sepamu92
Prince
If you leave it blank in the editor it won't have a civilopedia entry.
Star Trek mod - The Next Generation!
- Thread starter Flamand
- Start date
If you leave it blank in the editor it won't have a civilopedia entry.
What programs do you use to create a lot of the units ? 3DS Max ? Modo ? Lightwave 3D ?
I'm just going into the second year of my digital art and animation course at uni and would like to think that this kind of thing would be a great idea to train up. I'm between a beginner and intermediate at this point, of course I've still got lots to learn but, perhaps if any of the animators and modellers who worked on this project have any free time they could maybe drop me a line and we could talk about the sort of thing I need help with like skelegons, and UV mapping etc.
Anyway, just about to try the mod. As a Star Trek geek this looks promising. Sounds like you've done great work thus far.
Thanks, Ross
P.S. I have over 6 years of experience in digital art and graphic design, so if I'm needed for UV maps, logos, layouts etc. I'd be more than happy to help.
I'm just going into the second year of my digital art and animation course at uni and would like to think that this kind of thing would be a great idea to train up. I'm between a beginner and intermediate at this point, of course I've still got lots to learn but, perhaps if any of the animators and modellers who worked on this project have any free time they could maybe drop me a line and we could talk about the sort of thing I need help with like skelegons, and UV mapping etc.
Anyway, just about to try the mod. As a Star Trek geek this looks promising. Sounds like you've done great work thus far.
Thanks, Ross
P.S. I have over 6 years of experience in digital art and graphic design, so if I'm needed for UV maps, logos, layouts etc. I'd be more than happy to help.
Daniel Khan
Bail Baby Bail
Speaking of pollution, it needs to be turned way down. When you get into TOS era, many AI civs (presumably lacking workers in those systems) have entire systems covered over with pollution until the human player "liberates" them and cleans 'em up.
Somebody before mentioned the AI using ships to bombard as support for a ground invasion. I have never witnessed this, only random "drive-by" bombardings that have nothing to do with an invasion.
As for being able to build other civs' units, I once conquered Romulus as the Borg, expecting to be able to build their ships, but I wasn't able to. Maybe it's just the Borg that can't, though you'd think that they'd be the most interested in assimilating starship designs.
The good part about the Colonization Program as it stands now, is that it paces expansion. In one game, I am almost to the TNG era, and I just discovered a system that hadn't been colonized yet. That's great. I think if you go the normal settlers route, that rapid expansion would take over, and everywhere would be covered up before you even got to TOS era.
In addition to making conquest near-impossible, the dozens-of-ground-units-in-a-system thing really slows the game down. Maybe making transports cheaper might help. Overall, I'd like to see the AI build more ships anyway, it's Star Trek, that's the whole point.
Is it possible to make the Borg be in a locked war with everybody? That would certainly make them far more fearful, as they were intended to be.
Somebody before mentioned the AI using ships to bombard as support for a ground invasion. I have never witnessed this, only random "drive-by" bombardings that have nothing to do with an invasion.
As for being able to build other civs' units, I once conquered Romulus as the Borg, expecting to be able to build their ships, but I wasn't able to. Maybe it's just the Borg that can't, though you'd think that they'd be the most interested in assimilating starship designs.
The good part about the Colonization Program as it stands now, is that it paces expansion. In one game, I am almost to the TNG era, and I just discovered a system that hadn't been colonized yet. That's great. I think if you go the normal settlers route, that rapid expansion would take over, and everywhere would be covered up before you even got to TOS era.
In addition to making conquest near-impossible, the dozens-of-ground-units-in-a-system thing really slows the game down. Maybe making transports cheaper might help. Overall, I'd like to see the AI build more ships anyway, it's Star Trek, that's the whole point.
Is it possible to make the Borg be in a locked war with everybody? That would certainly make them far more fearful, as they were intended to be.
Lamabreeder
Chieftain
- Joined
- May 11, 2004
- Messages
- 54
It took me a bit longer than expected to assemble the unit stats from the .biq, but now I can present you my first suggestion at unit tweaking. Please see the zip archive attached. It contains three Excel/Calc spreadheets. They are done with OpenOffice but stored in Excel file format, so hopefully opening is not a problem for you.
