Star Trek - The Final Frontier (Beta 1.0)

Please post here for questions and discussion about scenario, art and sound modding and the game editor for Distant Worlds.

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rjord2021
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Star Trek : The Return of Khan (TOS Era)

Post by rjord2021 »

If you play the role play version of the mod you will at times have the possibility of the following scenario.... the chance of this or a version of this happening being dependant on which tree the role of the dice takes you.

Mods have research trees.... this mod also has a timeline tree with various branches which will take you to various different versions of the timeline.

Below for example would be a scenario called "Kirk meets Picard meets Archer meets Kirk"

Will Deep Space 9 be in the mod......? possibly.
Will Voyager be in the mod...........? not likely as the Voyager mod is in development

Keep in mind that the Star Trek TOS story-lines included meeting Apollo, Abraham Lincoln, the Guardian of Forever, the Mirror Universe, time travel and so on.

I am keeping this going in the mod with various story lines which happen as a result of Khan, the Borg, Guardian of Forever and Mirror universe introducing things which never happened in the original TOS timeline.





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rjord2021
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Star Trek : The Return of Khan (TOS Era)

Post by rjord2021 »

For the timeline shown in this mod to have altered so much from the original timeline there had to be a cause for that change.

And the cause can be found in 2286 when an alien probe arrives at Earth resulting in a planet-wide emergency. In order to find 2 humpback whales, Kirk and his crew do a time warp back to 1986.

They meet Gillian Taylor who helps them with obtaining the two whales George and Gracie. At this point it is important to know that Gillian has met Roberta Lincoln who is the companion of Gary Seven who has a history with what happened to Khan.

Kirk makes a mistake and instead of leaving Gillian in 1986 he leaves her on board the ship heading back to 2286.

However something goes wrong with the time warp back to 2286 and the ship arrives back in 2266 20 years earlier and the ship is damaged without parts needed to get them back to 2286.

Gillian Taylor is the key to the changes which effected the timeline. Going back in time and removing a character from the past has huge effects as future events, children, grand children etc suddenly never happen and this could lead to huge changes in the future timeline.

Not only should Gillian not have been removed from 1986 but the 2286 version of Kirk and his crew are also altering the timeline just by being there.

A result of this is that the entire Archer era is changed and Earth discovers warp technology in the Kirk era and not in the Archer era.


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rjord2021
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Star Trek : The Return of Khan (TOS Era)

Post by rjord2021 »

I am still assigning rankings to every alien species seen in

Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Enterprise
Star Trek: The Animated Series
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Star Trek Generations
Star Trek First Contact
Star Trek Insurrection
Star Trek Nemesis
Star Trek (2009)
Star Trek Into Darkness
Star Trek Beyond

I had to go back to the drawing board for the calculations to assign a ranking based on various factors after noticing some smaller races having a higher ranking than for example the Klingons.

Now i have the ranking calculation working perfectly and am going through each of the 429 races selected.

These races and the ranking play an important part of this mod and are designed to reflect the position of the race in relation to the others in 2266. As you can see with the Borg below they have a lower ranking in the Kirk era while they would be much higher in the Picard era.

Example rankings are:

Federation...... 19,400
Klingon......... 10,100
Romulan......... 7,660
Borg............ 3,900
Khan............ 1,720
Benzites........ 107
Acamarian....... 39
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rjord2021
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Star Trek : The Return of Khan (TOS Era)

Post by rjord2021 »

The rankings for the players used in this mod are also calculated the same way and you can see that the rankings show roughly the power that the character has in the Kirk era series. Personally I would have liked Scotty to be a little higher however I am happy to accept the results of my calculations.

If Q from the TNG period were added tom the list below Q would be in the 3rd position between Spock and McCoy with a ranking of 3,300. This tells me that even in the Kirk era Q was still a powerful character.

Trelane on the other hand, who was also a Q, was not so powerful with a ranking of just 70. This is explained in the Squire of Gothos episode where Trelane's parents appear at the end of the episode confirming that Trelane was little more than a spoiled child of his species who needed to be punished for effectively bullying lesser races. My calculations factored all this in that as a child Trelane was far less powerful than the Q seen in the Picard era.

Very happy with the calculations for the rankings.

The calculations will also be used in other areas of the mod such as trade, black market items, etc


Example of player rankings in this mod

Kirk.................. 5,880
Spock................. 3,950
Leonard McCoy......... 2,260
Sulu.................. 1,610
Chekov................ 1,440
Uhura................. 1,350
Saavik................ 830
Montgomery Scott...... 581
Janice Rand........... 376
Carol Marcus.......... 365
Christine Chapel...... 362
Gary Mitchell......... 301
Harry Mudd............ 205
Lee Kelso............. 199
Gillian Taylor........ 92
Cyrano Jones.......... 66
Dr. Elizabeth Dehner.. 32
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rjord2021
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Star Trek : The Return of Khan (TOS Era)

Post by rjord2021 »

The welcome to your empire opening screen is being changed to suit the traditional Star Trek theme.

