STM "Final v1.7.5" Discussion

[Atrocities]

If you read this post, please also read the post below it.

I just needed Star Trek sounds so I went through my other Star Trek PC games for a collection of sounds and discovered that Star Fleet Command III had the best collection. I added the cloak on/off sounds you hear in ST:TNG and the phaser and photon torpedo sounds too. Plus I added a couple of the star trek computer console sounds to the SEIV interface like close, button,cmdbtn, and endturn.
Plus I upgraded the ships explosion effects.

I would very much like to include these sounds into the mod. Would you be willing to send me a zipped or rar file containing them?

The CD music thing I cannot include with the mod for variouis legal reasons.

Please read the next post.

[Sabin]

I propose that a new component to be added to the mod. I believe that the mine-sweeper component should be replaced by a part called Navigation Shielding, which imparts minimum shielding and removes a number of mines that are encountered, according to it's level. The size of it perhaps can be rather large initially, 100kt, and eventually be miniturized to 10kt.


Basic statistics:
Levels: I-X(1-10)
Shielding: 10-100(Phased at level X.)
Mine Removal: 1-5(1 mine removable per 2 tech levels.)
Size: 100kt(LV.I) through 10kt(LV.X)
Cost: Unknown.
Tech Cost: Unknown
Design Limit: 1 per ship only.

Perhaps it can also be usable with the new Shield Mount, which should make it usable for smaller vessels.

[ March 07, 2004, 20:52: Message edited by: Sabin ]

[Fyron]

I do not believe that navigational deflectors are capable of handling mines.

[oogs]

I just remembered something that would make an interesting addition when you play (as/against)the borg: the population of captured planest is actually assimilated. By assimilated, I mean that the little icon on the right of the pop count gets replaced by a borg Version of it to indicate that the planet has been assimilated.

I honestly don't know if that's possible or not, i just thought it would be cool

[hicksz]

Atrocities

Thanks for the kind words. I was actually pretty worried putting any suggestion up when I saw that this discussion has 135 post. I just knew someone was going to jump on me saying,"Read post on page 65."

The sound issue was really buggin me so I started to experiment. Changing some of the components was easy but I ran into some problems in other areas. For instance, when you start a brand new game. You create your setup, playing map and choose your race. Then you hit the "Begin Game" button. You then hear the "close.wav". When SEIV Gold loads your starting location, you hear the "endturn.wav" file. What bummed me was I wanted to have a wav occur when you started a new game that had Captain Picard saying: "Welcome Abord!" or something like that but couldn't. I think when you load a saved game, it also plays the "close.wav". Also, I wish Aaron Hall added more modding ability with the the Command buttons (cmdbtn.wav) and the orders button (ordbtn.wav). I wanted to have a wav file with a ship going into warp when I hit the move button but couldn't because of one wav file for all order buttons. I still tried it but it didn't work as well as I wanted because when you hit the move button, the warp sound occured but that doesn't mean you actually move only that you are in the process of moving your ship so the immersion effect was lost there. It would work perfectly if the sound could occur after you choose to move your ship to a location.

Which brings me to the borg taunt. I knew the restrictions on the order and command buttons meant you couldn't use character or race voices and message in the main game so I gave Messages a try in battle and playing the borg race, I was wrestling with how to add their battle speeches into the game. So I decided to add the borg taunt. I really didn't want to add a weapon at first but I figure if I did it would be the "Increase Reload Time" damage type to further scare the defending ship. And it does work. When you use the Borg Taunt on a AI ship, they will run away from you until they can fire again. It really added to the battle atmosphere. I also used compoent pic 221 because of the grid futuristic speaker look.

Originally posted by Atrocities:
So any addon pack would have to add the new voice components to the END of the exsisting component list. I would also strongly suggest giving the component an AI_Tag number there for it can be included in the AI design, low priority.

If you want to use this design or alter it, feel free, this was just a suggestion for your game mod and something to make me feel more like I was in a Star Trek battle.