The first file, Star Trek Units, is a list of the units as they are currently contained in the .biq. I did not import all units: I did not find barbs or other irregular units interesting. The units of all main players are completely contained, however.
The second file, Star Trek Units 2, contains the same units, however arranged by function and era to give a better overview of the ships available to the different civs at different times. With this overview it is for example quite easy to realize that unit distribution is uneven. I.e. the Klingons lack later units, while the Cardassians lack early units. This is certainly explainable by looking in which shows the respective Races were featured most, but still I think this needs some balancing. The roles attributed to the ships seem quite random at times, too, with Destroyers and Command ships sometimes having nearly the same values (i.e. Steamrunner and Galaxy). In addition some race modifiers seem to me not very sensible, for instance the fact that Dominion units have generally one hit point less (including the big and powerful Battleship!), while the Jem'Hadar ground units have a Movement of 2, giving them the possibility to retreat when losing, which is not justifiable by anything within the show. To the contrary, the Jem'Hadar are among those fighters least likely to ever retreat: "Victory is Life!"
The third file, Star Trek Units Workshop, contains my own suggestion for the units. I did not tweak the units individually. In fact I did not touch the stat of even a single unit. Instead I created a small set of relatively simple formulas which calculate all necessary stats out of Race, Role and Era. I did explain these formulas in detail in the file, so I hope that whoever is interested in what I have done will not have too much difficulties understanding them. The formulas use a lot of parameters which can be easily changed. For instance modifiers for every role or race. So even if you do not like the parameters that I have used you could still use the formulas with different parameters.
I did tweak the units I found in the file. However, it might be sensible to modify the unit selection since it is a little bit uneven distributed as I stated earlier and you can see for yourself. I did not try to correct this at the moment, I was solely concerned with the existing units.
---
My suggestions rely on the following assumptions: There are no shuttles (anymore), the only units are ground units and space ships. Now my idea is that bombardement is used mainly to damage ground, not space units. To meet this end I made the unit stats of ground units significantly smaller than those of space units. Bombardement strength was reduced as well, so that the chance to damage a space ship is small, to damage a ground unit fairly high. My next suggestion is to make bombardement lethal to land units, but only to them, and to also reduce their hit points, to make bombarding them even more effective.
My next idea is to roughly divide units into small attackers and defenders as well as big attackers and defenders. Additionally scouts and transports, of course. Small attackers and defenders are the standard ships for a given era, with the small defenders having the same (small) attack and defense value, while the attackers have a higher attack but a lower defense. The big versions have a bit higher stats and an additional hitpoint, but are much more expensive than the small versions. My aim is to make it cost efficient to rely mainly on the small types and only occasionally build a big version, where the extra firepower or defense is needed. This matches roughly the distribution of Cruiser, Destroyer, Command Ship and Warship. Only the Heavy Cruiser is not matched directly, but I think while this differentiation is nice, it is not really useful, given the limited amount of different ship designs.
I gave the bombard ability exclusively to small defenders, who now have the additional role to prepare ground invasions. The big attackers have additionally the blitz ability. Giving the small ships bombard ability and the big ones blitz has two nice effects: Lots of small ships can now destroy big ones effectively: Their (when applied to space ships) inefficent bombardement ability can nevertheless finally reduce the big ship to a level where it can finally be destroyed in a direct attack. The big ship on the other hand has the ability to take out several smaller ones within one turn, making a strategy possible where one relies only on the big guns, which would not be possible otherwise: One would simply and unrealistcly run out of attacks, no matter how much superior the own fireower would be. I did however carefully avoid giving a unit both blitz and bombarding abilities, because I think this not only overpowers units but also does not reflect the Star Trek space fight situation where space ships engaged in fighting always damage each other. The bombardement ability of small ships however reflect the situation where more small vessels attack a big one than it can handle at the same time.
I did not try to reinvent the units, I tried to use what I found without destroying the spirit of what had been done before.
The first file, Star Trek Units, is a list of the units as they are currently contained in the .biq. I did not import all units: I did not find barbs or other irregular units interesting. The units of all main players are completely contained, however.
