[REL Beta] [Shadows] Star Trek - The Picard Era

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: tjhkkr


ehsumrell1: transmit the coordinates of the Briar Patch IMMEDIATELY or I will beam Luxwana Troi to your homeworld.

Cruel and inhuman punishment TJ....cruel and inhuman punishment!

[AminMaalouf]

Thank you very much for the mod. I really like it.

Qapla!

[Carl4243]

yay it's finally out!!![&o][&o][:D]

Thank you so much Igard and all involved, DW is just not the same ever since i started usin your ST Mods

[Data]

Wohooo, Igard the trekkiepedia strikes again [&o]
LOL, that romulan is indeed something to remember. What's that in his hand, a mini light saber? [:)]
About that ale, you see Ed and I had a little bet going and...well, he has that damn surgical table. It's actually all his fault.

[DasTactic]

Nice work Igard. Looking great.

I'm making a new 'Let's Play' series using the mod which I'll place in the AAR subforum.

Seen a couple of things so far that may need a little tweaking.

1. When playing as the Dominion you start with a large group of colony governors. Not sure if this is by design or not.

2. In the Let's Play series I meet the Dominion and they are called the 'Epsilon Bo?tis Authority'. I'm guessing the font can't handle the umlaut on the second 'o'.

Anyhow, really enjoying the detail you've put in. Thanks.

[Tophat1815]

ORIGINAL: Data

Wohooo, Igard the trekkiepedia strikes again [&o]
LOL, that romulan is indeed something to remember. What's that in his hand, a mini light saber? [:)]
About that ale, you see Ed and I had a little bet going and...well, he has that damn surgical table. It's actually all his fault.

It's the fake information rod Mr.Garrik had to plant on the soon to be dead in a shuttle accident senator. ahh,the intricate layers of cardassian intelligence plots.The truth,sprinkled with lies and disinformation combined with honorable federation officers who'd never resort to murder...............ad you have the Romulans joining th fight against the Dominion. So to answer your question Mr.data not a light-sabre but a TORCH TO LIGHT THE FIRE.

[Tophat1815]

ORIGINAL: Das123

Nice work Igard. Looking great.

I'm making a new 'Let's Play' series using the mod which I'll place in the AAR subforum.

Seen a couple of things so far that may need a little tweaking.

1. When playing as the Dominion you start with a large group of colony governors. Not sure if this is by design or not.

2. In the Let's Play series I meet the Dominion and they are called the 'Epsilon Bo?tis Authority'. I'm guessing the font can't handle the umlaut on the second 'o'.

Anyhow, really enjoying the detail you've put in. Thanks.

Are you playing as the Federation? Grrr........grrr......grr I'm feeling a potential Klingon growl coming on.

Not to worry,he does a great job with those "lets Play" AAR's........people should really check them out. I will choose a different race for an AAR,it will be a coin flip but probably the Klingon's/Cardassian's/Romulan's or random chance?[:D]

[tjhkkr]

ORIGINAL: ehsumrell1

ORIGINAL: tjhkkr
ehsumrell1: transmit the coordinates of the Briar Patch IMMEDIATELY or I will beam Luxwana Troi to your homeworld.

Cruel and inhuman punishment TJ....cruel and inhuman punishment!

Well we agree on that...
I did not say I was going to do that... I am just saying she has diplomatic uses... [:D]
Although that beaming her to your homeworld might be construed as a crime against humanity... [:D]

[Igard]

Thanks for the great comments guys! Really glad you're all enjoying the mod.

@Data, Senator Vreenak appeared in what's considered one of the best DS9 episodes, 'In the Pale Moonlight'. As Tophat points out, that's a fake data rod in his hand, that Sisko tried to pass off as evidence of Dominion plots to attack the Romulans. He delivers the following line so melo-dramatically, it's become one of the most referenced quotes from DS9. "IT'S A FAAAAAAAAKE!!!!!" [:D]

@ehsummrel1, thanks for all your help, buddy. Made a huge difference having all your character references there, and just knowing that I wasn't alone on this helped big time. Especially for keeping my sanity!

@TJ, thanks mate! Really glad you like the music too!

@Tophat, thanks for your constant support. Really helped motivate me to carry on when I lost steam. Looking forward to your AAR, happy trekking my friend!

@Das123, Love your 'Let's Play' series, though I haven't had the time to sit through a full one yet! They are very enjoyable and informative. Good find with the Dominion governors, that'll be fixed in the next update as well as the system name for Epsilon Bootis. I've also noticed that I added more than 1 Weyoun ambassador character. This was to emulate his 're-cloning' procedure that he undertakes after he dies, however I failed to realise that the character doesn't need to die for the next group of characters to spawn. Hope that makes sense. So I've removed those 'extra' Weyoun characters from the next release as they don't work like that.

