Star Trek - The Final Frontier (Beta 1.0)

[Hattori Hanzo]

ORIGINAL: rjord1

ORIGINAL: Hattori Hanzo

my usual noob-doubt: when you say: <<Roll the dice>>, we will have:

1) manually roll a dice and then follow the on-screen instructions

or

2) the "dice rolling" will be directly "rolled" by the program..

????? [&:]

You will need to buy a pair of dice to roll on the table next to the computer. The value of the dice roll thrown prior to going into Distant Worlds will determine how the races feel about each other, what events will occur in which systems and also the orders you receive from Starfleet, the Vulcan High Council or whichever party leads your race.

You will also need a pen.

sound amazing and very unusual.. [8D]

six sided dice ???

[rjord2021]

ORIGINAL: Hattori Hanzo

ORIGINAL: rjord1

ORIGINAL: Hattori Hanzo

my usual noob-doubt: when you say: <<Roll the dice>>, we will have:

1) manually roll a dice and then follow the on-screen instructions

or

2) the "dice rolling" will be directly "rolled" by the program..

????? [&:]

You will need to buy a pair of dice to roll on the table next to the computer. The value of the dice roll thrown prior to going into Distant Worlds will determine how the races feel about each other, what events will occur in which systems and also the orders you receive from Starfleet, the Vulcan High Council or whichever party leads your race.

You will also need a pen.

sound amazing and very unusual.. [8D]

six sided dice ???

Yes... 2 normal six sided dice.

Have already started testing my mod with the dice rolls and adds another element to Distant Worlds.

[Hattori Hanzo]

thank you Rjord1

[rjord2021]

Not much today other than a preview of something added to the mod and just finished in photoshop

All will be made clear when you see the finished mod.

[rjord2021]

Some more detail on how the dice will be used in the mod


Tested a small change to the mod today concerning how the dice will be used to add events such as waiting for Scotty to repair the Enterprise .....or working out how long it will take for:

1. your landing party to beam back up to the ship
2. for the navigator to plot the course to the next planet or starbase
3. finally when the ship breaks orbit from the planet.

These 3 actions will appear on a card for each planet you are beaming up from and at the bottom of the card will be pictures of 3 dice side by side.

If you look at the picture below under Alien Control you will see that the 3 dice are a 3, another 3 and a 5.

You roll one dice and you have to roll a 3, then another 3 and finally a 5 to complete the action which in this example is beaming to the ship and leaving orbit.

Some events only need one dice roll to complete an action eg a 2..... while other actions may have a time penalty where not rolling the correct value means a 5-minute wait before you can do an action.

The picture below is from a Star Trek board game which illustrates the dice roll used at times in my mod.

[rjord2021]

With adding dice rolls and in screen game cards to this mod this will certainly not take away any of the great aspects of Distant Worlds Universe.

The way this mod is being developed I am aiming to add more to the game and provide an even more immersive environment for all of us who love Star Trek.

Some of the changes that come in include:

1. Building ships is a lot slower as you need to do the following:
- previously built ship must have left space dock and placed into planetary orbit to receive orders and crew
- when space dock is clear begin construction on next ship
- when finished get clearance to leave space dock
- ship fully crewed, captain assigned and first mission assigned.

2. When you arrive in a system some events may occour
- you may need to pick up supplies from the nearest habitable planet requiring beaming a landing party down to a planet to meet and negotiate with the planetary leaders

- your ships chief medical officer may have been requested to help a planet colony being ravaged by a new disease. Transport him down to the planet to provide medical assistance. You will need to go back to that planet to beam him back to the ship later ( when will be determined by dice throw).

- one of your science teams may request the ship be diverted to the planet to explore a geological, botanical discovery or request to study life on a planet(strict rules of Prime Directive if playing Starfleet). Drop them off at the planet, pick them up later or join them in the landing party.

- Every once in a while your crew will need shore leave and this will be added to the mod as your ships do not have Holodecks on board, Recreation planets are spread through out the galaxy.

- when you receive notification that a character is being transferred to another planet your ship may be the one taking him there. Leave the system you are in , pick up the character and take him to the planet he is moving to.