The second file, Star Trek Units 2, contains the same units, however arranged by function and era to give a better overview of the ships available to the different civs at different times. With this overview it is for example quite easy to realize that unit distribution is uneven. I.e. the Klingons lack later units, while the Cardassians lack early units. This is certainly explainable by looking in which shows the respective Races were featured most, but still I think this needs some balancing. The roles attributed to the ships seem quite random at times, too, with Destroyers and Command ships sometimes having nearly the same values (i.e. Steamrunner and Galaxy). In addition some race modifiers seem to me not very sensible, for instance the fact that Dominion units have generally one hit point less (including the big and powerful Battleship!), while the Jem'Hadar ground units have a Movement of 2, giving them the possibility to retreat when losing, which is not justifiable by anything within the show. To the contrary, the Jem'Hadar are among those fighters least likely to ever retreat: "Victory is Life!"
The third file, Star Trek Units Workshop, contains my own suggestion for the units. I did not tweak the units individually. In fact I did not touch the stat of even a single unit. Instead I created a small set of relatively simple formulas which calculate all necessary stats out of Race, Role and Era. I did explain these formulas in detail in the file, so I hope that whoever is interested in what I have done will not have too much difficulties understanding them. The formulas use a lot of parameters which can be easily changed. For instance modifiers for every role or race. So even if you do not like the parameters that I have used you could still use the formulas with different parameters.
I did tweak the units I found in the file. However, it might be sensible to modify the unit selection since it is a little bit uneven distributed as I stated earlier and you can see for yourself. I did not try to correct this at the moment, I was solely concerned with the existing units.
---
My suggestions rely on the following assumptions: There are no shuttles (anymore), the only units are ground units and space ships. Now my idea is that bombardement is used mainly to damage ground, not space units. To meet this end I made the unit stats of ground units significantly smaller than those of space units. Bombardement strength was reduced as well, so that the chance to damage a space ship is small, to damage a ground unit fairly high. My next suggestion is to make bombardement lethal to land units, but only to them, and to also reduce their hit points, to make bombarding them even more effective.
My next idea is to roughly divide units into small attackers and defenders as well as big attackers and defenders. Additionally scouts and transports, of course. Small attackers and defenders are the standard ships for a given era, with the small defenders having the same (small) attack and defense value, while the attackers have a higher attack but a lower defense. The big versions have a bit higher stats and an additional hitpoint, but are much more expensive than the small versions. My aim is to make it cost efficient to rely mainly on the small types and only occasionally build a big version, where the extra firepower or defense is needed. This matches roughly the distribution of Cruiser, Destroyer, Command Ship and Warship. Only the Heavy Cruiser is not matched directly, but I think while this differentiation is nice, it is not really useful, given the limited amount of different ship designs.
I gave the bombard ability exclusively to small defenders, who now have the additional role to prepare ground invasions. The big attackers have additionally the blitz ability. Giving the small ships bombard ability and the big ones blitz has two nice effects: Lots of small ships can now destroy big ones effectively: Their (when applied to space ships) inefficent bombardement ability can nevertheless finally reduce the big ship to a level where it can finally be destroyed in a direct attack. The big ship on the other hand has the ability to take out several smaller ones within one turn, making a strategy possible where one relies only on the big guns, which would not be possible otherwise: One would simply and unrealistcly run out of attacks, no matter how much superior the own fireower would be. I did however carefully avoid giving a unit both blitz and bombarding abilities, because I think this not only overpowers units but also does not reflect the Star Trek space fight situation where space ships engaged in fighting always damage each other. The bombardement ability of small ships however reflect the situation where more small vessels attack a big one than it can handle at the same time.
I did not try to reinvent the units, I tried to use what I found without destroying the spirit of what had been done before.
Lamabreeder
Chieftain
- Joined
- May 11, 2004
- Messages
- 54
sepamu92, I think yours are very good suggestions!
I second (or third?) Ninja Flick's and Daniel Khan's request concerning pollution; I would also like to see it a little bit reduced or otherwise the pollution cleaning much less time consuming. The sun not being cleanable also very much hurts my astethic feelings: I like to be able to completely remove pollution.
