A new Mod Idea (Look Here For Enlightenment)
 

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Today I was thinking about how to make a Star Trek Mod for SEIV G, and it occurred to me that it would be rather easy. Balance issues and shared tech would be an easy issue to settle.

For each race there is a RACE specific tech that cost nothing. You would select it as an advanced trait. For example, if you selected Klingon, then you would also select the Advanced Trait Klingon. Through that trait you gain access to the Klingon Tech Tree.

No other race will have access to Klingon Tech. Each race would have their own tech trees. There will be shared tech, I.E. warp and impulse engines, except for the Quantum singularity drive of the Romulans, and the slipstream for the Borg.

Each race will have shared type of weapons, as well as race specific weapons. The nice thing about this is that now, balance issues can be addressed and advanced weapons can be made race specific.

If you combine the Trek races with other races such as B5 or Star Wars, then each of those races would also have Race specific Advanced Traits. Phaser would be more lethal than Lasers, but Ripper beams would be more powerful than Phasers. Turbo Lasers = Phasers, and such.

This way, an advanced race such as the Shadows or the Borg would have their own tech trees, and there by have more advanced weapons exclusive to them.

Think of it like this, instead of TEMPORAL KNOWLEDGE, there would be Klingon Knowledge. Then any weapon in the Klingon Knowledge Tree would be exclusive to any race that chose Klingon Knowledge. Since only the Klingons should use this Knowledge, then no other race should possess it.

The same for buildings. The Cardassians and Romulans would get bonuses for Intel Buildings. The Obsidian Order complex, and the Talshair Compound. Klingons would get buildings for training of military forces, and the Feds for research.

If my logic is flawed and this can not be accomplished, then by all means say so. If not, post your ideas. I have already started on this sometime ago, and want to try and get it into beta form by the end of February. I am not a Mod maker, but I am trying.

Ideas and input are always welcome. Tech ideas for the following races would be greatly appreciated.

Primary Races
8472*
Andorian
Bajoran
Breen
Borg*
Cardassian
Dominion
Federation
Ferengi
Harogen
Gorn
Kazon
Klingon
Orion
Romulan
Sona
Thollian
Vulcan

I have already started building ship sets for the races without them.

*Advanced Races.

Re: A new Mod Idea (Look Here For Enlightenment)
 

Atrocities: I guarantee that your idea will work -- its exactly what I do in my mod, except that I limit the free traits to the AI. Watch what happens in RacialTraits.txt when you toggle the "Ultra Racial Traits" in ZippyMod AI Setup Utility.exe (Of course you'll have to save your changes and then reopen RacialTraits.txt.)

Re: A new Mod Idea (Look Here For Enlightenment)
 

Atrocities your idea will work and e.g. for the Borg that was exactely what I did in my mod.
However it is quite a bit of work because you must adapt the research and design files for each races not to speak about the designs of the components and tech trees themselves. So if you want to do this for all your races you will be busy for some time!
And for games with human players there has to be a strict code not to cheat by choosing any of these enhanced AI racial technologies.

Re: A new Mod Idea (Look Here For Enlightenment)
 

The only thing I can see which might take some time to calibrate (if it doesn't complete throw the game out of wack) are cloaking devices. Only a few Trek races have them, and those who don't (at least in the shows) don't really have a means or device to detect them.

I was just thinking about the effects of a lop-sided cloak race when I read your post. I am not sure how much of an advantage the AI would get out of it, but it might be something to think about.

In my thoughts on this "Invisible Race," I thought it might be beneficial to give to all as a common tech a powerful sensor which is expensive and only can be put on satellites, thus giving say the Federation a means to patrol its own boarders but unable to detect cloaked ships in foreign systems.

Just some ideas.

Re: A new Mod Idea (Look Here For Enlightenment)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>In my thoughts on this "Invisible Race," I thought it might be beneficial to give to all as a common tech a powerful sensor which is expensive and only can be put on satellites, thus giving say the Federation a means to patrol its own boarders but unable to detect cloaked ships in foreign systems.<hr></blockquote>Problem is those sensor are only supposed to be very limited range.

