larger in size (say 25kT), so that it will a) be taken out by incoming fire more frequently and b) people will have to really consider whether they want to give up that much space for the privelege to go hari-kari.

ii) I also think that the SDD should appear much later in the tech tree to give some time for races to actually use boarding parties. If you recieve SDD at only level 3 propulsion... my goodness that's atleast 30 turns before anyone has even thought about getting advanced military let alone built them into any ships.

iii) I think that SDD should be grouped with say engines or weapons or something targetable by special weapons to give Groups like the borg a chance to shoot it out.

iv) it would be nice to decrease the size of the defense and boarding parties to bring up their use a little too.

That's it, I feel much better now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Greetings.

I was also thinking of adding an 8th race - who do you guys think would be worthy?

Perhaps the Breen? 8472? Gorn?

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, Yes, and Yes. Oh wait, that's 10. Yes!

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

You should add them as minor empires. Give them some cool bonus facilities and weapons to make them less of a pushover. Like the breens energy disruption weapon.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Hey Captain, I vote for option two (Regenerating Boarding parties) and get rid of the SDD. I just don't like the idea where a borg cube lauches its boarding borg, then all of sudden the Fed ship and the Brog ship are blown up because a SDD is onbaord.

I personally would like to see the Gorn or maybe the Tholians. The Breen would be easy, but it seems we know less then what we do with the Gorn and the Tholians. The Tholians at least were talked about a couple times in DS9 and I heard rumors that DS9 was thinking about introducing the Gorn again in DS9 too. The Breen are a fan favorite too, but like I said, we know very little about the race.

[ October 26, 2002, 09:02: Message edited by: Magnum357 ]

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Actually, we know quite a bit about their race after the whole dominion war, but I digress...

Yes, possibly making the SDD an armor component?

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Since Trek-style self-destruct involves creating an intentional Warp Core breach ... making the SDD an engine component, so that engine-destroying weapons can take it out of the picture, seems the smartest thing to do, IMO.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Since I'm mostly an old Trek fan I would prefer to see the Gorn.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Pax: Not smartes, most logical. This brings the question: How heavily will the borg use engine destroying weapons if at all. If they use them on all their ships, no problem, but if they don't then most ships would be incapable of being boarder by the borg without defeating the cube.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

The option I was considering was removing the self-destruct ability from the engineering component and having just the stand alone component. I'd give it the damaged first ability so there is a good chance it would be damaged by the time boarding troops were launched against the ship.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Capt'n Kwok:
that would be great.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

I'm going to go with my option for the boarding/self-destruct issue. It does the most for balance.

I've finished up all the facilities minus some cost issues. I've changed the amount of resources harvested per turn, so most things have to be adjusted to appropriate costs. Aside from that, just some grammar checks and Last minute tweaks and it should be okay. I believe there is about 75 or so facility families, of which 40+ are race-specific ones.

The general trend for population modifiers:

Each 10M up to 1000M = +1%
Each 100M up to 10000M = +1%

For example:</font>

• <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> 526M = 52% x 2000 = 1040</font>
• <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> 1000M = 100% x 2000 = 2000</font>
• <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> 2368M = 113% x 2000 = 2260</font>
• <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> 9223M = 182% x 2000 = 3640</font>
• <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">10000M = 190% x 2000 = 3800</font>

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally I was going to use some sort of fun ln function, but because its exponential, the modifiers got too big near the end (about 8-9x normal rate). I want to put an emphasis on the use of orbital space yards which I feel is more Star Trek.
That's all for now.

Edit:

Ooh, 666 Posts, I hope nothing evil happens to it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ October 27, 2002, 05:55: Message edited by: Captain Kwok ]

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Hello all,

I'm new to this discussion. I am wondering if the and when the other Trek races will be available for download.

Will there be a Mod for the Breen, Dominion and Cardassian's?

Happy to be here, and look forward to a reply soon.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

You can find out more about the TNG mod from the link in my signature. The website contains most of the answers to any questions you might have.

I'm hoping on having some sort of beta Version out in December, where some playtesting and balancing can take place.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

http://members.rogers.com/capt-kwok/...axy-action.gif
The USS Galaxy on patrol near the Romulan neutral zone.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

I just posted my Borg mod.

1035747855.zip

Take a look, see what you think. It is designed as a player race. An AI using it would probably be crippled since it relies so heavily on analyzing the tech of captured ships.

It does contain a lot of nice new techs (maturation chambers, assimilation nodes, adaptive shielding, new vehicle sizes, the Borg Queen http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ...) and has some new pics (components, etc.) that could be quite a nice addition.

Kwok:

Nice galaxy class. Tis sweet.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Cool project, Captain Kwok.
Keep up the good work. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Capt'n: Very very nice Galaxy Class you got there!! If all the art is that good, it'll absolutely rock!

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Ya, that Galaxy sure it cool! I'm wondering if Kwok should just stick with this side veiw stuff. For Star trek ships, it seems to show the ship much better then your classic SE4 ship picture style.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Greetings.

Here is some information in regards to the systemtypes file that I've been working on:
</font>

• <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> 21 Standard Systems from 3-10 planets + moons</font>
• <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> 6 Binary & 6 Trinary Systems with some planets</font>
• <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> 34 Other types incl. storms, nebula, etc.
  </font>

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'm planning on adding about 100 new planet and star entries with images for the SectTypes file. I'm also hoping to finish up a major update to the TNG modsite sometime in the upcoming week that will include more detailed race descriptions and ship stats. The TNG mod tech list will also recieve its own page as well, replacing the current text file I have now.
http://members.rogers.com/capt-kwok/...ufp-galaxy.gif
Another piece of eye candy for Hallowe'en

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Hey Captain, the Galaxy is looking fine man! Hey, quick question though, what format are you making those 3D models? Lightwave perhaps?