In addition, in so many episodes star ships flew into the corona of the sun to gain a tactical advantage that I cannot really follow the argument that it should not be possible to enter the sun tile. I would find it logical if you could step on it, but it was a water/space tile, consumed your movement and gave you a defense bonus.
On a related topic, I observed that the AI mines everything, which makes sense for it, since it generally mines all fields mineable which produce very much food. Since, however, the water tiles do not produce any food at all (until much later), the AIs will possibly not get all out of their cities this way. I suggest making some fields (i.e. the Asteroids) not minable. Then the AI will have to irrigate and will get bigger cities. And they get a little less shields in the beginning, which honestly is a good thing, they have too much anyway, especially since they normally buy their units (and they already have too much money).
A propos money: Please don't make the Tellarites special wonder give them more trade. This way, they can put it into science, when the Tellarites were not depicted as being especially advanced in ENT. Just give them more taxes from it.
And concerning Logitech's and Daniel Khan's statements regarding the Colonization program, I tend to agree with Daniel Khan here, one of the benefits of the Colonization program is indeed the slower pacing of expansion and the need to carefuly select city sites with regard to possible ressource occurences (which I already mentioned earlier). The most benefit give settlers to the gameplay in the very start, because they force to make crucial strategical choices, not later on, where expanding can be done in addition to doing other things. So I do not really think that it is beneficial to the game if Settlers are added later on.
Daniel Khan, you might be correct with your observation that the AI does not use ships to bombard cities prior to invasion. I, too, have never seen this behaviour in the regular game. Since I play with animations off, I really haven't seen what exactly happened. I just deduced that the AI used bombardement in this way in this mod because it was able to repeatedly (at least four times) conquer a city of mine with two 1.1.1 defenders in it with only their standard arsenal of ships: one transport and three fighters. Conquering my cities with just their two 1.2.1 infantry attackers from the transport four times in a row seemed to me a bit unlikely to having achieved it without additional bombardement.
I hope you do not mind me having posted two times in a row. I wanted to seperate my unit tweaking suggestion from my other commenting.
I second (or third?) Ninja Flick's and Daniel Khan's request concerning pollution; I would also like to see it a little bit reduced or otherwise the pollution cleaning much less time consuming. The sun not being cleanable also very much hurts my astethic feelings: I like to be able to completely remove pollution.
In addition, in so many episodes star ships flew into the corona of the sun to gain a tactical advantage that I cannot really follow the argument that it should not be possible to enter the sun tile. I would find it logical if you could step on it, but it was a water/space tile, consumed your movement and gave you a defense bonus.
On a related topic, I observed that the AI mines everything, which makes sense for it, since it generally mines all fields mineable which produce very much food. Since, however, the water tiles do not produce any food at all (until much later), the AIs will possibly not get all out of their cities this way. I suggest making some fields (i.e. the Asteroids) not minable. Then the AI will have to irrigate and will get bigger cities. And they get a little less shields in the beginning, which honestly is a good thing, they have too much anyway, especially since they normally buy their units (and they already have too much money).
A propos money: Please don't make the Tellarites special wonder give them more trade. This way, they can put it into science, when the Tellarites were not depicted as being especially advanced in ENT. Just give them more taxes from it.
And concerning Logitech's and Daniel Khan's statements regarding the Colonization program, I tend to agree with Daniel Khan here, one of the benefits of the Colonization program is indeed the slower pacing of expansion and the need to carefuly select city sites with regard to possible ressource occurences (which I already mentioned earlier). The most benefit give settlers to the gameplay in the very start, because they force to make crucial strategical choices, not later on, where expanding can be done in addition to doing other things. So I do not really think that it is beneficial to the game if Settlers are added later on.
Daniel Khan, you might be correct with your observation that the AI does not use ships to bombard cities prior to invasion. I, too, have never seen this behaviour in the regular game. Since I play with animations off, I really haven't seen what exactly happened. I just deduced that the AI used bombardement in this way in this mod because it was able to repeatedly (at least four times) conquer a city of mine with two 1.1.1 defenders in it with only their standard arsenal of ships: one transport and three fighters. Conquering my cities with just their two 1.2.1 infantry attackers from the transport four times in a row seemed to me a bit unlikely to having achieved it without additional bombardement.