- you may receive a distress call from a nearby ship or colony and be required to investigate

- you may have a medical emergency to deal with such as space radiation or alien intruder

- pirates may have been operating nearby and you receive orders to patrol a nearby system

- damage control teams working on ship damaged on warping into the system or result of Fire, pressure drop, power ,engine failure or damage to shields, phasers or photon torpedoes


3. When you orbit a planet you may be required to scan it from your ship, or you may need to beam down. Based on the date you may also have an interaction with a character or story line from the TOS episodes eg Harry Mudd

- each planet has its unique events based on what race is colonising it. If that race becomes an Empire you may be sent there with an Ambassador to open peace and trade agreements with that new Empire



4. Play the entire mod as a trader. Pick up goods unique to one world and deliver goods to another world. Your race may not be Klingon, Federation or Romulan and you may be able to go through Romulan or Klingon space without breaking rules of the Neutral Zone or Federation rules of Prime Directive which prohibits Starfleet personnel from interfering with the internal development of alien civilizations which are below a certain threshold of technological, scientific and cultural development.


5. For the first time you will need to keep a Captain's Log to keep track of events happening around characters or planets that cannot be handled by Distant Worlds. More on that later. If you are on a trade ship your finances will be recorded in your log book showing how much money you make or lose during a trade run. Each transaction will tell you how much you need to spend buying cargo from a planet and then how much you sell it for on arrival.


Though there is a lot of possible events that can happen in the mod the chances of something happening could be as low as 10% meaning you are free to explore the galaxy with only the occasional events to respond to. Events around planets will depend on many factors determining if you see that event or meet certain characters. If that race becomes an Empire then you will have 100% events happening in their system.

[rjord2021]

The master template card took 3 hours in photoshop to complete and get the look I was after. The ship will be used in many cards for the Federation but the planet will change with each planet you explore in Distant Worlds.

The cards for the Federation will be in 2 groups:

1. Recreating the TOS tv show and taking on the roles such as Kirk, Spock and McCoy on board the Enterprise herself.

or

2. Less character specific cards so any captain or character can be on any ship in the mod.






One of the 6 cards which may appear when you arrive in the Ceti Alpha system. Used in the Distant Worlds Universe mod "The Return of Khan"

[Hattori Hanzo]

You roll one dice and you have to roll a 3, then another 3 and finally a 5 to complete the action which in this example is beaming to the ship and leaving orbit.

in the above example some things are not clear to me:

you have to roll a 3, then another 3 and finally a 5

or

you have to roll a 3 or less, then another 3 or less and finally a 5 or less ?

and also:

what happen when you do not roll the requested number ???

[rjord2021]

When you roll the dice in the example above in post #125, it must either exactly match the number shown or (if an arrow is present on the icon) be higher or lower than the number depicted.

So with the example, you need to throw a 3, another 3 and then any number less than 5 as shown by the down arrow.
With that game I was using as an example you get to roll the dice 3 times to get the result and then if you fail my understanding is that the problem gets worse depending on what the issue is.

Anyway. that is another game.

With my mod I am using the dice to drive the story line and for events like landing parties and repairing damage to the ship, rolling the dice and getting the correct results in the first 3 throws means the landing party beams aboard sooner and the ship can leave orbit. Otherwise, there may be a short wait. Each situation will be different and will be explained. When you arrive in a new system the ship scanners may detect something, or you receive a distress signal from a nearby planet, or you receive a transmission from Starfleet to head back to Earth after you have finished your current mission in his sector. Each time you arrive in a system or orbit a planet, you could have 6 different paths to go from there based on the dice roll....or there is nothing specifically happening and it is a matter of scanning the planet from orbit and moving on to the next system.

When arriving at a planet and rolling a dice some planets may only have an 8% chance of any event happening. When an event does happen, you throw the dice and it will tell you which of up to 6 events has happened.

All of this is still being worked out as the mod is progressing and though it sounds complicated at first it is actually a simple process of rolling one or two dice and taking steps based on the result of that dice.

This means for example that when you refit your ship, there may be a longer delay before you warp out of the system and arrive at your next stop 3 minutes later.

[rjord2021]

With my mod the majority of the time you will be using the mod as Distance Worlds Universe business as usual going out and exploring planets and having battles with Romulans, Klingons or any one of a hundred races that were colonies on planets and grew to form an Empire.

Just with certain times in the mod you need to throw a dice to see if any action is required.