On a quick note: I notice your "Advance Tachyon Sensor" has a EM Active Scanning of 6. This is so cool, I didn't know (or miss reading in the mod tutorials) what the highest scanning level is. What is the highest scanning level you can have? Mines in the stock game are set to level 5 and I just assume that was the limit.

On the wav files, I can give you what I modded so far but I'm concern with your hotmail account becasue of the 2MB Inbox and 1MB attachment restriction. Just modding a few sound files came to 5.5 MB. When I tried to zip them, it really didn't compress them. So the options I'm thinking about are to send one wav file at a time and you E-mail me back when you have it so I'll send the next one. Although, I list my hotmail account on my profile, my DSL provided inbox can hold and send bigger files. So I would send the wav file to you from that account. Would it be possible to send you the files in mp3 format? Do you have a way to convert them to wav files? Although, I have other programs, I tend to use this freeware utility called rawavrecorder to convert form mp3 to wav for SEIV Gold and haven't had a problem. http://rawavrecorder.homestead.com
Some of the Star Fleet Command 3 sounds are in mp3 format. It's too bad I can't send you the whole sound folder from Star Fleet Command 3 but it comes in at a whopping 223MB. I'll start off by sending you the borgtaunt1.wav which comes in at 486kB zipped.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by oogs:
I just remembered something that would make an interesting addition when you play (as/against)the borg: the population of captured planest is actually assimilated. By assimilated, I mean that the little icon on the right of the pop count gets replaced by a borg Version of it to indicate that the planet has been assimilated.

I honestly don't know if that's possible or not, i just thought it would be cool

Unfortunately, it is not possible.

On a quick note: I notice your "Advance Tachyon Sensor" has a EM Active Scanning of 6. This is so cool, I didn't know (or miss reading in the mod tutorials) what the highest scanning level is. What is the highest scanning level you can have? Mines in the stock game are set to level 5 and I just assume that was the limit.

I would assume 255.

[ March 07, 2004, 22:34: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Aiken]

Btw, does this mean that with Adv Tachyon Sensors you will be able to see minefields?

Small note: I may be mistaken, but Cloak Level ability on Engine and Shield Generators mine warheads is unnecessary, because of the same ability on mine hull. Or it's a some kind of feature I've missed?

Edit: regarding Engine and Shield Generators mine warheads - they have to be fixed anyway:

Name := Engine Mine I-III (Shield Generators Mine I-III)
...
Ability 1 Type := Cloak Level
Ability 1 Descr := Prevents level 5 Active EM scans.
Ability 1 Val 1 := EM Active
Ability 1 Val 2 := 5
...
Ability 5 Type := Cloak Level
Ability 5 Descr := Prevents level 5 Temporal scans.
Ability 5 Val 1 := Temporal
Ability 5 Val 2 := 5

Actually, to prevent lvl X scanning the component needs Cloak Level X+1, so values have to be raised up to 6. (this can be horribly wrong if the comp cloaking ability works different when installed into the mine hull. If so, I'm very very sorry for buggin' you, guys).

Add: Sensors theme inspired me for some investigations and that's the results:

1. --------
Name := Warrior Combat Sensors I
...
Ability 1 Type := Sensor Level
Ability 1 Descr := Allows EM Active scanning at level 1.
Ability 1 Val 1 := EM Active
Ability 1 Val 2 := 1

AFAIK all ships have native ability of Lvl 1 EM active scanning, so this one is useless.

2. -----------
Name := Advanced Tachyon Sensors I
...
Ability 1 Type := Sensor Level
Ability 1 Descr := Allows EM Active scanning at level 7.
Ability 1 Val 1 := EM Active
Ability 1 Val 2 := 8 (7?)

3. -----------
Name := Advanced Tachyon Sensors II
...
Ability 1 Type := Sensor Level
Ability 1 Descr := Allows EM Active scanning at level 8.
Ability 1 Val 1 := EM Active
Ability 1 Val 2 := 9 (8?)

