RELEASED!! Star Trek The Picard Era Mod for DW:Universe

[ehsumrell1]

ATTENTION ALL!

One of our members have found a small syntax error in one of the character image files
that will cause the character image to not show in game (Thanks Dusty_Monk!)

In the theme's "images\units\characters" folder, please delete the
"Ubi Ruty_ Romulan_Scientist.png" file and replace it
with the one contained within the attached zip file.

[ehsumrell1]

I would like to take this opportunity and make you aware that Adam Solo, one of our
forum members and Editor of Spacesector.com, has published an extensive review of
Distant Worlds Universe. He reviews Universe in detail and the game has scored a
9.0 out of 10 rating! Which is fantastic. In addition, we're honored that he also
reviewed our Star Trek The Picard Era mod as well. Thanks Adam!

You can see the review here: http://www.spacesector.com/blog/2014/08/distant-worlds-universe-review/

[Gas Can]

Awesome mod! My solo reason for keeping Distant World! However there're still much to improve, and I would sincerely hope that you guys can keep up the great work!

Bug: Benzite--a member species of Fed--colony is hostile to my Fed faction, cant colonize it.

Issues regarding immersions:
1. Is it possible to refrain Borg from engaging in diplomatic activities? In the original game the mech dont form any treaty or make any trade in the early stage of the game.
2. Tech tree so not ST! Where is my transphasic/plasma/gravimetric/chroniton/tricobalt torpedos(Phased Plasma Torpedo is quite non-canon), plasma/tetryon/phased polaron beam array, Auto-regenerative/Metaphysic/multi-spatial/Multi-spectrum/Paratrinic/Refractive shield, multikinetic neutronic mine and thalaron radiation weaponry? Hopefully you guys are planning on giving some species(Fed would be ns! I dont care about other "inferior" factions) their own tech tree! For example: Spatial--photon--quantum--transphasic torpedo. Ah and Impulse engine...
3. Can Fed become easier to colonize independent colonies? I would rather not conquering them.

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: Gas Can

Awesome mod! My solo reason for keeping Distant World! However there're still much to improve, and I would sincerely hope that you guys can keep up the great work!

Bug: Benzite--a member species of Fed--colony is hostile to my Fed faction, cant colonize it.

Issues regarding immersions:
1. Is it possible to refrain Borg from engaging in diplomatic activities? In the original game the mech dont form any treaty or make any trade in the early stage of the game.
2. Tech tree so not ST! Where is my transphasic/plasma/gravimetric/chroniton/tricobalt torpedos(Phased Plasma Torpedo is quite non-canon), plasma/tetryon/phased polaron beam array, Auto-regenerative/Metaphysic/multi-spatial/Multi-spectrum/Paratrinic/Refractive shield, multikinetic neutronic mine and thalaron radiation weaponry? Hopefully you guys are planning on giving some species(Fed would be ns! I dont care about other "inferior" factions) their own tech tree! For example: Spatial--photon--quantum--transphasic torpedo. Ah and Impulse engine...
3. Can Fed become easier to colonize independent colonies? I would rather not conquering them.

Hello Gas Can, and thanks for your compliment! Glad you're enjoying our mod! [:)]

Concerning your issues...without hopefully drawing out a long discussion, I'll just quote Spock and
say "the needs of the many, outweighs the needs of the few. Or the one."

In producing this mod, I decided to make the mod a sort of "dealer's choice" type of mod when it
came to "canon immersion". The way DW is structured, I attempted to follow Elliot's direction and
provide a situation where the mod can address almost any situation. If you want as close to canon, then
select the races that are canon in ST theory and deselect the ROTS storyline so no Shakturi or Mechanoids
appear. If you don't care 'too much' about complete canon, play with any or all of the races, with or without the ROTS Storyline.
Or play from Pre-Warp and use your imagination. This is what I believe we have achieved. The only frustrating thing I encounter,
as in your statement about the Benzite race, (your opinion is ALWAYS fully valid though Gas Can) is that if a certain viewpoint is
not seen, then it must be a BUG! As a Trekkie I'm fully aware of the Benzite, Bajoran, and for a while Ktarian races were Federation members. Everyone's version of immersion can be different (Hey, that rhymed!).

