Star Trek Mod: Ideas, Interest, Help?

[TrekMod]

Hello,

I've been slowly working on a star trek mod for the past little while. I'm seeking maybe a bit of help and if you just want to post your ideas on what you want to see in it you can, though I do have a lot of things figured out, ideas never hurt.

If you wana help I need unit graphic people who know how to edit the flcs, maybe someone who wants to work on a webpage or anyone good with graphics. Liking star trek is pretty important too.

If your interested in helping out just send me an email at phil.s@shaw.ca telling me what you can/want to do.

 

[American Zealot]

I think that this sounds like the makings of a fantastic mod. Here are some ideas for the races.
- UFP (or do you want seperate races, like Human, Vulcan, Bolian...?)
- Klingon
- Romulan (that should be the easy one, Romulans are based on the Romans)
- Cardassian
- Borg
- Dominion
- Kazon (similair to Greeks I guess, the sects are kind of like city states)
- Andorian (what ever happened to them anyway?)
- Tholian (they supposedly had a large empire)
- Krenim

Thats just a few of the important races, but what are you planing for wonders? There are a lot of wonderous things in Star Trek. And do you plan to make it on a planet, or in space? So many questions!

Heres a few things of wonder mentioned in the show.
- The Dyson Sphere
- The Manheim Temporal Research Facility (was that actually in the show, or just in ST Armada?)
- The Omega Particle
- The Transwarp Hub
- The Bajoran Orb things
- That ball of water in space that Voyager found
- The Wormhole?
- Starfleet Academy

And the military units. What are your settlers going to be? Workers? You've got a lot of work ahead of you, but I'd be willing to help any way I can.

 

[TrekMod]

Well, there'll only be six empires.
Federation
Klingon
Romulan
Dominion
Cardassian
Ferengi

They all meet up for secret peace talks when - the Borg show up (surprise). The ships are forced to crash land on a planet, where they await rescue. Or will they have to launch themselves into space themselves again (how conveinient)?

The reason I dont want to include an additional 10 races is, well, it'll be hard enough designing specific units for every race. Also these are the main races, unless I missed one - sure everyone loves you know Andorians or the people from Episode 210 shown in minutes 12-16 but these races have been really fleshed out. If anyone has another race or two that would fit really good then feel free to put it in.

Also realilistic building names would be good, ones that will work for all 6 races.

 

[TrekMod]

I could use some help with the unit graphics

If anyone wants to help... lemme know

 

[Robespierre]

You trekkie fans are worthless geeks and have no life whatsoever.

Now I'm going to go back to my Civ-III computer game I spend way too much of my free time with, content that I have proven my superiority to you pathetic losers.

 

[Lavindathar]

Star Wars rules.

Not star trek.

make a star wars mod.

 

[CrayonX]

Dudes, the guy is asking for help on a mod. Give him a break.
If you cannot help, then just gracefully decline.

:fish: :fish: :fish: :fish: :fish: :fish:

 

[TrekMod]

So interest seems to be kinda split... nobody has offered to help either. Other games have had successful trek mods, are civ fans just not into it or ? There's been lots of views just not many votes, unless the same 17 people have looked at the forum like 15 times each.

If your not sure if you want one, hence the 4 votes in that column, make a post saying what you wana see. If you dont want one, just make your vote and go unless you have something constructive to say.

Still need a unit graphic helper.

Or if anyone wants to help with a website or anything else email me, phil.s@shaw.ca.

Right now the first tech tree has been designed and put into the game, some graphics changed, and a few units designed. Not much, but redesigning the tech tree isn't very easy using x and y coordinates. Got a new lcars background too.

 

[mfauzi]

Hmm.. not sure if I can be of much help here. I may be a trek fan, but I'm not too serious a trekkie. Anyway, as in the layout, why not make it like the MOO jr scenario from one of Civ II's expansion pack, Fantasy World? It'll be more interesting to be based on the star rather than a single planet

 

[Lavindathar]

Originally posted by CrayonX
Dudes, the guy is asking for help on a mod. Give him a break.
If you cannot help, then just gracefully decline.

:fish: :fish: :fish: :fish: :fish: :fish:

I wasnt dissin, i was just kiddin around.

I dont do mods, i just like adding the extra units.

When i can be bothered to make one, I'd help to anymod.

I just thought star wars wud be cool, even though I probs. wudnt play it!

 

[suchomimus]

Hang in there, baby!

There's only ten replies to your survey, and now, with my two bits thrown in, you've got a 50% "Killa Ideah" rating. Most Ad Executives would die for that kind of support!

Here's another 2 bits:
I've got PSP5 and modest skills using many of its features.
I haven't tried any animation yet, but can do some decent editting of stills.
I've got a website that's fallen into disuse (http://suchomimus.50megs.com) that I'm willing to re-create for a cool active project like this.

I've played several Trek/Wars mods of Civ2 that I felt re-invigorated my enjoyment for that version.
I only started playing Civ3 this week and can envision an incredible new experience with its new capabilities translated into a Trek Galaxy.

BTW, anyone ever see a trek/wars mod for 'Alpha Centauri'? I'm sad to see that Great Game on the $10 rack, but it's Tech Tree was quite obscure. It could have gotten more widely accepted if there were mods into other better known genres like Trek, or even back-working it be like Civ2 with better graphics.