- dice throw to follow procedures to leave space dock after a refit or to leave orbit of a planet
- when arriving in a system check if any events just occurred...good or bad
- When arriving at a planet check what needs to be done a simple scan from space or a landing party
- Do you get orders from Starfleet which either:
- request you immediately head to another system and drop what you are doing
- complete your mission and then head to another system
- When characters arrive in the mod, there is always the chance your ship will be asked to transfer them to their destination
- There may be medical emergencies on board the ship or at a nearby colony. What does your Chief Medical surgeon do?
- You may be asked to patrol the Neutral Zone if there have been contacts with the Romulans or the Klingons
- If and when Khan Noonien Singh appears in the mod, he will be in one of many story lines you need to interact with
- Cloaked Romulan ships will be attacking your ships at times.. you may be ordered to find and destroy the ships
- You may be asked to transfer Ambassadors between worlds
- Harry Mudd may be up to his old tricks and you are tasked with dealing with him.
- Gary Mitchel may have escaped Delta Vega and is wrecking havoc with his ESP on a distant world

Many stories and possibilities decided by a dice roll.

[rjord2021]

Just going through a list of 552 species and removing the species living in the Delta Quadrant as they will not be included in the mod.

With the species left they will be added to the mod as either playable species or species colonising the many many many thousands of planets in this mod.

With each species I then pick up the characters for that species as your ship will interact with those members when you discover their planet and initiate First Contact with that civilisation

When you play as the Federation, when you colonize a planet the civilization on that planet becomes a member of the United Federation of Planets which gives the planet support and protection by Starfleet vessels.

[rjord2021]

Finalized the list of species that you will come across in the mod

140 species were removed as they were from the Delta Quadrant
53 species added after cross referencing with a second list of Star Trek species

Result
490 Total species to add to the mod
:anyone of them being able to create their own Empire if you have that option ticked.
:each species being checked for character names and ship names

[rjord2021]

This post is a preview showing an example of how this mod is going to work with Dice and event cards within Distant Worlds Universe.

For this example I started a new game using my Galaxy Map for the Alpha and Beta Quadrant and started the Federation at Tech 2 level so that the Federation is already out there in the map. The mod is paused at the start and this allows me to do a few things before getting into the mod.

First thing you will notice in the picture below is that the top left of the screen is showing I am running this mod at 0.25 speed. With Distant Worlds Universe you can run the speed of the game at normal speed, very high speed or as in my case here the slowest speed at 0.25. I choose 0.25 because with this mod you have to watch the messages coming in from Starfleet at the top of the screen. If you have already been assigned a mission then you really do not need to respond to the messages from Starfleet.... however you may receive a distress signal from a nearby sector or a ship is being attacked by Romulans and these you want to see and respond to if they are nearby and you are the closest ship. This is the main reason I play the mod at 0.25 speed along with the reason that at this speed the time taken to travel between stars is pretty much spot on with how it appeared in the TV series.

What happens if I receive a distress signal while I am exploring planets? As the Captain of your vessel if you need prompting on should you do anything and what should you do, you would consult the Galactopedia where I have a section about Distress Signal Received which tells you the following:

Starfleet General Order 6 requires its officers to respond to distress calls made by Federation citizens It is Starfleet's policy however, to answer all distress signals.

So if it is close enough to you and no other ships are in the area you need to pause your current mission and warp at best speed to provide assistance. If you run this mod at a faster rate than 0.25x then you may miss the distress signal.


Before unpausing the game I look at where the Federation ships are and , with no Enterprise on the map, I find another Constitution vessel to command. The one I chose in this example shown below is on a mission to explore the Calder II system. This is a very important system for the Federation. If you look at the map bottom right of the picture below you can see Calder II is close to the Romulan Neutral Zone and the Federation will use this system as a means to spy on the Coalition of Planets immediate neighbors; the aggressive Klingon Empire and the Romulan Star Empire.

Calder II is also the system where the Kobayashi Maru test at Starfleet Academy was based on.

So I have selected my ship and taken command of it's crew and we eventually arrive in the Calder II system.

As soon as you arrive in a system you drop out of warp and you see the planets, moons and other ships in that system as shown below.

While at 0.25 x speed you have plenty of time to do the following:

- as soon as you arrive in a system and see the planets in that system, you need to check if you have received any orders from Starfleet. Roll both dice and the value of both dice will tell you if new orders came in and if so what they are. The Galactopedia will explain this in detail.If you did receive new orders after entering the system, another dice roll and checking the Galactopedia will tell you which of 12 possible orders you have been given.

