Star Trek Mod: Ideas, Interest, Help?

[TrekMod]

Grommit said that you could have A rquire B and vice versa, that doesn't really work. The editor wont let that happen. I had a similar idea for unique techs, but I set the eras of techs to None and gave it as a starting tech. What else would the use of the None era be? But it didnt work, and I emailed firaxis and they said the patch would fix that. And it didnt. ANd they didnt email me back afterwards. Stupid infograms or whoever it is.

As for A requiring B and vice versa I did try it just to check but it doesn't work.

If I cant get techs to be exclusive to certain civs I'm thikning about just making it so certain gov types are more desireable. So you COULD be a federation and play it as the klingon government with klingon buildings, but, why would you be the federatin then? Of course this would be more civish, letting you pick a starting civ and do what you want with them. So maybe thats even a good idea? Some civ specific stuff is important, ie. units, but governments and buildings - the whole point of civilization is to create not to just relive. Right?

I dunno I'll put it out there, opinions are good.

 

[TrekMod]

Ok I figured out what I'm gonna do. In era 1, each civ (of 6) has 2 unique techs. All 12 of these are optional. The first for each civ has a massive cost to research. The second has a normal cost. There's one tech in the era that must be researched before it proceeds, so it'll take 2 turns or so before you hit era 2 in the game. This wastes an era, but it means that

1) Empires will get free their own unique starting tech, allowing them to research the second or wait

2) Empires can research other empires uniqueness, but that can happen in normal star trek. Why cant humans get klingon honor? It'll take LOTS of time though and therefore isn't feasable until later in the game, again when it becomes more realilistic.

If anyone wants to help make icons for the new techs just post a msg saying sure I'll try or something and I'll list the confirmed names of some techs. I dont care what the icons are, just as long as they look like.. kinda.. what they should.

 

[Gumby3000]

Well I wish you good luck with your mod. Looking forward to it. Are you gonna make it totally star trek?

 

[TrekMod]

Yes, it will be complete star trek. What else would you like to see mixed in with trek ?

It's pretty much designed. Is six races too little? Dominion, Ferengi, Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Cardassian.

I could use some help at the moment with icons for some of the techs. If you want to make some/find some which are appropiate just post them here or e-mail them to phil.s@shaw.ca.

They can be original or just minimized pictures of other trek stuff, I dont care, as long as its appropiate to the tech. Also, don't use images that are empire-specific ie. federation pictures, klingon pictures unless it's really appropiate for the tech. All you need to know is the right sizes for the tech icons to do this, so not much knowledge is required. The techs I need icons for are:

Salvage Operations, Data Recovery, Chain of Command, Survival, Component Reusal, Universal Translator, Combat Skills, Recreation, Medical Theory, Chain of Command, Rationing, Planetary Communications, Defensive Skills, Officer Training, Crude Energy Weapons, Leadership, Energy Cannon, and Expansion.

Those are also all the techs for era 2 (I think that's all of them).

Any comments on these techs is welcome as well.

 

[American Zealot]

I made this wonder image to see what you guys thought. I'm willing to make other images, I kind of made this to see that I could, but I thought you deserved to see my work.

 

[TrekMod]

Hey american zealot. Absolutely fantastic. The only thing I'd like to see is the removal of the starfleet man, just because again all empires can build it. If you can give me an e-mail we can talk about other screens/graphics maybe you could work on, if you like of course.

I haven't even started on the buildings/wonders yet (well only a few) so I'm not ready for your image yet but I'll certainly remember it when I get there. Good good good.

So yeah give me an email phil.s@shaw.ca

 

[Domination]

Hello From Domination!

I'm new to Civ3 but when i've learnt how to mod properly i'll be glad to try to make some graphics and give some ideas

P.S i think a trek mod for civ3 is a great idea

 

[jackjfg]

I was hoping to see at least the Borg in the mod plans. There are a bunch of other races that could be added (Vulcans, Andorians, etc.), but it appears TrekMod is doing it alone, and ANY work done along these lines will be much appreciated!

I wish I could help out, but I've hardly had time to play the game, never mind figure out how to use the editor. I thought it would be neat to create a Borg civ with a really tough unique unit that would go on the warpath to try to "assimilate" the other civs in the game.

 

[TrekMod]

There's no point in having 10 other minor races like the Andorians and whatnot because we only know a few units. If I'm going to make up units for 10 races, what's the point in it being trek?

Besides, races are having many specific units so needing special graphics for an additional 10 isnt feasable.

I'm not doing this alone, people have emailed me offering to help.

And the borg are involved. The borg interrupt secret meetings between the six races and cause their ships to crash, but one borg ship goes down too. The borg serve as barbarians in the game.

They wont be able to assimilate since, well, that ability isn't a part of the game. But they will be tougher than the current barbarians.

 

[kobayashi]

Well I guess us Civ2 era scenario authors could have their moment in glory for only so long. Galloping across the cosmos is a game for the Young. You have the con now Mr. TrekMod....and God speed.

 

[sharpneli]

If you really do want to make anykinds of mods you should remember that the designing new unit is fairly easy (How strong it is when attacking etc...) but the unit graphics are another thing. One of you said "I have PSP5". Yes you can do CIV2 style unit with it but if you want a unit even close to ones in CIV3 you need a 3d modelling program like 3dSMax. The original CIV3 units are also 3d rendered and designed 3d modelling program. And modelling a decent unit with it needs weeks, if not months of work from one person. So think about this before starting a big mod project.

 

[TrekMod]

Designing new units isn't fairly easy for one thing.
Graphics do take time, but, designing a tech tree and unit stats arent that easy.

Sure you can say the klingon is 5-2-1 and then the jem'hadar is 6-2-1 and so on but when you start factoring in other races and techs and so on and so forth things become complicated. This isn't a one person mod, it's a whoever wants to help out help out mod.

Anyway sharpneli, you seem pretty knowledgeable so if you wana help model some units drop me a line.

Same for you kobayashi, if u wana try making some units lemme know.

 

[kobayashi]

Have to decline. Civ3 is beyond me. Good Luck.

 

[sharpneli]

whoops. You can do one frame units (Civ2 style) in Civ3. And i believe most mods will use units made with this style. Although 3d rendered enterprise (4/4/?) would be cool. Rendering starships is fairly easy. I have done few of those just for fun but humans or other living beings are the difficult ones.
Perhaps the biggest problem are the flc files, cause they are non standard and their header contains some information about how many directions the unit is shown etc. Firaxis should publish some sort of flc converter wich would allow editing the information of how many frames and so forth....
btw. i might render or draw few starships if i could just find my 3dsmax cd from that pile of trash on my table
(Sorry about my bad english... My english grade in highschool is B...)

 

[Eugenevdebs]

This crash landing idea that you have was played out in at least a few CIV2 mods if you want to look at them and have CIV2. I know this one has Cardassians versus Bajorans on Bajor, I'm not sure but I think some of the icons and building names can be used. Maybe I'll look through it and make a list so you don't have to. That hopefully can go a long way towards the Cardassian race at least.

Also it might be nice to include a Nonaligned Races civ with a permanently weak government or something so that the other empires can slowly envelop them. This happened in BOTF, though they are different small CIVS. I guess lots of Barbarians might do the trick though.

-By the way, anyone who has played BOTF: have you ever won? I always get to the point where I am super powerful and able to conquer the entire galaxy, but then the game tries to balance me by destroying all my ships and mutilating all my systems with pirates and stuff. The production system in that game is all whacked out too.

 

[Yanni_2k]

Start Trek mod is definately a great idea and good to see that you are taking time to do a thorough job, any idea as to when it'll be finished though?