Addressing your concerns directly though:
1. The Borg have been diplomatic in certain occasions. Such as the treaty with Janeway in the conflict with Species 8472. But since the mechanics of this game allow it, we nerfed the friendliness stats, and since a race HAS to interact with the private sector to have credits and survive in the mechanics of the game, so be it. So although I fully see your viewpoint, short of making the Borg a minor, static race, we punted! My 'Borg specialist' Carl4243 may provide you more detail if you wish to PM him about it.

2. Yes, we only BARELY touched the tech tree (and Research, and Facilities).
But again, as stated before, this theme/mod is handed to everyone to be even more moddable by each specific player. If you want to have all the bells and whistles (plasma/tetryon/phased polaron beam array or whatever) add them. If you don't like the UI graphics, change them to your liking, or add Das's UI like shown in his "Let's Play" sessions. Or integrate Icemania's AI Improvement Mod. Again, as stated before, we tried to address the "needs of the many"!

3. Not fully sure what you're desiring with that question. If you will, please PM me and elaborate in a bit more detail. We can then have a good discussion once I get a better idea of what you're looking for.
We can't deal with each and every request, but as I'm working on Version 2.0 in September, I DO like to
receive feedback. There will be more additions and changes (both canon & non-canon) in Version 2.0 as long as I can add them without breaking the things we built the mod to do.

Hope I responded to your issues amicably and didn't sound too brutish. Just getting a few too many inquiries about things that are more game mechanic changes than mod changes.
[:)]

[Knickers]

This mod is awesome and I love all of the special noises for opening menu's and the in-game music especially, however there is one issue regarding the Klingons:

One of the traits of Klingons in the mod is that they are Extremely Intelligent. The Klingons throughout the Star Trek genre have been considered as warrior-like and likely less intelligent then the average race, they certainly shouldn't be described as more intelligent then the Federation, Romulans, Dominion, borg, which all have either the trait Very Intelligent or Quite Intelligent.

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: Knickers

This mod is awesome and I love all of the special noises for opening menu's and the in-game music especially, however there is one issue regarding the Klingons:

One of the traits of Klingons in the mod is that they are Extremely Intelligent. The Klingons throughout the Star Trek genre have been considered as warrior-like and likely less intelligent then the average race, they certainly shouldn't be described as more intelligent then the Federation, Romulans, Dominion, borg, which all have either the trait Very Intelligent or Quite Intelligent.

Hello Knickers and welcome to the DW Forums. Thanks for your kind comments!

As aforementioned in the previous post #64, at many times, we had to 'adapt' some of the
races to react according to the way the Distant Worlds game dynamics needs. In DW, the races'
Intelligence rating influences research rate and smartness of interaction with other empires. There
are times I had to raise/lower a rating for many of the races to react a certain way to try and
establish a balance from our teams viewpoint. Unfortunately, that means there are going to be a few
instances that throw the Star Trek "canon" out of the window to allow the game to react properly.
So as a result, there are instances where "canon immersion" can, and will, be questioned. But I did
try to make certain that none of them would be "gamebreakers", even from a 'Roddenberry' perspective.

In relation to topic; the Klingons were space-faring and warp capable before the Federation was even
formed, according to canon, so in that perspective, I'd say the shoe fits. Just my opinion though!

[Gas Can]

Thx for the even-more-detailed-than-mine reply ehsumrell1! It's a shame you guys is not a professional contracted studio, though Matrix should totally pay you guys for your work. Just hoping that in the future you will have plan to further improve the tech tree, oh and the Borg in my game allied with Tholion...

As for the issue of Fed colonizing independent planets, well UFP do have a good rep dont that? Say you are a Romulan colony on the border of Fed and Klingon, whom would you prefer? It seems that you can have access to the figure of "racial popularity" or whatever that is, maybe just alter it a bit and we can take it as if they join the Fed voluntarily!

I also saw your reply regarding the intelligent Klingon, and to be fair even with their longer history of space "exploration"(conquering more likely), their tech is still behind the TNG Fed. And just speaking for myself, I play this mod for its ST immersion, gameplay balance is sometimes out of my concern. Fed is technologically advanced but just not war-like, maybe you can give it better research bonus and even some special tech(like a REAL quantum slipstream drive!) but MUCH higher ship maintenance costs(think about all the HOLO decks and research personnel, and the luxury crew quarters, hell I add research labs into my Galaxy class, its stupid but immersive!) Klingon should be stupid(smarter than Kazon of course!), but just give them lower maintenance costs so they can have more ships!