I hope you do not mind me having posted two times in a row. I wanted to seperate my unit tweaking suggestion from my other commenting.
Logitech
A Person.
Ok, first I want to say to JMX that any Trekish GFX is very much appreciated and I'm glad to see that your interested in making units. Right now, the only people we've got working on units are Ruby Sauce and Flamand, both I nave not seen around here for a while. You'll have to talk with flamand and ask him what units he has not made.
Now, back to this in-depth discussion about the Colonization Program:
OK, ok, I'm convinced. We'll keep the way it is. That's what you are saying, right?
Pollution: I was not previously aware of the polluted star tile problem, but I will certainly enable workers to move onto star tiles. As for AI, I'm not sure what could be causing that. I guess some testing is in order!
AI science: I too noticed that many AI got way ahead of me in science, esp. in ENT era. It will be one of the first things to be changed.
AI Mine bloom: I think it isn't a major problem, but I will address terrain with food-shield-commerce balencing in mind.
And for Resource-specific units, I will delete them and make room for better things.
@Lamabreeder: What on earth do you have against Shuttles? Why delete them? I'd much rather just turn them off so that I can revise there exact uses at a later time, uses like recon, interception, and short-range 'attacks'.
And now: I'm going to read those documents...
Now, back to this in-depth discussion about the Colonization Program:
OK, ok, I'm convinced. We'll keep the way it is. That's what you are saying, right?
Pollution: I was not previously aware of the polluted star tile problem, but I will certainly enable workers to move onto star tiles. As for AI, I'm not sure what could be causing that. I guess some testing is in order!
AI science: I too noticed that many AI got way ahead of me in science, esp. in ENT era. It will be one of the first things to be changed.
AI Mine bloom: I think it isn't a major problem, but I will address terrain with food-shield-commerce balencing in mind.
And for Resource-specific units, I will delete them and make room for better things.
@Lamabreeder: What on earth do you have against Shuttles? Why delete them? I'd much rather just turn them off so that I can revise there exact uses at a later time, uses like recon, interception, and short-range 'attacks'.
And now: I'm going to read those documents...
Logitech
A Person.
Hey, I also want to know what you guys think about the Delphic Expanse and the Xindi being deleted. I hate the whole season 3 of ENT solely because it is never mentioned in any other trek. (I know the NX-01 itself isn't either, but this is the kind of event you'ld think humans would be talking about 50 - 300 years in the future, wheras I can see that the NX-01 would become a kind of school resource for elementry-level and not mentioned much). Info from the other seasons will still be in the mod.
Daniel Khan
Bail Baby Bail
I like having the Xindi, though you might put them somewhere else so the Romulans and Klingons have a border.
Logitech
A Person.
Ok, I've got some time to work on the Trek Mod this weekend 
rockon. So far I've added some gfx features to open space terrain, to make ship death less likely. 
But I want to know if you guys think it's a good idea to have the planetary systems discovered in Real Life to be put in with the Trek star systems on the XL map. I think this would be a very good map improvement and game balencing method. The kind of systems I have in mind to add are ones like Gliese 876 and GL 521, mostly ones that have multiple planets, preferably other than just gas giants. What do you guys think?
rockon. So far I've added some gfx features to open space terrain, to make ship death less likely. But I want to know if you guys think it's a good idea to have the planetary systems discovered in Real Life to be put in with the Trek star systems on the XL map. I think this would be a very good map improvement and game balencing method. The kind of systems I have in mind to add are ones like Gliese 876 and GL 521, mostly ones that have multiple planets, preferably other than just gas giants. What do you guys think?
Daniel Khan
Bail Baby Bail
Ok, I've got some time to work on the Trek Mod this weekend
Yes, please do. I recently lost a good portion of of one of my battle fleets because of that issue, including a certain famous Constitution-class vessel.
That would be a nice touch.
Logitech
A Person.
Just to give you guys an update: I'm puting alot of effort into the map right now, and I've got most of the Local Group of stars in place. I'm also finishing up terrain gfx, but I'll never know when I'm done...
I'm also going to add the units ruby sauce and flamand made for us after the last version upload and before their disapearences. :\
I wish I could make everyone happy concerning the xindi. All I can say, though, is that I'll be testing ways to let the player select whether or not they want the xindi on their map in game setup. I'm not sure if it'll be successful, but I'm going to try.
