Star Trek - The Final Frontier (Beta 1.0)

[Twigster]

Can hardly wait! [:)]

[Hattori Hanzo]

why did you change the banner ???

[rjord2021]

ORIGINAL: Hattori Hanzo

why did you change the banner ???

It was just a temporary banner to give a preview of a character appearing with Khan......

Original banner is back with a small change

[rjord2021]

Now 11 episodes in Stardate order into Season 2 of TOS and have an even 400 planets in 68 systems to add to the new map.

By the time I get to the end of Season 3 I will have around 843 planets correctly named and correctly positioned.

These are added to the map for Part 1 of the mod covering the Kirk TV series.

Planets for part2 of the mod covering the movie era will come from movies 1 to 6

Part 3 of the mod will be any planets in TNG and DS9 not already added as well as planets in the Star Trek 2017 tv series...assuming it will take place after TNG.

[Hattori Hanzo]

I was refering exactly to the temporary banner: in my opinion the first one that you posted was better than the second one [:)]

[rjord2021]

9 more episodes of Season 2 to go adding more systems to add to the map.... now at total of 469 planets in 80 systems

[rjord2021]

The mod will be using a 15 x 15 Distant Worlds map size however not all of the map will be populated with systems and planets.

Of the 15x15 DW map the map for the Alpha and Beta Quadrants will be fitting an area 15 across but only 11 down as shown below. This is because there are more worlds to fit in across the map than they are going up and down with the Sol system in the middle of the map.

What this means is that you are going to have deep space in this map at the top and bottom of the map allowing encounters with the Galactic Barrier as seen in the pilot episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before"

However, the areas of deep space may not be as empty as you might think with a few surprises there if any one ventures into Deep Space.

The thinking behind the map has changed since I created the picture below with the 3 rows of deep space been at the top of the map... the reasons for this will become clear when you play the mod.

[rjord2021]

Season 2 of TOS episodes completed 505 planets in 87 star systems to add to the map

Gathering all this data takes a bit of time as not all systems have the data I need.... for example how many planets are in the system or how many moons around a specific planet.

I also have a system in place for everything going into the mod where I pick up information from various resources and for each planet, moon or race I cross reference with another resource to throw out anything which is not verifiable.

[rjord2021]

Concept art of the size I am looking for with the Deep Space Stations and Starbases in the mod.

[rjord2021]

An initial idea of how the Federation dry-docks will look like in the mod.

When you build your federation fleet the ships will start from here and there will be a procedure to follow once you are notified by Starfleet that a new ship has been constructed.

I am putting together the process and testing soon.

I think I mentioned that to play the mod you need to be in control of a lot more of what goes on in the game and rely less on automation of processes.

This can be a little daunting to some but I will be putting together detailed documentation of how to play this mod with role playing and this should make things a lot easier. This may also include Youtube Tutorials.


In the mod you need to control each ship that is created... and to recreate what happens in the space dock procedures the mod would specify that you do not queue up multiple ships to be built. You will no longer be able to queue up 10 ships one after the other and this will add to the experience of the mod and make this Star Trek mod more realistic.

The idea is that you request the building of an explorer Constitution vessel for example.
Distant Worlds will then notify you when the ship construction is complete.

Role playing takes over here and you follow a number of steps requiring dice which:

- sign off construction crew
- assign captain and crew to the bridge
- receive permission to leave dock.
- assign a mission to that ship and crew
- leave the dry dock

When the ship has left the dock you can request the building of the next ship.

[rjord2021]

When this mod is released it will come with detailed documentation of when specific ships and classes of ships are built for the Federation, Klingons, Romulans and Vulcans.

For example with the Federation and looking at the Constitution class ships such as the Enterprise.....this class being one of the most successful and famous of all starship classes in the history of Starfleet..... the following stats for this class:



With the Constitution class vessels they were in service from 2218 to 2295 with only 14 vessels in that time . 14 vessels (12 new builds, 2 upgrades).


NCC-1371 U.S.S. Republic Upgraded to Constitution class in 2211.
NCC-1017 U.S.S. Constellation Upgraded to Constitution class in 2228.

NCC-1700 U.S.S. Constitution commissioned as Constitution sub-class in 2218.....first ship built of that class.
NCC-1701 U.S.S. Enterprise commissioned as Constitution sub-class in 2221.
NCC-1702 U.S.S. Farragut commissioned as Constitution sub-class in 2223.
NCC-1703 U.S.S. Lexington commissioned as Constitution sub-class in 2223.
NCC-1704 U.S.S. Yorktown commissioned as Constitution sub-class in 2223.
NCC-1705 U.S.S. Excalibur commissioned as Constitution sub-class in 2223.
NCC-1706 U.S.S. Exeter commissioned as Constitution sub-class in 2223.
NCC-1707 U.S.S. Hood commissioned as Constitution sub-class in 2223.
NCC-1708 U.S.S. Intrepid commissioned as Constitution sub-class in 2224.
NCC-1709 U.S.S. Valiant commissioned as Constitution sub-class in 2224.
NCC-1710 U.S.S. Kongo commissioned as Constitution sub-class in 2224.
NCC-1711 U.S.S. Potemkin commissioned as Constitution sub-class in 2224.