Also just for the lolz: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6STlxPrwJE

[Knickers]

Thanks for replying and sorry for making you repeat yourself haha

[draugluinfv]

I am having a bit of an issue with your mod. I am having problems being able to unload troops onto some of my colonies because of the size of the clickable area for starports. Is there any way to shrink down the clickable area for the starports so that the clickable area for colonies is still interactable. Also is there any way to set it so the images for starports are always right side up instead of turned onto their sides?

Thanks

[Gas Can]

Oh there's one more issue, not sure if it is caused by the mod or the game itself, sometimes when you finished invading a planet, somehow the troops will be immediately teleported back to the ships automatically, there seems to be no way of stopping it, and it will happen even if the ships are in other systems.

[Smidlee]

-Want to downsize the starport icon? Go to the starport design screen. In the top left corner change the image scaling to "scaled" then lower the number to the right.

-Want to make Klingons stupid? Then open the mod folder then look in the "race" folder, open "Klingon" with notepad and lower this number in this line:
'Intelligence: intelligence level (normal = 100). This factor influences research rate and smartness of interaction with other empires
Intelligence ;130

Or/And lower this number to 0

'Research Bonus: percentage rate of speed increase for research
ResearchBonus ;10


-Want the Klingons have less tech than Federation? Start a custom game and have the Fed tech level one or two levels higher than the Klingon.
Better yet use the editor and give any tech you like to each empire before starting the game. (zoom in close if you don't want to see where everyone at in the galaxy.

- want the Borg have no diplomacy with other empires? open up the "raceBiases" with notepad and change the 22:Borg lines to all -50 so they hate everyone.

-If there is more than one event happening while you are invading a planet the game will automatically transport your troops back to the ships. I think there was a problem before where the player would complete lose their invasion forces. This is a work around to keep that from happening.

[Gas Can]

ORIGINAL: Smidlee

-Want to downsize the starport icon? Go to the starport design screen. In the top left corner change the image scaling to "scaled" then lower the number to the right.

-Want to make Klingons stupid? Then open the mod folder then look in the "race" folder, open "Klingon" with notepad and lower this number in this line:
'Intelligence: intelligence level (normal = 100). This factor influences research rate and smartness of interaction with other empires
Intelligence ;130

Or/And lower this number to 0

'Research Bonus: percentage rate of speed increase for research
ResearchBonus ;10

-Want the Klingons have less tech than Federation? Start a custom game and have the Fed tech level one or two levels higher than the Klingon.
Better yet use the editor and give any tech you like to each empire before starting the game. (zoom in close if you don't want to see where everyone at in the galaxy.

- want the Borg have no diplomacy with other empires? open up the "raceBiases" with notepad and change the 22:Borg lines to all -50 so they hate everyone.

-If there is more than one event happening while you are invading a planet the game will automatically transport your troops back to the ships. I think there was a problem before where the player would complete lose their invasion forces. This is a work around to keep that from happening.

Wow thx! Never thought about using the editor though, cant wait to form an anti-borg alliance, oh and screw you Tholion and Breen, the club is exclusive.

[Smidlee]

In my game the Borg is pretty much acting like the Borg trying to take one empire at a time. (Borg has no trade agreement and are the most powerful military at 94000 while second Federation has 19000). I think you need the aggression setting at restless or higher or they may become too friendly. ( I have it set to unstable.) My problem is I'm playing the Romulans which aren't very friendly either. I'm roleplaying as the empires so I'm not going to try to form a butch of allies to take down the Borg like playing as the Federation. No I'm the Romulans who may have an ally or two but mostly build up my empire through conquest before taking on the Borg head on.

Great job with this mod as I loving it so far. I like the upgrades and techs you added so the empires can have powerful weapons and shields early in the game. This allows the game lean more toward early action which IMO is more fitting to the Star Trek universe in the Picard era. The slower research like the vanilla game would fit better in the Kirk era. ( I don't think prewarp starts are ideal with this mod)

[ehsumrell1]

Original: Smidlee
...- want the Borg have no diplomacy with other empires? open up the "raceBiases" with notepad and change the 22:Borg lines to all -50 so they hate everyone...