A better way to simulate it would probably be with mines. Sweeping capacity should be quite low, and the mines quite expensive: describe it as a cluster of objects, withthe mine body being the sensor package, and the warheads designed in are weapon sats. (Change the pictures to match)

Any ship attempting to cross this border would be detected by the sensor sat (mine hull), attacked by the defense sats (warheads), and would manage to destroy at least one of the clusters.

Limit minesweeping ability to 1 sweep per 50KT or weaker, and make the sat clusters cost 10x what SE4 mines cost now.

I wonder if you could give a mine SpaceYard abilities, and get those Klingon self-replicating mines http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

Re: A new Mod Idea (Look Here For Enlightenment)
 

If you are looking for a good source of who uses what technology (At least for the older races) The old STAR FLEET BATTLES Boardgame is a trove of information. Especially for different ship types and Weapons.

I would really like to see a SEIV Version of a Romulan MAULER Beam &lt;---

another good source might be the BOTF Computer Game.(Aside from just talking to Trekkies who have all that stuff locked away in their Brains!)

Hope these ideas help!

RhineStone

Re: A new Mod Idea (Look Here For Enlightenment)
 

I know the klingons, so if you want some info just let me know.

Re: A new Mod Idea (Look Here For Enlightenment)
 

You should check out the Sci-Fi Crossover topic. They are doing the tech trees that way. You might want to check it out.

They are also using for one of the references the Babylon Trek Wars a free web game for starship mini combat.

There is also the free Trek RPG &lt;Last Unicorn&gt; ship combat and design rules Online as well.

Both of these links &lt;And other cool stuff http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif &gt; can be found at;

http://www.star-ranger.com/home.htm

Re: A new Mod Idea (Look Here For Enlightenment)
 

If you want a good cloak defense simply make cloacking devices require a lot of supplies to use.

Re: A new Mod Idea (Look Here For Enlightenment)
 

This is almost what i have in mind with my own mod.... almost.

Re: A new Mod Idea (Look Here For Enlightenment)
 

Ok, running the risk of showing myself to be a total geek...

In ST the Federation could not detect cloaking devices except when using large sensor arrays. The arrays were placed along the boarder and were (presumably) immobile. They did not necesarily do damage to the invading ships, though a mine field is not inconceivable.

The equivalent as I see it would be to have very large sensor packages that could be based on either satelites or star bases. In this way federation ships can't go hunting for the cloaked ships... just as they couldn't in the series.

mi too sents
jimbob

Re: A new Mod Idea (Look Here For Enlightenment)
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>They did not necesarily do damage to the invading ships, though a mine field is not inconceivable.<hr></blockquote>That's why the mine pic would be changed to show a sensor sat surrounded by defense turrets.
When a cloaked enemy vessel meets one of these, it will be detected by the sensor sat, and blown out of the water by the turrets, but not before it takes one or two of the clusters with it.

Deployed you might have a 3d wall of the defense turrets, with the sensor package sitting safely behind them.

Re: A new Mod Idea (Look Here For Enlightenment)
 

Alternatively, make a cloaking device like armour (destroyed before internal components), quite large and low damage capacity (5 points?).

Your sensor sat Groups / warhead could do say 5 points of damage to kill the cloak but it won't kill the ship.

Anything that comes in fighting and without a cloak will be able to destroy the defense sats easily. If that's desirable.

Re: A new Mod Idea (Look Here For Enlightenment)
 

Yeah, but that wouldn't work too well against ships with other armor or if there are a lot of these "mines" and/or a lot of ships.

Re: A new Mod Idea (Look Here For Enlightenment)
 

Thanks guys. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Modding is not really my thing, but it is an interesting challenge. If the Crossover Mod is using the same idea I have, then that is great. I will read the thread, and perhaps get a lot of ideas on how to over come issues from them. (Credit of course will go to them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif )

Re: A new Mod Idea (Look Here For Enlightenment)
 

If you put this on sats then in a non-simultaneous move game people couldjust launch the sats and recover them as they move into the enemy territory on the offensive, or they could deploy them in simultaneous as they move, move order woudl be like this: recover satalites, move to X,X, remotly launch satalites. only problem would be moving through warp points. but hten you have strength in numbers if you plan on probing deep (or are dumb and hoping on luck). Still sats sound better than the mines. could have a supply cost? somehow charged per turn? or the sat launcher could have a high supply cost so launching constatnly wouldn't be really smart.