With these ships the most that were built in one year was 6 of them in 2223.
If you want to play the mod with 100% realism it would not be realistic to queue up 10 Constitution explorer one after the other.

Of course other classes of ship were built, such as :
- 20 Saladin class destroyers (NCC-500 to NCC-519) that were built with first ships starting construction in 2224
- 16 Hermes class scouts (NCC-617 to NCC-625) that were built with first ships starting construction in 2224
- 15 Ptolemy class tugs (NCC-3801 to NCC-3815) that were built with first ships starting construction in 2224
- 10 Detroyat class Heavy Destroyers (NCC-1100 to NCC-1109) that were built with first ships starting construction in 2224
and other classes at later dates.



I had always assumed that the Enterprise was a Constitution class vessel when Kirk did his 5 year mission however the Enterprise had actually being upgraded from Constitution to Bonhomme Richard Class prior to the 5 year mission.


Anyhow...this mod will have all the documentation on when each class was created, the name of each ship in each class so you can build the ships in Distant Worlds as they were built in the timeline.

I have a formula which converts the Starfleet date to the Distant Worlds date seen in the top left of the screen.

[rjord2021]

Last post for the day before I get into some serious mapping

The picture below is the final look at the map being used to locate the worlds that will be added to this mod.
Federation space looks busy and is clearly where most of the action will take place.

This is pretty much the scope of the area that I am mapping for the mod.

I have marked the location at the bottom of the map where the pilot episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before" took place...Delta Vega is located where the blue arrow is pointing.

The yellow dot at the top of the map is the location of Earth in the Sol system.

The map in distant Worlds is 15 x 15 grids in size and this one is 15 x 14 so I have pretty much the entire map filled up.

This mod is in 3 parts and while the 3rd part will have the entire map covered the first and 2nd parts will only have worlds mentioned ion the TOS era.

However, for those who want to play as the Romulans or Klingons each world on this map will be shown in the mod as well...... estimate of over 1000 planets going into this mod.

[rjord2021]

Creating the flags for the races seen in this mod.

Below is the flag for Khan's Eugenics War Flag.
Similar but different to the Federation Flag.

[rjord2021]

Spent 5 hours today on an issue where adding the Federation to the Sol system worked but then got broken as soon as I added the Romulans or Klingons to their home systems.

Read about an issue where modders needed to add all Empires into the map or the changes for the home systems would not save. This would cause me issues as I have well over 500 colonies to add to the map and no way of doing them all in one save,

At the end of the day I think I finally got a resolution but needed to do a series of steps for it to work. Will do more tests tomorrow morning.

[rjord2021]

Tonight I added 96 planets from within systems mentioned in the first 4 episodes of Season 1 TOS into the new map and started testing.

Played the Federation and soon met other Empires :

- The Vulcans
- The Elasians

- and for the first time Khan Noonien Singh has appeared in the mod and is based on Regulus V in the Alpha Leonis system.
His stats show at this very early stage Khan is very angry and bitter towards the Federation and we can expect some conflict with Khan and his band of Eugenics in the near future.

[rjord2021]

Each planet will be given a custom texture ..... every planet in the Sol system has been created as seen in the example with Jupiter below.

Jupiter looks gigantic in the picture because it is a giant... 1,120% bigger than the size of Earth.

Each planet has been scaled correctly to give some added realism to the mod.

[rjord2021]

The Klingon homeworld and it's moon Praxis


EDIT:

The images for both Qo'noS and Praxis have been updated to a more detailed image.

[rjord2021]

Had a couple of issues with the map but got it all sorted out.

In the next few days I will complete adding all the planets and systems mentioned in TOS Season 1 and after that continue work on adding the role playing to the mod with screenshots appearing soon.

[rjord2021]

Escort
Frigate
Destroyer
Cruiser
Capital Ship
Troop Transport
Resupply Ship
Colony Ship
Construction ship
Exploration ship



These are the ship types you see in Distant Worlds Universe and they are getting a makeover in this mod to give them a Star Trek ship type such as :



Heavy cruisers............
Light Cruisers............
Birds of Prey.............
Science Vessel............
Exploration Vessel........
Scout Ship................
Dilithium Mining Ship.....
Battleships...............
Cloaked Ship..............


and so on.

Screenshots of some examples will appear in the next week.

[rjord2021]

It is time to meet a character that will be seen in the mod.

Koronin....

A female renegade Klingon with fire in her blood and a deep hatred of all things Federation.

Fighting her own personal war with the Federation in a prototype Klingon vessel.
Location unknown but believed to be somewhere in Federation space.



Note:
Koronin is shown here with the traditional ridged forehead as she was not one of the millions of Klingons who developed the smooth forehead as a result of the Augment virus. If you went to the Klingon homeworld during the Kirk era you would not have seen any Klingons with smooth foreheads.

To ensure that the smooth forehead Klingons did not lose their positions and still had a place in the Empire, they were given valued positions as captains and crews of warships on the Frontlines which is why they were seen so many times in border conflicts with the Federation.

Koronin and her followers as renegades have chosen to be on the front lines fighting the Federation and this mod will have both the traditional ridged forehead Klingons as well as those without the ridges.

While most of the Klingons seen in the mod will not have ridges, those that do will more than likely be followers of Koronin who are themselves as renegades being chased by Klingon ships.