For this example we assume we do not have any new orders and we head towards the Primary planet in this system which is Calder II.

Once we reach orbit around Calder II the first thing you do is to scan the planet. At this stage you throw the dice and your Science Office will come back to you with the results of the scan. To see the results go to the Galactopedia, look up Calder II system and the results of your dice throw for that specific system will tell you 1 of 6 reports from the Science Officer. You may have detected life forms on the planet and go down to the planet in a landing party. The atmosphere of the planet may prevent transporters so you may need to use a shuttle...or you may just dio a scan from your ship and move on.

In all cases you will follow the Prime Directive General Order 1: "No starship may interfere with the normal development of any alien life or society." which may mean you cannot be seen by them at all. If you do go down to the planet where there is a chance you will break the Prime Directive, roll both dice and see if you have indeed broken the Prime Directive..... 8.3% chance you will.

If you do, as explained on the Calder II card in the Galactopedia , then you must head back to your home planet eg Earth and roll dice again when you arrive there to see the results of any action taken against you by Starfleet... again refer to the Galactopedia card in relation to a possible Court Martial.

While all this is going on, other Federation ships are exploring the system and the Rolulans and Klingons may be getting closer.

[rjord2021]

Captains Log and Stardates

While testing the mod in its early stage I have already printed off a 50 page form I have designed as the Captain's Log to keep track of what my missions are in this mod. As we all know, when Kirk started his log at the beginning of each episode, he would say the following: "Captain's log, Star date 12345.1 etc "

In his first mission in the TOS series in the episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before" the script has Kirk saying the following

"Captain's log, Star date 1312.4. The impossible has happened. From directly ahead, we're picking up a recorded distress signal, the call letters of a vessel which has been missing for over two centuries. Did another Earth ship once probe out of the galaxy as we intend to do? What happened to it out there? Is this some warning they've left behind?"

So for the Captain's Log which is essential for keeping track of what is going on in this mod, it is important to work out the stardate.

This is still being tweaked, but I have a formula I use which converts the date as seen in the top left corner of Distant Worlds and converts it to the Stardate as it was used in the TOS episodes.

So for example in the previous post the picture showed the date 2100.12.24 (day before Christmas?)

My formula run against this date comes up with the Captain saying in my Captain's log book :
Captain's log, Stardate 1311.8


Comparing Stardate 1311.8 to the one used in the first TOS episode stardate 1312.4 suggests that I am playing this mod 8 months before the events of "Where No Man Has Gone Before"

This equation I am using may be tweaked slightly with more testing but is pretty much spot on converting the Distant Worlds date to the TOS stardate.

[rjord2021]

This afternoon I have started an exciting milestone in the mod and that is the complete customization of the Galactopedia which will be given a complete makeover and will be different for each of the 3 parts of the mod.

Each part of the Galactopedia will be given the Star Trek treatment with the looks and way of talking you would expect to see in the Star Trek Universe and will be important for immersing yourself in this mod.

Over the next few weeks you will see some screenshots of what I am doing with the Galactopedia.... but today we are focused specifically on the name "Galactopedia".

When the Enterprise is facing complete destruction at the hands of a creature they have never encountered before and the creature is trying to access their computer records, Spock doesn't suddenly shout out |It is trying to access our "Galactopedia!"

No... he would actually say that the creature was trying to access the Enterprise's Library Computer Banks for all key information on
Starfleet.

So earlier today I have changed all references in this mod so that you will be accessing the ship's Library Computer Banks instead of the Galactopedia.

See the bottom left of the picture for the new change when I access the new Library Computer Banks instead of the Galactopedia.

EDIT: the terminology shown in the screenshot has now been changed to the more correct term "Access Library Computer Banks"

[rjord2021]

The messages shown at the top of the screen are also having a major makeover to add some Star Trek atmosphere to the mod.

Starfleet would never send a transmission to Kirk saying that the ship exploded in a dazzling fireball and that it was a trap and the 2nd line saying the immense blast has damaged our ship!

The 2 lines above would probably be changed in the mod to something like.

"One of our scout ships answered a distress signal from an unknown ship which did not answer hailing frequencies. The ship has exploded causing serious damage to our scout's warp and impulse engines. Any ships in the vicinity are asked to provide assistance as required.Starfleet out."

