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[Agent327]

Cool! Sure I want to use it for patch4l. Go ahead and post it.

 

[Agent327]

Also, I have some custom intro music, but no start screen as of yet. Any suggestion will be welcome (not on how to create one, but one to use).

 

[TC01]

Cool! Sure I want to use it for patch4l. Go ahead and post it.

Alright, I've posted it in the Wormholes thread.

I don't really intend to do much more work in Wormholes, maybe other then update it to the next Star Trek version or if we get a BTS 3.2x patch of some sort. I was considering adding a handful of scenarios where the map was divided by a barrier of nebula, and you had to use Wormholes to cross them, but that's about it.

 

[Agent327]

Thanks again. Actually, that's an intesting scenario idea: it might also be useful in order to try and include the Antarans (currently barbs/pirates), who're supposed to be accessible through Dimensional Portals only. (That would require quite a small map portion only, to fit the Antares star system.) So, by all means, go ahead!

 

[Arakhor]

You'd need to make the nebula thick enough to maintain fog-of-war around the Antaran dimension. I'd like to see the MoO dating system instead of months and years. It would certainly be more authentic!

How about some MoO wallpaper as the intro screen? I've attached one to this post.

 

[Agent327]

I agree. Thanks for the Wallpaper suggestion, BTW - should have thought of that myself...

 

[Minor Annoyance]

...I'd like to see the MoO dating system instead of months and years. It would certainly be more authentic!
...

MoO2 turns were actually one tenth of a year, so going by months is actually closer to MoO2 than years would be.

 

[Agent327]

Hmm, yes... I was wondering more about the designation, but 1/10 of a year might pose a problem with dating...

 

[Agent327]

BTW (just thought of this playtesting them), I don't suppose you know of a way to give the Elerians a map-reveal-ability?

 

[Arakhor]

I thought that that was the easy one, seeing as one of the FfH races has the omniscience ability?

 

[Minor Annoyance]

BTW (just thought of this playtesting them), I don't suppose you know of a way to give the Elerians a map-reveal-ability?

I just tested it and giving a civ a starting technology with

            <bMapVisible>1</bMapVisible>

set will reveal the whole map. It doesn't let you see units or cities though.
You'd also have to set the cost of the technology to -1 which means it can't be researched.

            <iCost>-1</iCost>
            <iAdvancedStartCost>-1</iAdvancedStartCost>

Also to keep it from being traded, you'd need to set it to untradeable.

            <bTrade>0</bTrade>

So if you create a technology with all that set and give it as a starting tech to the Elerians that would do it.

 

[Agent327]

Cool. So a tech called ELERIAN_ABILITY with those attributes would do the trick. Can those lines be included as is or do they need to be inserted at specific places, do you know?

 

[Minor Annoyance]

They're standard fields in every tech entry so if you copy an entry and change everything they'll be in the right place.

 

[Agent327]

Good to know.

I'm also thinking the Elerians should get a free Space Academy in every star system to simulate their piloting skills.

 

[Arakhor]

Well then the Alkari certainly should as well. They're natural pilots, after all.

 

[Agent327]

Umm... no, the only Alkari ability currently not in place is Artefact Homeworld (that is, it is simulated by +10 science; they also get +40% defense and free promotions for multiple ship designs). The Elerians are the only race with no ability as yet. (They only get free promotions for recon units.)

EDIT: If possible (+10% research seems a bit overdone) the Alkari should rather get 1-2 free techs to start with.

 

[Arakhor]

That's fair enough, but obviously many of the racial abilities are very similar.

 

[Agent327]

In Civ-terms perhaps, but I'd say NCCSavage has done a fair job of translating most MOO-specific racial abilities to Civ IV. More finetuning is ofcourse always possible.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Regarding an artifact homeworld, that could be done by having a palace unique building that adds to science. It wouldn't technically be the homeworld with the artifacts since you can move the palace, but it's close to the original effect.

One other possible ability for Elerian's is their mind control of colonies. Now it couldn't be done in as interesting as was as in the original, but there is something that could work. Mind controlled colonies never revolt and there is a field in the promotion entries called iRevoltProtection. It's not actually used in the regular game but I checked the code it is written to use it. Anyway this changes that chance of a city going into revolt because of cultural influence. It's works as a percentage so if iRevoltProtection was set to 50 and a cities change of revolt was six then it would be half that, three. So you could give the Elerian promotion revolt protection and they would mind control captured citizens to keep working without a large number of unit needed to counter foreign culture.

 

[TC01]

Thanks again. Actually, that's an intesting scenario idea: it might also be useful in order to try and include the Antarans (currently barbs/pirates), who're supposed to be accessible through Dimensional Portals only. (That would require quite a small map portion only, to fit the Antares star system.) So, by all means, go ahead!

You'd need to make the nebula thick enough to maintain fog-of-war around the Antaran dimension.

Don't know if you'd want to do this, but you could create a "Dimensional Portal" feature and have barbarian units belonging to the Antarans spawn on those tiles. It could be another wormhole recolor. It wouldn't allow access to the Antares system. However, you could make a scenario with a region of space blocked off with the dimensional portals leading to another dimensional portal in that blocked off region.