Star Trek - The Final Frontier (Beta 1.0)

[rjord2021]

I have made a very small change to the Description of the topic of this post.

I have removed all mention of this being a dice game mod as role playing is one way you can play the mod but you can play it equally without any RPG elements to the game.

Not everyone want to play role playing games as they can be very complex..... my version of the Role Playing is actually a lot simpler and is designed not to tax the old grey brain cells but provide a vehicle in which Distant Worlds Universe can be optionally played in a more extended way.

I have also added a post to the Picard era topic for the team behind the Picard era mod to see if they had plans on when they were going to release their version of the Kirk era mod and whether or not it was on hold for Distant Worlds 2.

[rjord2021]

I have revamped the Miranda Class Federation Destroyer seen in the mod and previewed in the shot below.

I am testing the removal of certain ship types via options as I may not need a escort, bomber or capital ship in this mod.

[Dakkon7]

[:)] It's your mod, you do what you feel is best. Personally, I'm most interested in role playing the enterprise crew, not necessarily playing one of the empires.

But, having the Cardassians transition from a struggling but peaceful/spiritual society to a more militaristic and secular one in the course of the three phases of your mod could be quite interesting narratively.

You could have the Cardassians start off in a relatively inhospitable and resource barren area of the galaxy, where they start to peacefully expand their society. But at the same time, they encounter problems of expanding too fast, unrest amongst the colonies grows because of a break down in providing basic necessities. They start fracturing into various different factions (perhaps predecessors to the Obsidian Order, the Central Command and the Detapa Council)and begin plundering/stealing resources and technology from one another. And finally the duo of the Central Command and the Obsidian Order (with the Detapa Council being rendering completely powerless) subdue the prior unrest and start expanding the small but newly formed Cardassian union.

It could be a nice little narrative centering around the theme of falling from grace when things get real (meaning, sacrificing one's morality/spirituality to avert the horror/guilt of having one's friends and family starve).

[rjord2021]

I have got a lot done on the mod in the last day.

Below is an example of how I am creating the shipsets for the mods using basic diagrams as a starting point.

The USS Antares below is about 50% done but already looking better than the original source image.

The Antares class has a crew of 20 and is only 19% of the size of the Enterprise so there is not too much work to do once this ship is scaled down to it's official size.

[rjord2021]

ORIGINAL: Dakkon7

[:)] It's your mod, you do what you feel is best. Personally, I'm most interested in role playing the enterprise crew, not necessarily playing one of the empires.

But, having the Cardassians transition from a struggling but peaceful/spiritual society to a more militaristic and secular one in the course of the three phases of your mod could be quite interesting narratively.

You could have the Cardassians start off in a relatively inhospitable and resource barren area of the galaxy, where they start to peacefully expand their society. But at the same time, they encounter problems of expanding too fast, unrest amongst the colonies grows because of a break down in providing basic necessities. They start fracturing into various different factions (perhaps predecessors to the Obsidian Order, the Central Command and the Detapa Council)and begin plundering/stealing resources and technology from one another. And finally the duo of the Central Command and the Obsidian Order (with the Detapa Council being rendering completely powerless) subdue the prior unrest and start expanding the small but newly formed Cardassian union.

It could be a nice little narrative centering around the theme of falling from grace when things get real (meaning, sacrificing one's morality/spirituality to avert the horror/guilt of having one's friends and family starve).

The first module for the role playing will have you role playing as the Enterprise crew.

The next role playing module will be the Klingons....a third Romulans if there is demand for it...and later modules could give role play to other races like the Ferengi, Cardassians, Vulcans etc.

[Dakkon7]

You do what you feel is best.

[rjord2021]

In Kirk's opening monologue where he finishes with the sentence.... "To boldly go....."

Well that is what I am doing with this mod.

I am testing some significant changes with the ship sets and am looking at making some significant changes to 34% of the ships to give the ships a more Star Trek flavour.

Stay tuned.

[Twigster]

[;)]

[rjord2021]

Work on the mod was somewhat interrupted by issues with my main computer where the computer was randomly shutting down. This has been resolved so back into the development at full steam again.

With the mod I have the 3 big races as the center piece of the mod and have them listed as Group 1.

1. The Federation
2. The Klingons
3. The Romulans

Group 2 races will have the other Founding Members of the Federation which are the Confederacy of Vulcan, the Andorian Empire, the United Planets of Tellar, the Alpha Centauri Concordium and the world known as Rigel IV.

Group 3 races will have the rest of them.

With these races I am designing the ships to be added to the mod and then testing them. Sometimes the ships look great and other times I have to do more work on them as they look less than great.

The picture below is one I have of a Constitution Class starship chasing down a Klingon Raptor. Very happy with the Constitution Class but still work to do on the Raptor.

[rjord2021]

The first three Tholian ships belonging to the Tholian Assembly

[rjord2021]

What happened with the Romulans after Kirk defeated them in the Balance of Terror?

Starfleet Intelligence reported a most troubling development - the Romulan Empire had acquired a substantial number of Klingon D-7 class battle cruisers to supplement their fleet. Somewhat ironically, the impetus for this move on their part could well be the actions of the Federation Starship Enterprise under the command of Captain Kirk.



The Enterprise had engaged a prototype Romulan ship in battle and ultimately defeated it. The loss of their most advanced vessel demonstrated to the Romulans that they had little chance of mounting a full scale invasion of the Federation.... and it also implied that the Romulans would not be able to protect themselves if the Federation should decide to attack them.

The Romulans decided to strike a deal with the Klingons where they traded their cloaking technology for Klingon warships of the D7 class.

The Klingon experience of the D-7 was that it was considered to be somewhat less than a match for the Constitution class, one-on-one. But when fitted with a Romulan cloaking device the Klingon vessel had a huge advantage over its Federation counterpart.