Thanks again, all.

Happy Trekking everyone.[:)]

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: Igard

Thanks for the great comments guys! Really glad you're all enjoying the mod.

@ehsummrell1, thanks for all your help, buddy. Made a huge difference having all your character references there, and just knowing that I wasn't alone on this helped big time. Especially for keeping my sanity!

Don't make me mist up Igard, or I'll have to go have a face-stretching session! LOL!

The honor and pleasure was all mine mate! Between you and Elliot, I stay busy testing (and PLAYING!).
Let me know when we'll start on the next era (Kirk era probably?). In the meanwhile, hail me if
you need, and guard that Romulan Ale shipment I redistributed from Data for your efforts.

Jolan Tru! [&o]

[Igard]

So, it looks like I've given the Feds a 70% increase in military ship size. Compare that with the Tholians (who are supposed to have small shis) with a -30% ship size, but they have a +20% construction speed.

So, once again, it's a case of testing, testing and more testing. We'll have to see if the Tholians are pitifully outmatched by the Feds and Romulans, or if their increased construction speed will make up for it.

[Carl4243]

ya i noticed the "Military" increase on size.. thats pretty cool and enjoyed that, i'm at the end of my first game on the Mod... unfortunately i didnt have any Klingons, ROmulans or Tholians in my game, everything else seemed to be in there though (was a 400 star 14 race game, took a good 2 days of playing)

in the end it came down to a pretty balanced end game (which usually i tend to dwarf the others in military,so was fun)... i think the Cardassians are abit "Nuke the planet!" happy... they bombed a planet like 80% of the time... took out 3 races (that i know of) this way, seemed quite effective for them to win the wars too... however i usually crept in after to pickup the destroyed planets (and terraform them back up) and this led to me coming up from the underdog in colony amounts to 2-3X more by the end. i easily countered their planet bombing tactic with building Planetary shields on all my colony's before facing off with them...however their ships were quite good too.

I notice some built larger stations then usual (like near my station sizes of like 2K), i havnt had a good chance to see how well they can manage this.

The other race which actually held 1/3 of the map before all hell broke loose was the Lurians... the odd thing was, they had twice as many if not alittle more planets then the Cardys, but Militarily they just couldnt cut it and the cards managed to double the Lurians Military might with still half the planets and nearly wiped them off the map... by the time the Lurians were down from like 40 or so planets to 10 i jumped in on the Cards... i figured the Lurian fight would have worn them down... but i dont think it affected them much, the Cardassians were a worthy foe, put up one of the best end game fights i had on DW yet... Ultimatly i won as by the time i jumped the Cardassians i was well over 5X his Military (however most of this was due to my defences rather then ships).

Unfortunatly, Picard died mid-game along with Admiral Paris when their 60 ship fleet took a beating on a pre-emptive strike on the Cardassians Homeworld to try and slow them down abit... mid-battle a large Cardassian fleet of 57 or so ships with slightly more advanced weaponry/Shields then i had at the time cut them down, I havnt seen from those 2 since (have a few clones of others though.. like 4 of same intel guy)... This was before the endgame epic struggle of DOminance, I shortly realized my mistake facing off with the Cardassians mid-game after that devistating loss along with 5 planets being bombed (was able to recover 3 afterwards)... managed to truce before he more damage. Janeway and Sisko made it threw the game too though.

Thanks again for this mod Igard!! Love my Trek and love this Game.

[Igard]

Great report, Carl! Thanks mate. [:)]

The "Nuke the site from orbit, only way to be sure" philosophy seems to be a bit overpowered. I think the Cardys would prefer to "make your enemies acknowledge your greatness" to roughly quote Dukat, by invading and conquering them. I've noticed the Breen are very effective at winning wars by nuking too. I'll look into that.

Sounds like a really good game you had. Shame about Picard, just picture him making a speach before his final battle, "Let's make sure history never forgets the name.... Enterprise".[:D]

[tjhkkr]

ORIGINAL: Carl4243
ya i noticed the "Military" increase on size... Janeway and Sisko made it threw the game too though.
Thanks again for this mod Igard!! Love my Trek and love this Game.

I think Carl that you have lived out the hope that Elliot had for this game.
And IGard and Ed made it happen.
Bravo Zulu and job well done.

NOW, can I do the same with the Clone Wars becomes the question...

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: tjhkkr

ORIGINAL: Carl4243
ya i noticed the "Military" increase on size... Janeway and Sisko made it threw the game too though.
Thanks again for this mod Igard!! Love my Trek and love this Game.

I think Carl that you have lived out the hope that Elliot had for this game.
And IGard and Ed made it happen.
Bravo Zulu and job well done.

NOW, can I do the same with the Clone Wars becomes the question...