Not trying to be sarcastic, but have fun with that one. The Borg (or any race set that way) will destroy all freighters, passenger ships and any non-Borg ships attempting to provide resources or trade with their homeworld. No diplomacy, no incoming resource, no trade, very soon no money. The State economy will soon go negative and there will be no ship building or facility building. Empire financial death.. Unfortunately, we can't circumvent the way Elliot has set up the way Empire economy works.

In my game the Borg is pretty much acting like the Borg trying to take one empire at a time...

That's basically what we wanted them to do, assimilate the galaxy in a way the game mechanics allow. I hope we did well with it!

...Great job with this mod as I loving it so far. I like the upgrades and techs you added so the empires can have powerful weapons and shields early in the game. This allows the game lean more toward early action which IMO is more fitting to the Star Trek universe in the Picard era. The slower research like the vanilla game would fit better in the Kirk era. ( I don't think prewarp starts are ideal with this mod)

Thanks for the compliment Smidlee, just what we like to hear! I'm glad that players and game reviewers are on the same page as well. I agree on your comment about the Pre-Warp viewpoint, but since it was in the game mechanics, I wanted to adapt the mod to allow it. Your statement concerning slower research fitting the Kirk Era better is spot on, and you will notice that when we complete the Kirk Era mod.

[richieelias]

Well, just an idea, but wouldnt it make sense to give the borg exclusive access to a technology that negates all maintenance costs and buffs what little economy they would have with 100% aggression? I mean they shouldnt have an economy at all really, but of course you can't do that.

Also, are the techs going to be looked at any further? A lot of work could be done there. I dont mean that xxx tech is not included or whatever. Rather that everyone (or close enough) has access to the uber techs, but unfortunately the AI doesnt know it, so they still research and use the lesser ones.

Edit:
Just gave them nationalized private sector, zero weariness, zero maintenance, max approval, enemy to everyone. Basically they survive on colony taxes alone and ships cost nothing to maintain. Their income was insanely high though... may have to tweak it a bit.

[ehsumrell1]

That's what I love about the mod richieelias. ANY player can tweak/adjust/modify any part of the theme
according to their own tastes, ideas, desires or immersion level. So what made sense to us was to cater
(as according to Spock) to the "needs of the many". So we put out a mod that allowed just that. Want to
play the Star Trek Races in the storyline with the Shakturi? Fine, you can do it! Want to play the Star
Trek races from the Pre-Warp standpoint? Fine, you can do it! Want to play against the Star Trek races
as the Orion Syndicate or the Maquis, yes, you can. Just remember that The Picard Era mod, or any other at that,
are confined to what the core game allows it to do.

What is considered 'game balance' or 'immersion factor' to one player, can be completely across the
spectrum from another player's viewpoint. Why 'this' was done one way compared to 'another' way, well
you surely can see the possibilities for debate.

I believe we have achieved a delicate medium in producing this mod. Hopefully satisfactory for the
majority of players of this mod without too much debating about why this and why that.
We plan to tweak it further with additions, adjustments and any updates that Elliot may provide in our upcoming Version 2.0.

Hopefully, this is the last post in which I have to explain our aforementioned reasoning. I'm going to
take a few hours and just play the game! Enjoy everyone!
[:)]

[Smidlee]

I understand your point as some probably wouldn't like my idea of removing tech.

I took the time to remove any tech I didn't want the AI research especially in energy and construction. High Tech I left alone but removed some of the beam techs in weapons. What took some time was I had to renumber some of the techs so there was no gaps. (For example tech 1,2,4,5,6 without a tech numbered 3 somewhere on the list won't work. I had to take the highest number and change it to 3 then change any tech linked to it)
Now all I need to do is go into the race files so only Ktarians and Sheliak can research ultradense fuel cells and only Tamarian s2f4 repair bots.

[ehsumrell1]

That's what I mean Smidlee! Everyone can adapt the mod to their own individual
specific tastes. Better that than force a specific viewpoint down one's throat.

BTW, nice 'edge' you're giving the Tamarians! [:D]

[ehsumrell1]

Additional Download Site:
at Strategy Informer here: http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/distantworldsuniverse/mod/53122.html


Also watch New Star Trek The Picard Era You Tube "Lets' Play's"
recorded by Das24680 (a.k.a Das123) here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLIqajj26wk

Thanks Darren! [&o]

[sethat]

I just wanted to say thank you all for all the hours you put into this mod it is truly amazing this will most likely be the only i will be playing this game for some time to come,and I cant wait to see future features!! My hats off to you!!