[rjord2021]

Another replacement message might say"

"We have lost contact with a scout ship that was answering a distress signal from a ship adrift in space. The ship has self-destructed causing damage to the scout and we believe a hostile ship may be in the area. Any ships in the vicinity are asked to provide assistance as required.Starfleet out."

[rjord2021]

One significant change to the mod will be with all messages regarding a ship running out of fuel, or needing to refuel. With the impulse and warp engines refueling is not an issue and ships are more likely to have problems if they are running at top speed for too long and their engines get damaged, or if there was sabotage on board the ship or if the engines were knocked offline due to other factors.

Rather than going to bases to refuel the starships are more likely to need restocking of provisions and possible shore leave or changes in crew personnel.

I think changing refueling in the mod will be a significant change I will start looking at this week.

[rjord2021]

The picture below shows the opening page of the Library Computer Banks which will give a quick summary of the history of what the mod is about.

The 11 entries on the right-hand side from aliens down to space creatures will be completely replaced in the mod with an extensive listing of information you will need to succeed in this mod. When I removed the entries from my mod they still showed and I believe this is because when the file is missing from the mod it is picked up from the Distant Worlds base game. This mod will have a procedure to follow to fix this when you play this mod.

A new section is being added which will introduce the role-playing game mechanics to Distant Worlds Universe. With the use of a pair of dice and looking at Events or Alert cards stored in the Library Computer Banks you will play Distant Worlds Universe as if you were a captain on board the many different starships in this game.

Every aspect of the role playing game side of this mod will be shown in the Library Computer Banks whose records will explain the events you have encountered, the action you as the captain need to take as well as were you successful in overcoming the event and if not successful what happened to you and your ship.

As the captain you will be put in situations where you will need to make decisions that may affect the lives of all of your crew.

Your Chief Medical Officer may have beamed down to the planet you are orbiting when a fleet of Romulan warbirds suddenly arrive and you go to red alert and put up your shields. Unable to beam your CMO back to the ship do you stay and fight the Romulans or leave the sector and come back later. Note : If you come back later you may find the Romulans have captured the planet and the whereabouts of your Chief Medical Officer is unknown.

For the purposes of this mod I have had to introduce a concept that this is an alternate timeline from the one seen in the TOS tv series.

According to the tv show made in the 60s Khan ruled a quarter of Earth by the 90s.....as we are well past the 90s and that never happened we are in an alternate timeline and Khan rules these nations at a later date.... 2092.

Khan was in suspended animation for over 250 years but I have changed that to 150 years as a scavenger found Khan before Kirk did and released Khan from hibernation. Therefore in this timeline Khan never meets Kirk in Space Seed and the Events of the movie Wrath of Khan never happen.

Even though Khan does not meet Kirk and therefore does not end up on Ceti Alpha V, the events where the Nations of Earth forced him to flee the planet still happened. Now awake he will find out that Earth has formed a Federation of planets and Earth and any planet which joins the Federation will suffer from Khan's return from exile.

[rjord2021]

There is no more dangerous an enemy than one who is a superhuman.

Khan is an Augment who was genetically designed to be remarkably agile, five times as strong and twice as intelligent as any normal Human. He is resistant to sickness and has enhanced senses which makes him a formidable and dangerous enemy during combat. This mod will be tweaked so that any encounter with Khan will reflect the intensity of the battle with Kirk in Star Trek II and Khan will prove to be a powerful enemy as he begins to take over entire systems.

While Khan will be the most dangerous threat encountered in this mod there is one other who may be as equally dangerous.

Federation spies have intercepted reports of an individual encountered on a distant world who has similar traits to Khan Noonien Singh from 2092 Earth history. Images of this individual show he cannot be the superhuman who fled Earth 150 years ago but it is without doubt that he has the same superior intellect which made Khan an enormous danger to Earth.

This individual may turn up when you play the mod and wreck havoc in the quadrant.
Some believe this individual is far more dangerous than Khan ever was
Some wonder if this individual is somehow Khan from an altered timeline or an alternate "Mirror Universe"
Some worry if this individual allies himself with Khan and what this would mean to the galaxy.

The Federation has created General Order 40 for all Starfleet personnel to report any contact with either Khan Noonian Singh or this new individual in order for Starfleet to track their movements and fend off any threat these 2 individuals may have to the Federation and her allies.