In the original timeline the Romulans acquired the D-7s in 2268....however in this mod the Romulans made the deal with the Klingons 2 years earlier in 2266 shortly after the Balance of Terror episode took place.

For this mod it would make sense that if the Romulans are going to go to war with the Federation they would want to fast track the addition of D-7s to their fleet.

Below is a work in progress shot of a Romulan D-7 Battle-cruiser.

[Jagdtiger14]

I think your Klingon Raptor looks awesome!...as do the Tholians!

When I was a kid I had some D-7 plastic models...always loved the D-7. Your Romulan D-7 looks great!

Is there a Distant Worlds 2 in the works?...if so, where can I follow its development?

[rjord2021]

ORIGINAL: Jagdtiger14

I think your Klingon Raptor looks awesome!...as do the Tholians!

When I was a kid I had some D-7 plastic models...always loved the D-7. Your Romulan D-7 looks great!

Is there a Distant Worlds 2 in the works?...if so, where can I follow its development?

Hi Jagdtiger14


Yes Distant Worlds 2 is in the works and, though there is no specific topics to follow its development, there have been a few posts from the developers such as these 2.




1. Erik Rutins 23rd September 2015
Hi folks,

We are indeed working on the next game in the series, but I can't share any details yet. I can say that it is a very major project for us all that has been getting a lot of effort and attention both from us and Elliot. We expect this to move DW forward in every respect, but even the internal test team haven't seen any details yet, so it will be a while before we can share anything publicly.

Regards,

- Erik



and more recently




2. Erik Rutins 25th August 2016

Sorry to keep you all in suspense - we are working on Distant Worlds 2, but not ready to release more information as yet.

[rjord2021]

Speaking of Distant Worlds 2 this is one of the reasons I am spending more time on the development of this mod .

The plan is to release this mod as well as the Voyager mod prior to DW2 being released.
After DW2 is release I then begin work on the DW2 version of the mods adding whatever new features are coming out with DW2.

Status at the moment:

I have the Federation, Klingons and Romulans already added as playable races.

By the end of Sunday I plan to have the founding members of Starfleet such as the Vulcans and Andorians added. This will give me 8 playable races to do more testing of the game play of the mod.

From Monday I start one month of development adding the other races, the role play, the trading system, gameplay as Orion Pirates and a few other things.

[Jagdtiger14]

I assume the developers of DW2 will do something better than what ever the best is out there now (Stellaris?).

The only reason I would be even remotely interested in DW or DW2 is your mod work. But as a potential customer for this product (DW), why would I not just wait for DW2?...with the added benefit of your mods being completed?

I think the developers of DW2 should hire you.

[Twigster]

Greetings Jagdtiger14,

To your question on why should you not just wait until DW2...

A couple of answers to that would be:

*Release time-frame of DW2 is currently completely unknown, and
*DW:U is currently the very best space-themed 4x out there. You would be missing out on a great experience by waiting. [8D]

[rjord2021]

A lot of work is going into the role play cards that will be seen in the mod.

Below is an image I created for the Enterprise in orbit around Earth.
This image is then used for additional images such as one where the Sun is beginning to set

I will explain in a later post how these cards will be seen and used in the mod.

[rjord2021]

ORIGINAL: Jagdtiger14

I assume the developers of DW2 will do something better than what ever the best is out there now (Stellaris?).

The only reason I would be even remotely interested in DW or DW2 is your mod work. But as a potential customer for this product (DW), why would I not just wait for DW2?...with the added benefit of your mods being completed?

I think the developers of DW2 should hire you.

Depending on when DW2 is released work on my mod for DW2 could take 6 to 12 months so in theory my DW2 mod may only get released late 2018 or early 2019....but hopefully much earlier.

Reason to play my mod in DW1:

- DW1 is still the best 4x game to date.

- My mod for DW1 will be released early 2017.
: Kirk Era mod released first followed shortly after by the Voyager Mod

- Both DW1 mods will receive updates every few weeks adding more to the game play

- The mods for DW1 and DW2 will be different from each other



Recommendation:

- you will need several months with Distant Worlds to learn how to play it... it has a steep learning curve

- play Distant Worlds Universe without mods to learn the gameplay.
- then play with mods installed

- by this time my DW1 mod will be released and you can get straight into role playing in my mod without several months of learning how to play.


- my mod makes a number of changes in how Distant Worlds plays so it is beneficial to know how the game plays before my mod makes it a little more complicated and realistic

- My mod is designed specifically for the latest version of Distant Worlds which is Distant Worlds Universe and will not work with the earlier versions of Distant Worlds.

[rjord2021]

Carol Marcus (From Star Trek II) will play a more substantial part in this mod and will not have resigned from Starfleet prior to the pilot episodes been filmed as per the original timeline.

Instead Carol Marcus will remain on board the Enterprise in the Sciences Division and will be involved in several landing parties along with Gary Mitchell. This is a timeline showing what would have occurred if Carol had not resigned and Gary Mitchell was not killed off in the pilot episode.

I have upgraded the image of Carol Marcus to a more realistic version as seen below.... still a work in progress. The image had to be recolored and photoshopped to fit in with the background scene.

The picture is a younger version of the actress Bibi Besch who originally played Carol Marcus.

[Jagdtiger14]

*DW:U is currently the very best space-themed 4x out there. You would be missing out on a great experience by waiting.

Hi Twigster! I'm not surprised anyone with this game would say its the best, but what do you base your opinion on that this game is better than Polaris Sector or Stellaris? I see Polaris Sector has a Star Wars mod, but of course the Star Trek world is much better...so that's my reason, but I would like to hear what others say their reasons are.
Thanks!