Thanks TJ....and YES, YOU CAN......The FORCE is STRONG in you! [:)]

[Carl4243]

ORIGINAL: Igard

Sounds like a really good game you had. Shame about Picard, just picture him making a speach before his final battle, "Let's make sure history never forgets the name.... Enterprise".[:D]

indeed, it was a great 2 day game, most funi had on DW since Legends came out. I would give an AAR but i never made one before and my storys tend to get jumbled up as i remember stuff later or make references to something before which can throw someone off lol. oh, and about that 4 clone intel guy... well justr finishing my game off here with the Lurians (no challenge now with the Cards out of the way) and i got 6 Captains of the same image (clone) different names though but same image.

ya.. it was definitely a sad time when Picard died on a similar note... i made a 50 or so ship fleet of Defiants with Sisko Leading (Sisko took over as Flag Ship/Feeet Commander) put 4 torp launchers and a crap load of the heavy Ballistic guns with 1 phaser (as close as you can get to the Real Defiants Armament)... they were effective enough, but not quite what i hoped they would be... however they did alot better as skirmishers after when i mixed them with my Akira Missle/Torp Destroyer and Nebula Cruiser Phaser-boat with a handful of Galaxy Capital's with all around armaments.


OH, i'm not sure if it's a bug witht he Game or the mod, but i had 500 Escorts and 500 Frigates at one point just not long ago finishing my game here, and about 851 of them (most being those 2) were constantly patrolling a early game Gas Mine station.... and 851 of the f***ers in 1 spot can lag ya up when you try to disperse them lol...so i destroyed the gas mine and it seemed to have worked... they dispersed... but not too long after (i assume when they finished the task they did) they all started gathering again at another gas mine.

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: Carl4243

OH, i'm not sure if it's a bug witht he Game or the mod, but i had 500 Escorts and 500 Frigates at one point just not long ago finishing my game here, and about 851 of them (most being those 2) were constantly patrolling a early game Gas Mine station.... and 851 of the f***ers in 1 spot can lag ya up when you try to disperse them lol...so i destroyed the gas mine and it seemed to have worked... they dispersed... but not too long after (i assume when they finished the task they did) they all started gathering again at another gas mine.

Hello Carl, glad you're enjoying the mod! [:)]

Just curious Carl, Were your Escorts and Frigates all separate or in a fleet/fleets? If so, were
they automated and was the Gas Mine set as their home base? [&:]

[Carl4243]

no, i dont fleet my Escorts,i leave them for Boarder patrols, as for the rest i believe they were not fleeted as i let them run escort, SOS, patrols ect.. and mainly deal with the automated fleets (taking automation off 1-3 of them then putting back on when i done or busy with something else)

Yes they were all Automated, No idea about if it was set as home base, i believe thats only for fleets (games running in background atm will check...) ya, only fleets have a home base, so no... they had no home base set.


Also, not sure if this is known, but i've run the 3rd same Image President now, Also i've got the same 9 Colony Governors... i'm beginning to suspect that when the game runs threw all the images it just re-uses the last one... maybe make a double set behind the first set so it'll go threw them again, adding abit more variety still??? no idea on how the game works nor the mod so just a quick thought on that.

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: Carl4243

Also, not sure if this is known, but i've run the 3rd same Image President now, Also i've got the same 9 Colony Governors... i'm beginning to suspect that when the game runs threw all the images it just re-uses the last one... maybe make a double set behind the first set so it'll go threw them again, adding abit more variety still??? no idea on how the game works nor the mod so just a quick thought on that.

Thanks for the info Carl. I know that Igard is using some image duplication to keep the amount of
individual characters at a low number to aid in memory performance for low-end machine players. Also
if I recall correctly, Elliot mentioned to me a while back that around 500 or so characters or more put the
game performance at risk. So the best option that Igard discussed with me was to use a varying number
of generic images mixed in for the seven types of characters in the game (We had about 900+ character
images for all the different Star Trek races. This was mostly done to accommodate single core machine
players from my testing standpoint. There might not be problems with a larger number on duel or multi
core machines. Something Igard and I can discuss and look into. Please continue to advise us of your
findings!

[Igard]

That's some strange behaviour from those ships. Thanks for reporting Carl.

I plan on adding more characters, but the generic images are going to have to stay. It's partly down to performance issues as Ed said, but it's also to 'flesh out' the character lists. You'll notice this alot more with non-Federation empires. Remember the episode of TNG 'Lower Decks'? That's the idea here. Give the lesser known people in the Trek universe a chance, not everone is a Worf or a Data, or a Lwuxana Troi!

Keep the reports coming people. I've only got a few hours playing done. I've sorted some of the victory conditions issues for the next update, but I'm sure I've not got all of them. Let me konw about balance issues, weird events that sort of thing. Cheers.[:)]