I'm also going to add the units ruby sauce and flamand made for us after the last version upload and before their disapearences. :\
I wish I could make everyone happy concerning the xindi. All I can say, though, is that I'll be testing ways to let the player select whether or not they want the xindi on their map in game setup. I'm not sure if it'll be successful, but I'm going to try.
Flamand
The Visible Elder!
Logitech
A Person.
Ok, cool. No more Q, and Xindi I'm leaning towards giving the boot. Thanks flamand!
No more Q, and Xindi I'm leaning towards giving the boot. Thanks flamand!Daniel Khan
Bail Baby Bail
The Q are just annoying and purposeless. I like having a powerful enemy in the first era in the Xindi, though.
Logitech
A Person.
Hey, Just an update: I think I'm satisfied with the terrain gfx. For all you who have been so patient, here is a spoiler: 
I'm not going to bother explaining this right now, but I will tell you the planet types:
-> Adaptable, Geomorteous, Terran I (habitable), Glaciated, Gas Giants ->
-> Desert, Moon, Terran II, asteroids ->
-> Stars, undefined moon thing, Terrain III, asteroids, Gas Giants ->
-> (blue) star, Geoplastic, Oceanic, asteroids, Demon planets ->
(bottom)-> Nebula, Reducing ->
(very bottom) Space (w/ background stars and galaxies)
Spoiler :
I'm not going to bother explaining this right now, but I will tell you the planet types:
-> Adaptable, Geomorteous, Terran I (habitable), Glaciated, Gas Giants ->
-> Desert, Moon, Terran II, asteroids ->
-> Stars, undefined moon thing, Terrain III, asteroids, Gas Giants ->
-> (blue) star, Geoplastic, Oceanic, asteroids, Demon planets ->
(bottom)-> Nebula, Reducing ->
(very bottom) Space (w/ background stars and galaxies)
Daniel Khan
Bail Baby Bail
My only complaint is that you got rid of Neptune.
Logitech
A Person.
neptune's still in, it just didn't want to show up, that's all.
besides, the main point of that pic is just to show what's new. I'm really pleased about the nebula, even though it still has some 'rough edges', it now looks the same no matter if you place a subspace corridor next to one. While working on it, I wondered what the original creator used to make the nebula, and how they ignored fine tuning the wCSO.pcx. I also have the fixed pink version and a blue version, but I like the orange best
Another thing I 'added' was variety to the terran planets. there is a third type that's kinda aqua-green.
Another note is that I cheated with the desert planet: I use a resource to recolor the adaptable look-a-like. In the game you shouldn't notice it too much, since desert planets rarely have resources on them in trek (I hope :\ )
besides, the main point of that pic is just to show what's new. I'm really pleased about the nebula, even though it still has some 'rough edges', it now looks the same no matter if you place a subspace corridor next to one. While working on it, I wondered what the original creator used to make the nebula, and how they ignored fine tuning the wCSO.pcx. I also have the fixed pink version and a blue version, but I like the orange best
Another thing I 'added' was variety to the terran planets. there is a third type that's kinda aqua-green.
Another note is that I cheated with the desert planet: I use a resource to recolor the adaptable look-a-like. In the game you shouldn't notice it too much, since desert planets rarely have resources on them in trek (I hope :\ )
zirlTurn73
Chieftain
I really hope that they do Classic Trek. Although i would expect Hot Toys level of detail and quality if ill be paying that for them
At the moment those faces look ridiculous lol.
At the moment those faces look ridiculous lol.
Flamand
The Visible Elder!
I'm really pleased about the nebula, even though it still has some 'rough edges', it now looks the same no matter if you place a subspace corridor next to one. While working on it, I wondered what the original creator used to make the nebula, and how they ignored fine tuning the wCSO.pcx. I also have the fixed pink version and a blue version, but I like the orange best
The nebula was made using the MaRa's meister plugin (http://www.jumbo-psp.com/Tutorials/Lesjes/Tools/Filters/mmCopies13.zip). Both Vadus and myself got stuck there, but I might give it another try some day.
I will send you the ships soon, probably tonight...