Sorry for huge post, just had so much to say

[ March 08, 2004, 00:45: Message edited by: aiken ]

[hicksz]

Atrocities

I just wanted to let you know that I am really impressed with your Star Trek Mod. I'm new to your Mod discussion post area so I apologies in advance if this has been discussed (and I don't have time to go through 135 pages of Posts) but I was wondering why you didn't include any sounds to the Star Trek Mod since this is a total conVersion? (Maybe you do have them and I'm just missing them?) Is it becuase of how much space it takes to store a large a group of wav files? I was just wondering. After playing your mod for a few turns, I just needed Star Trek sounds so I went through my other Star Trek PC games for a collection of sounds and discovered that Star Fleet Command III had the best collection. I added the cloak on/off sounds you hear in ST:TNG and the phaser and photon torpedo sounds too. Plus I added a couple of the star trek computer console sounds to the SEIV interface like close, button,cmdbtn, and endturn.
Plus I upgraded the ships explosion effects. That still wasn't enough so I broke out all of the Star Trek movie CD's I own and created a SEIV Gold Star Trek Music CD which contains:

ST II: Track 3 - Spock
ST II: Track 6 - Enterprise Clears Mooring
ST II: (Battle) Track 7 - Battle in the Mutara Nebula
ST II: Track 9 - Epilogue/End Title
ST III: Track 1 - Prologue and Main Title
ST III: Track 3 - Stealing the Enterprise
ST III: (Battle) Track 5 - Bird of Prey de-Cloaks
ST VII: Track 1 - Main Title
ST VIII: Track 1 - Main Title/Locutus
ST VIII: (Battle) - Track 9 - Dish
Plus a few of the SEIV GOLD music that I like.

I started playing the borg race and I have to say the cube ships look awesome but when I went into battle I felt like something was missing: the Borg voice shouting "This is the Borg." So I added this really quickly to your components folder as a test:

Name := Borg Taunt 1
Description := One of Many Borg Broadcast Messages to scare the defending ship's crew.
Pic Num := 221
Tonnage Space Taken := 5
Tonnage Structure := 5
Cost Minerals := 10
Cost Organics := 0
Cost Radioactives := 10
Vehicle Type := Ship\Base
Supply Amount Used := 0
Restrictions := None
General Group := Borg Weapons
Family := 2022
Roman Numeral := 1
Custom Group := 0
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Borg Ship Capture
Tech Level Req 1 := 1
Number of Abilities := 0
Weapon Type := Direct Fire
Weapon Target := Ships
Weapon Damage At Rng := 2 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage Type := Increase Reload Time
Weapon Reload Rate := 15
Weapon Display Type := Beam
Weapon Display := 101
Weapon Modifier := 0
Weapon Sound := BorgTaunt1.wav
Weapon Family := 120

The wav file says: "We are the Borg, surrender your vessel and prepare to be assilmulated."
It sounded great in battle but I notice there were a few restriction that had to place on this component. It has to be the Last weapon picked for either the AI or the player because the message will get cut off when the next weapons sound effect occured. I learned the hard way that the location of which weapon is fired first in battle is directly related to which weapon is picked first in the design window. Also the message is a little long which is also why it can get cut off when the AI ends its turn. But when I used it in battle, it sounded so sweet.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my experiences and thank you for creating this excellent mod. You really do feel immersed in the Star Trek universe.

[Atrocities]

From what I know, cloaking mines is pointless, but the concept that TNZ had come up with interested me enought to try em out. I figure if the cloaking part did not, or was not nessassary then I would simply remeove the ability.

[Fyron]

Why is cloaking mines pointless? If they are not cloaked, then the enemy can see them all...

What was that? You sign on #se4, then leave as soon as I say hi. Silly AT.

[ March 08, 2004, 01:10: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]