Oh, and forgot to ask... on your system specifications for Star Systems. I assume that you are just sticking with Warp Points for FTL (Faster then Light) mechanics, but how exactly is the star system map going to be setuped? Will systems have access to all other systems nearby (like if they are right next to each other) or are you just making the map random occurace like what it is in SE4 now? If your confused by my question, just let me know.

[ November 01, 2002, 04:46: Message edited by: Magnum357 ]

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Kwok, are you making new planet pictures, or just incorporating those from the Image Mod?

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

The TNG mod models are made in Moray and rendered with POV-ray.

I'm hoping on using some imagemod pictures (not the imagemod file itself) and planets and such, plus a number of my own.

The warp points will be more or less the same since a FTL system wouldn't really work out.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Actually, I think the idea was to set up the map with tons of warp points, so that most systems connect to all the nearby systems, not true FTL, but a good simulation.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

ZeroAdunn:

I was just thinking about that. It wouldn't be such bad representation would it? I think I'll do that.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Actually, Zero was right in what I meant. Having a predefined map with systems having many warp points connected to each other could be a good way to simulate a "Sem-FTL" system.

At least it would be a lot easier to incorperate into the mode instead of relying on a warp point generator compenent.

As a matter of fact, if my calculations are correct, each star system should have no less then 8 warp points connected to it. Unless of course it is at a map edge. Also, might be a good idea ot make the star system objects in a system a little closer to the center of the Star system to more reflect the vast openess of space and to make ships with low "Warp Capability" or damaged warp engines have to travel far. At lightspeed, it would take 4 years to reach the nearest star system. That might be not possible to mode in, but you could make it where a ship with only a speed of 1 would take several months (maybe even a year to reach a nearby planet in a star system.

[ November 02, 2002, 09:05: Message edited by: Magnum357 ]

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Also, what could be done with planets in a star system is to have them in the same ring diameter. For example, Mercury/Venus/Earh/Mars are all considered "inner solorsystem planets". You could have all 4 planets within the 1st or second ring of a solar system. each planets could be setuped in on sector, while another planets would be setup in the exact opposite sector on the other side of the star (or whatever). Yes, Venus and earth ar not alawys on the exaxt opposite sides of a solor system, but since the planets are at a constant speed, the time where planets are in short distances from one another is small and most of the time its at a somewhat longer trip. The outter planets are could be setup in a similar way but only in a different ring.

Sort of unorthadox but a possiblility.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

It's virtually that way already. Most colonizable planets are in rings 2-3, with the occassional habitable world in ring 4. Gas Giants in the outer rings might harbour a M-class moon, but that doesn't occur very often.

[ November 03, 2002, 14:50: Message edited by: Captain Kwok ]

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Hi Kwok,

I was looking over the captains in the tech file, and was wondering if the Vulcan captain could decrease the Resource use of the ship (Vulcans are nothing if not efficient) plus maybe a minor reduction in Maintenance cost.

Just my 0.02$Cdn

Edit: Oh, and I don't think the movement bonuses that the captains give will be stackable with other movement bonuses http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif (eg. mov bonus for impulse engines)

jimbob

[ November 06, 2002, 19:19: Message edited by: jimbob ]

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Reducing maintenance is the same thing as reducing the resource cost of a ship - however if you were talking about supplies - has anyone ever tried giving a component a negative value for supplies?

The movement bonus is not actually a movement bonus - it's just a single standard move - I suppose I should clarify that.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">There is a maintenance modification ability. It's used on bases to give 'em -50% to maintenance.

Just copy that, and have the vulcans give you -5% to maintenance.

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Kwok, et al

I was actually thinking of the trait for reduced supply usage:

Trait Type := Supply Cost
Value 1 := -25
Value 2 := 0

I just assumed it was under abilities, and could be used as such... but it's a trait type... hmm could we try to use it for a specific vessel, or would it reduce supply cost to all ships owned?! We could test it of course (that said, I suppose that I should do the testing, after all it was my big fat idea).

Of course if someone already knows it won't work, you could save me the trouble http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Just give that ability to the vulcan quartermaster component, and set value1 to -5.

End result: Ship that normally costs 1000 minerals, will normally pay 250 minerals maintenance, and now pays 237.5 (rounded down).

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Umm, SJ:

I think we are aware of how to reduce maintenance cost. What JimBob is referring to is the reducing the amount of supplies used by the ship through a component.

[ November 07, 2002, 05:46: Message edited by: Captain Kwok ]

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

Greetings and ugh - I'm so friggin' busy!

I had wanted to add more stuff to the website by this weekend - such as more detailed race information (biology, society, etc, etc), starship reports, html the tech list, and provide a checklist of stuff that needs to be done - but it looks like that will be on hold for a bit longer (read: couple weeks) before I get it a change to do it.

I have managed to sneak in a few half-hrs to work on the mod though - so progress continues!

Also, Geoschmo inspired an idea with his reference to armor skipping mines - the TNG mod now introduces Subspace Mines - very nasty buggers with subspace warheads and armor skipping damage!

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

ooooh! subspace mines. very DS9...espically with the warp points. if only we could make them self replicating... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: *** Star Trek Mod Discussion ***
 

I wish I could self-replicate some time.

Aside from that nitpick - it will be at least another week or so before I have anything significant to report in re: to the TNG mod.

I can't wait until mid-December - I think I'll finally be able to relax for a bit and put some serious time into the mod. I'm kind of embarrassed right now of how much I seem like Mr.Kodos - but at least I have a web site! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif