Star Trek - The Final Frontier (Beta 1.0)

[rjord2021]

Drilling down to extreme detail in this mod

The following is a damage control system which will be added to ships for races such as the Federation, the Klingons, the Romulans and a few others. I am adding this to the mod mainly for my own use however as this may be too complex for some it will be in the mod and entirely optional to use in your gameplay.

At times your ship is going to get into battle and take damage and my mod is going to go into great detail to tell you what damage you took, where on the ship the damage occurred and what effect it will have on your ship.

For example if your warp engine coils and impulse deck are badly damaged your ship cannot move until they are repaired.
If your transporters are out you will not be able to transport to other planets or other ships until the transporters are repaired.

You first roll one dice to determine if damage was minimal, medium or serious damage.... a 1 being minimal and 6 being serious.

You then roll a dice to determine where that damage occurred
- the saucer section
- the secondary hull
- the warp engine nacelle

If the saucer section took damage then one of 32 areas may have taken minimal, medium or serious damage

If the secondary hull was damaged there are 35 areas that may have taken damage

If the warp engine nacelle was damaged you would be looking at one of 20 areas


You roll one dice to see if the damage was to the front of the ship, the side of the ship or the back of the ship.
You would then roll both dice to see which of 12 sections in the front, middle or back were damaged
You then consult the Library Computer Banks to see how this damaged area affects the ship, can you go to warp, do you have shields and can you fire phasers or photon torpedoes if you are attacked by Klingons.

If you take a shuttle down to a planet's surface there is a chance your shuttle may be damaged.
The shuttle Galileo has 18 areas which may take damage... 10 of those preventing the shuttle leaving the planet if you took serious damage. These would need to be repaired before you can head back to the ship.

[rjord2021]

Screen test showing additions of first 3 of 35 Starfleet General Orders into the Science Officers Library Computer Banks. I need the orders be a separate list under a collapsable subheading "General Orders"

When playing the mod you may be referred to any one of the 35 Starfleet General Orders such as Order 1 which is the Prime Directive or just as important in this mod

General Order Seven:
No Starfleet vessel shall visit the planet Talos IV under any circumstances, emergency or otherwise. This order
supersedes General Order 6. Any transgression of this general order shall be punishable by death.

When you first discover Talos IV you will be instructed by the cards to send down a landing party at which time you will encounter the Talosians.

General Order Seven will then come into effect after you have left orbit.

When you are travelling to planets to orbit them , scan them and possibly send down a landing party you first need to check the Library Computer Banks to make sure that the planet is not off limits . A similar order is placed on the Genesis planet in Part 2 of this mod.

[rjord2021]

Below is concept art of a Klingon D7 cruiser firing a photon torpedo spread near the planet Talos IV.

While 99% of the concept art is from the mod the torpedoes are pasted from the transparent image in the weapons folder onto the picture as I try to decide which shape and size torpedoes to use.
I think that was a headlight of the first movie in '79 when the Klingons were firing Photon torpedoes into the cloud and I am trying to recreate that look.

I have various shapes of red photon torpedoes I am testing and different races will have different ones with different colors.

Tomorrow I am looking for that one specific sound byte of a photon torpedo firing, perhaps from the Motion Picture itself, to finalize the atmosphere of watching Klingons firing those photon torpedoes at vulnerable ships.

I am looking at possibly randomising the image used for firing the photon torpedo so it is at different angles but suspect I can only use one image.

[rjord2021]

For well over the last 18 months I have been trying to work out if there was a way to disable the nebulae and gas clouds seen in the maps as they just did not belong in the map I am finalizing. Had no luck finding a solution.

Today I found a solution on the steam forum and am posting below that same post (which this time next week will be exactly 2 years old) in case others are also looking at removing nebulae and gas clouds. With what is said below do the opposite and make sure the box is ticked to remove the nebulae and gas clouds.



Posted by ositodefelpa 25th Μαy 2014

Go to the options screen on the main menu (i.e. the start up menu you get before beginning a specific game), then click on Advanced Settings and look at the "Clean Galaxy View" at the bottom of the window. If the box for Clean Galaxy View is checked, then uncheck it. That might bring the names back for you.

But you have to be out of a specific game to see that option.

[Bingeling]

That removes the system names on the map (including gas cloud names and similar). I am not quite able to see how that disables those items. It for sure makes the map harder to navigate, though.

[rjord2021]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

That removes the system names on the map (including gas cloud names and similar). I am not quite able to see how that disables those items. It for sure makes the map harder to navigate, though.

There is no doubt that navigation is easier when you have the system names on the map and the game actually looks better.

The reason why I was looking at this was due to hard coded text on the map for nebula and other objects (I think it was in a white font) which I was trying to remove from the map as they were not a part of the alpha or beta quadrants. One post I saw 18 months back said that the text could not be removed as it was hardcoded into the game.

However, looking at the map now with system names turned on I do not see the hardcoded text any more and all I see are the objects I have added to the map.



Just a note on some changes in the map between part 1 and part 2 of this mod.

The picture below is from the tv series part of the Kirk era and in the picture you can see Talos IV, the Ceti Alpha system where Khan was left in the Space Seed episode and you can also see the Genesis planet where the Mutara Nebula will also be added.

My understanding is that the Genesis planet was created from the Mutara Nebula in the Star Trek II part of the timeline.... so by rights it never existed here in the tv series timeline so should be removed and added only in part 2 of the mod....Kirs movie era.

However, this is an alternate version of the star trek universe and perhaps in this timeline Genesis was never created and therefore should not be in any of the 3 parts of the map at all.

Anyhow the picture below shows the region of space where the Wrath of Khan took place.

[Lecivius]

I'm not criticizing (seriously),because I really like what your doing and I fully appreciate this is a LOT of freakin work. I'm just mentioning in passing that the systems had names, the planets had numbers aka the Ceti Alpha star system had several planets ( Ceti Alpha 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc.)

Earth is actually Sol 3 [;)] named Earth by one set of lunatic local's [:D]

[Hattori Hanzo]

it's not clear to me if the above Steam-forum hint delete the nebulaes and gas clouds object from the galaxy map or only the nebulae and gas clouds names.. [&:]

[rjord2021]

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Developer Diary 1


The Early concept of adding role play card gaming to Distant Worlds Universe roughly goes as follows:

- You will take on the role of the Starship Captain for the Federation, the Klingons or the Romulans with other races added later.
- When the mod loads up the first thing to do is find out the name of the Captain or Commander you will be playing

If playing Federation, between 2249 and including 2269 there were 38 Federation Captains and one of these will randomly appear at the start of the mod. You could play as James Kirk, Christopher Pike, Robert April , Matthew Decker or even Garth of Izar among many others.

- When you have been assigned the name of the Captain you will also be given the name of the ship you will command
- the aim of the game is that your captain must explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations and boldly go where no man has gone before.

- As Captain you can only do that while you have Command Points. When you succeed a mission you get more command points, if youfail a mission you lose them. If you run out of Command Points you need to return to Earth and the game is over.

- To make it a little easier, when your Captain starts and he sits down in the Captain's Chair on board his starship, the first thing he will do is transfer Command Points on board from his duties on previous ships.

ACTION : Role Two dice to work out the Command Points your captain will start with
: Best case scenario is that you will start with 12 command points which is great
: Worst case is you only have 2 points and this will be bad but not impossible

To get the most challenges from this mod one simple rule should be followed
: For each action only roll the dice once...DON'T thow the dice again if you did not like the result

- Once you know how many Command Points your Captain has write them down in the Captain's Log as you will need it during the mod

[rjord2021]

[center][/center]

Developer Diary 2


Landing Parties on Planets

When you leave the bridge and head to the transporter room to join the landing party beaming down to the ship, you will need to specify the number of people in the landing party. For example it might be on most occasions Kirk, Spock and Mccoy which means with 2 dice you need to get at least 3 not to lose any mission points.

Let us use the Mission to Delta Vega as an example of how the landing party mission works

- When the game starts your Captain has 10 command points from prior commands

- Before you get to the transporter room you need to know how many will be going down to the planet. On the ship there is a maximum of 6 that can go down at one time.

- Roll one dice to see how many people you decide should go down to the planet. Lets hope you don't roll a 1 as you will go down alone.

- The dice roll is a 4 pretty good

- However, the card for Delta Vega indicates that in the tv show 5 people went down to the planet Delta Vega...you really needed a 5 or more

- as you only took 4 down, your mission points will be the 4 you rolled for the landing party less what was shown on the card (5) less = -1

-This means when you transport down to the planet you will already have a -1 for Mission Points. Not a good start.

You then start the mission and throw both dice three times
- if you get a 7 - 12 value on the dice that step of the mission is going well
- if you get a 2 - 6 value on the dice then that step of the mission is not going well

Following the diagram illustrating these dice throws you will finish the mission in 4 ways

1. Mission was a success all the way through You can add 4 command points
2. Mission had a bad start but finished well You can add 2 command points
3. Mission had a good start but has failed You must remove 1 command point
4. Mission was a disaster and huge failure You must remove 2 command points


Now as the captain if the mission was a disaster you may also have to face the possibility that crewmen were injured or killed

This will apply only if you have 4 or more crew on the landing party.
The first 3 are the Kirk, spock and Mccoy of the party so they cannot be injured or killed
Crew 4 , 5 and 6 are the red shirt security guys who kept on being killed off in the TOS series

If you have more than 4 crew in the party throw one dice to see how many may be injured or killed
If you have 4 crew then you can assume the red shirted security guy is at danger of being injured or killed by the next step.

Throw one dice again to see how serious the injury was.
Values 1 to 3 on the dice means the security guard only had minor injuries and a trip to Medical is all he needs
Values 4 to 6 mean the number of crew selected by last dice throw have fatal injuries and died.

If you had injured crewmen on the landing party or they were killed you must note these in your captains log

At some stage you will be called back to Earth and they will see 3 of your crew died. Starfleet will take a command point away for each crewman lost. Hopefully before then you explore more planets, have better landing party missions and gain some needed command points.

If the missions was a complete success you add 4 command points to the 10 you had at the beginning to give you 14 command points.

If the mission was a failure then you take 2 command points away from the 10 leaving you 8 points.

If this was your first mission and you started with 2 points by rolling two dice with 1 on each dice, then taking away 2 command points means you have no more command points left and need to return to Earth. Game Over.

[rjord2021]

Diagram as mentioned in the last post explaining how landing party missions are won or lost and how they determine the effect on your command points.

The diagram looks complicated but it will be on a form you print out and easily followed and documented to show how it works. The fate of the mission is normally decided within a minute or two.

[rjord2021]

ORIGINAL: Lecivius

I'm not criticizing (seriously),because I really like what your doing and I fully appreciate this is a LOT of freakin work. I'm just mentioning in passing that the systems had names, the planets had numbers aka the Ceti Alpha star system had several planets ( Ceti Alpha 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc.)

Earth is actually Sol 3 [;)] named Earth by one set of lunatic local's [:D]

I am using the Memory Beta site to initially get names in the system.

For Sol they list

Mercury
Venus
Earth
Luna
Mars
Phobos
Deimos
Ceres and the Sol asteroid belt
Wrigley's Pleasure Planet
Jupiter
Io
Europa
Ganymede
Callisto
Saturn
Enceladus
Titan
Uranus
Ariel
Neptune
Triton
Nereid
Pluto
Charon
Nix
Eris
Dysnomia

I think during the tv shows the characters always referred to Earth and not Sol3 because the tv audience would not know Sol3 was Earth.


With the Ceti Alpha system there were 6 planets.

Ceti Alpha (primary)
Ceti Alpha I
Ceti Alpha II
Ceti Alpha III
Ceti Alpha IV
Ceti Alpha V
Ceti Alpha VI (destroyed)
Ceti Alpha asteroid belt

When I mapped the Beta Quadrant 12 months ago I had randomly put in planets according to what Distant Worlds decided... which is why the picture of the Ceti Alpha system has 8 planets not 6.

I am checking the planets in the system according to Star Trek before creating them in the Alpha Quadrant.

I will be reviewing and fixing all planets in the Beta Quadrant before the mod is released however many systems do not indicate bodies in the system or their names.

I should also correctly add moons around the correct planets and have the correct name for the moon... the problem is I have not seen a source which gives me the names of all the moons.Saturn of course has 62 moons which would crash Distant worlds if I tried adding them all in

With the systems I am mostly naming the system according to the Star Trek atlas which helps in the map where you have a system called Delta Vega and know that Delta Vega is the primary planet in that system.

In the pilot episode of Star Trek TOS they left Gary Mitchel on a planet called Delta Vega 1 in a system called Delta Vega. In the 2009 movie Spock was on the planet Delta Vega in the Vulcan system when he watched the planet Vulcan be destroyed. This can get confusing if I have a starfleet card giving a mission to Delta Vega which might be in the Vulcan or Delta Vega systems.

Getting the event cards working in Distant Worlds Universe is challenging and I try to follow canon as best as I can but sometimes the system may be named after the Prime Planet instead of its scientific name.

[rjord2021]

ORIGINAL: Hattori Hanzo

it's not clear to me if the above Steam-forum hint delete the nebulaes and gas clouds object from the galaxy map or only the nebulae and gas clouds names.. [&:]

Have alook at this post
tm.asp?m=3616018

What I found interesting is that the clean galaxy option when ticked removed the names printed in the background over nebulas ...which is what I was trying to do.