Am I rambling? oh, I haven't even started!

 

[suchomimus]

Hang in there, baby!

~~~~~woops. . .unintentional duplication . . . soory . . .~~~~~~

Am I rambling? oh, I haven't even started!

 

[Gromit]

I have just copied the ENTIRE game to a new directory in order to do a complete conversion. Since someone else appears to have had a similar idea I thought I'd share some of mine.

Firstly, there are a couple of features in the editor that are 'friendly' to such an undertaking. These include:-

- The abilty to make ANY unit unique to ANY civ. If you played the TOT fantasy game then you'll appreciate why this is so good.

- It is also possible, with the new 'starting techs', to make vaguely seperate tech trees, for example - If the klingons start with Techs A,B,C and D, it is possible to make C require D and vice versa, this means that no-one else will ever be able to research them as they require eachother. So from there, you have two techs per civ to play around with in later Eras.

To clarify, I hope, let's say in era 4, the klingon player wants to research 'Tech Z'. It requires the general principles of 'Tech P' (available to all) and the klingon uniqueness of techs 'C' or 'D', Voila, you have a unique tech which may allow The Klingon Council (gov. type) or Great Hall (forbidden palace effect). Or as another example, let's say you want one advance (we'll call it 'K') to allow all the government buildings of all civs, but not all buildings to all civs. How you ask?

Klingon Military Academy For example (sun tzu effect) would require Tech 'C' rather than 'K' AND Dilithium (Strategic resource) for construction to begin.
Dilithium requires 'Tech K'. You follow?

I personally believe that a Star Trek mod isn't worth doing unless it has civ uniqueness as a major feature.

 

[Gromit]

Any help you need as far as ideas are concerned, I'm like... already there dude

 

[Gromit]

I edited 3 units in the units_32.pcx - let me know what you think (they are the first three)

 

[American Zealot]

Hmmm, I'll try to help any way I can, I'm not that great with altering files and stuff. I tried adding a wonder to my game once, and I ended up with a Hagia Sophia that took forever to build, had no civilopedia entry, looked like a pyramid, and gave you nearly instant cultural victory. Oh well. If you ever need help with ideas or documentation or something I can help.
Did you ever play Star Trek Birth of the Federation? Thats a great source of techs, buildings, ships, and wonders! I'll see if I can dig up my old copy, its actually a quite entertaining, and challenging game. Its a great civ substitute also.

<Update> I found an FAQ for STBOF, it lists all the race specific buildings and ships, and names all the minor races. A seemingly infinite source of inspiration!

Star Trek Birth of the Federation FAQ

 

[Gromit]

Wonderful Game!!!! another one of those 'Hmm... it's 7:00pm... I think I'll just play a few turns... OH NO!!! I'm late for work again!!!...' type games.

Good source of images too

 

[Wolfe Tone]

Great Idea.

Speaking of BOTF a group of people have got together and are beginning a sequel. If you are curious visit http://www.chessmess.com/ue it is still in development but it sounds promising:

 

[TrekMod]

First off, space ships won't be a big part of the game. The main reason is that you can't simulate planets very well. Sure water can be space and land planets, but the game isn't really built for that. It would look really cheesy also, and the way land is designed - well just look at a random map and pretend water is space and you'll see what I mean.

So those icons you had are really cool, except, spaceships won't really be in it. MAYBE late in the game, but I had this kind of evolution pictured:

era 1: Crash land. This era focuses on the crews salvaging technology and ideas. They start low tech, move up a little bit but basically stay rather primitive.
After that everything goes downhill in era 2 and then somewhere in era 3 they start getting techs again and ultimately launching back into space.

About civ specificness, it's very civ specific almost every unit will be. Buildings, some will be some won't be.
I think that answered every question/comment.

As for the graphics, well, mostly it'll be soldiers (ie. Jem'Hadar Warrior, Cardassian Soldier, etc.) and eventually it'll work its way up from there. Air units will be shuttles/runabouts without space capability probably. If anyone has any ideas how to incorporate starships into the thing that would be cool, everyone wants to see big ships but i dont see how it would work.

 

[suchomimus]

I could see both possibilities, but either would really require a different engine for best simulation. Going with the Civ3 engine, one would need to apply a certain amount of "self-immersion" in the experience.

The mod I played in Civ2 was by Mr_Do@hotmail.com. He painted "land" tiles as planets and stars, "ocean" as black space. (I was bored w/ so much black, added touches of blue & violet). Maps have to be carefully designed for such a scheme -- a clump of many 'stars' together would be impassible to 'spaceships', and solitary 'planets' makes for slow growth & expansion.

The other option, playing trek characters on a single planet, would be similar to "Star Wars - Galactic Battlegrounds".
have you played the demo of that yet? I found it to be quite enjoyable, and the head-to-head internet play was the first I've ever had no lag problems with at all. Still, I don't feel it's $40 worth of fun. Maybe $25. It really is little more than a 'mod' or expansion of AoE2. Although the developers liscenced the AoE engine, they did not alter it quite enough to completely convince you you're on a 'Star Wars' planet.

Can we do a convincing alteration to Civ3? We will not know until we try, therefore we must try so that we may be able to know.

Seems this could be quite some project, thus should be organised to prevent duplication or conflict in efforts or having essential components overlooked. I suggest that TrekMod should outline the essential tasks and assign talent to develope those tasks.