When I then unticked the clear galaxy option everything else came back but the names printed in the background over nebulas. Not complaining because that is what I had wanted.

[rjord2021]

I have seen on the Steam forums that some people have issues with Distant Worlds slowing down on their computers.
This is a good point to consider as my event cards could add to performance issues.

My thoughts are that I take my role playing system off Distant Worlds and I am looking at this over the next day or so.

I am using software to quickly create the rpg event cards for this distant world mod as seen below with this example card for Talos IV and can even add game counters you can print off for tracking events.

More news on this later.

[rjord2021]

You will now need 4 dice for this game as a new random system has been put in place.

When you enter a system and drop out of warp 84% of the time you will carry on with your mission in Distant Worlds.

However 16% of the time you will have an interruption to the mission and there are now over 20 random events that can occur in any system throughout the map. No two gameplays of this mod will be the same as the other.

[Hattori Hanzo]

as I said previously: very unusual for a computer strategy game but very interesting ..

[soulcatcherVM]

Please post your DWU mod work in progress versions for us to look at before another lightning strike destroys your awesome work.

[rjord2021]

When your ship arrives at a planet and the planet is found to have life forms on it, you as the captain will want to send down a landing party to the planet.

However, before you send down a landing party according to Starfleet protocols you must first contact the planet and seek permission to beam down and meet their representatives.

You may or may not be given permission to beam down to the planet and this will depend on how many command points your captain has. If you have a low number of command points you will lack experience and may at times be refused permission to beam down.

This could have severe implications on your game if for example this planet was one with future Federation importance. Example. If you were not given permission to beam down to Vulcan, certain aspects of the game would not happen so easily and for the remainder of the game Vulcans may not join the Federation... a situation you really want to avoid.

[Hattori Hanzo]

hello Rjord1, any news on your Star Trek project ?

[rjord2021]

ORIGINAL: Hattori Hanzo

hello Rjord1, any news on your Star Trek project ?

Still being developed...... however the last few weeks have been a little hectic as someone close to me passed away suddenly and I am in the process of looking after her 2 cats and bringing them into my home to live with the 2 cats I already have.

Will be getting back to this project full time this week.


What is happening with the project this week:

1. Going through every episode of Star Trek Enterprise to make sure every planet, system and race is included in my mod. For example, the Trill were mentioned in the first Episode of Enterprise

2. Once this is done do the same for the Kirk tv series and movies

3 With the Galaxy Map for the mod the one issue is that there are no official canon Star Trek maps in existence. In fact if you look at different maps you will see that the Klingons and Romulans may with some maps be in completely different areas in relation to where the Federation is. I have been using the Star Trek Atlas for creating this map however though fairly detailed it does not include all planets in each sector of the Alpha and Beta quadrants. Hence the reason I am going through every episode of Enterprise and TOS looking at which planet and which species were mentioned in that episode and making sure they are shown on my map. I am not watching every episode but looking at detailed notes for each episode which can take anything up to one hour to find a planet or system mentioned in an episode but missing from my map, research it and then add to my map. A fairly lengthy process I am doing bit by bit every day along with creating the game cards etc.

Below is an example of 2 maps.... the lower map being the one that I am using and the upper map having features that will be added.

The end result is a very detailed map showing every system and planet mentioned in Star Trek along with 5 different galaxy maps which show every cluster, every nebula, the Badlands, drifts and other galactic body known to Star Trek. As the Klingons are found and the game card for my mod tells you that the Neutral Zone between Federation and Klingon space has been formed you will save the game , exit out and load the galaxy map for showing the Klingon Neutral Zone. Same thing for the Romulan Neutral Zone and a 3rd map showing both Romulan and Klingon neutral zones.

As you play the mod you will get to learn where specific races are. However if you head towards Gorn space to meet the Gorns you may not meet them as they will randomly be there. For all you know the Romulans have passed the Neutral Zone and taken control of planets that in canon were Gorn controlled.

Every time you play the mod you can try to follow the original time line. However the AI has a mind of its own and is going to do things that make this timeline an alternate timeline instead.

Every time you play the mod it is recommended you have the Klingons, Romulans and Vulcans in the game. Other races including Khan are going to be optional.

Images for the Nebula and the Expanses will be taken from the map as seen in the small example ashown in the upper part of the picture below. The upper map has a more detailed view of the expanses etc and will be pasted directly onto the map. Even though the nebula, expanse or drift is painted onto the map you will not know the name of it until you get there and an event card you see when reaching the nebula will tell you which one it is. When you reach the Delphic Expanse yiou may or may not meet the Sphere Builders introduced in the Enterprise era.