James T Kirk receives his orders to report to Starfleet as captain of the soon to be completed starship Enterprise and to take the ship on a shakedown cruise of the Sol system.

The lower part of the welcome screen goes something like this but to be finalized.

Captain's Log
Humans are now ready to reach for the stars...and it is not too soon in coming. Over the last year we have made First Contact with a species called the Orion Pirates who are increasing their demands of us. Starfleet has assigned me as Captain of the Enterprise and my priority will be to make contact with these pirates and organize a treaty with them.
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Star Trek : The Return of Khan (TOS Era)

Post by rjord2021 »

Deep Space Federation sensors will pick up the existence of new civilizations and the Enterprise may be assigned to meet the newly discovered life forms. If the Enterprise is the only ship built the mission will be given to the Enterprise.

If there are other Federation ships dice roll to see which ship goes on the mission. If not the Enterprise send another ship to the newly discovered system.

Keep an eye on it. If it is attacked you will need to warp them out of there. If there was a battle check that ship for damage or crew casualties.
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RE: Star Trek : The Return of Khan (TOS Era)

Post by rjord2021 »

In the 5 days since my last post I have redone the idea of how the characters and races will look like in the mod.

While testing I was not really happy with how the characters were looking..... the images were looking a little cheesy.

To try and make this mod look a little more professional I am now using a procedure to create the images for the mod

Example below:

Image on the left is a low quality image from the episode "Journey to Babel"
Image on the right is the method used for images in the mod

It is somewhere in between the TV episode and the Animated Series in appearance



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Hattori Hanzo
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RE: Star Trek : The Return of Khan (TOS Era)

Post by Hattori Hanzo »

I still continue to strongly prefer the original Star Trek images.. [8|]

I wonder why you modify them [&:]
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RE: Star Trek : The Return of Khan (TOS Era)

Post by BigWolfChris »

Tbf, done right, it opens up to using non-canon images that fit, and not worry to much about major differences in general image quality (Or differences between shows if you decide to use any image from outside of TOS)
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Star Trek : The Return of Khan (TOS Era)

Post by rjord2021 »

ORIGINAL: Hattori Hanzo

I still continue to strongly prefer the original Star Trek images.. [8|]

I wonder why you modify them [&:]



The problem with using the original Star Trek images is that my mod would contain images made 50 years ago using 1960 technology along with images created in the last 5 to 10 years. When you look at them it is very obvious the difference in quality between the images and it looks a little strange.

So I need to do work on the images to make the difference not so obvious. Not only are the images required for Distant Worlds Universe but also for the role play option.

If you look at the picture below of James T Kirk.

The image on the left was taken from an HD screencap from the episode "A Taste of Armageddon".

I then use images like this to create an updated version for the mod as seen below on the right.

While there is minimal changes in the background, while there are some changes, most of the changes are to Captain Kirk where the character now stands out more in the picture, has improved color and in my opinion looks a thousand times better than the original image.

Instead of using stock footage I am also creating new pictures with different backgrounds which are similar to what you see in the New Visions Star Trek comic series.

I have shown before early versions of what I am trying to do ..... those were still very much work in progress and the picture below is much closer to what the final version will look like.

With creating mods it is all too simple to "burrow" stock footage but it is always better to have your own version in any work you release.

If I don't do the work on the images the difference in image quality will be very noticeable when this mod is released.




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Star Trek : The Return of Khan (TOS Era)

Post by rjord2021 »

Another example is Leonard McCoy where the source 60's image is pretty dull and bland while the retouched image for the mod is improved.





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Star Trek : The Return of Khan (TOS Era)

Post by rjord2021 »

The Romulans.....



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RE: Star Trek : The Return of Khan (TOS Era)

Post by Kull »

ORIGINAL: rjord1

If I don't do the work on the images the difference in image quality will be very noticeable when this mod is released.

Absolutely the right choice. I've worked on large mods before, and maintaining a consistent "look and feel" with art and icons is imperative for immersion, otherwise the whole thing feels disjointed.

I've seen mods which are perfectly engineered but use a hodgepodge of art styles, and it's completely immersion-breaking.
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RE: Star Trek : The Return of Khan (TOS Era)

Post by Dakkon7 »

ORIGINAL: Kull

I've worked on large mods before, and maintaining a consistent "look and feel" with art and icons is imperative for immersion, otherwise the whole thing feels disjointed.

I've seen mods which are perfectly engineered but use a hodgepodge of art styles, and it's completely immersion-breaking.

Exactly.

Although, I kind of liked the more stylized look you were going for with the past portraits rjord1. It doesn't bother me if these new portraits are more indicative of the final product though.
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RE: Star Trek : The Return of Khan (TOS Era)

Post by Hattori Hanzo »

ORIGINAL: rjord1

The Romulans.....



Image

this version of the original Star Trek pictures is much, MUCH better than the more stilized one that you showed us some days ago - just my two cents.. [8D]
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Star Trek : The Return of Khan (TOS Era)

Post by rjord2021 »

In Star trek the Kobayashi Maru did not exist and was a simulation exercise played out at Starfleet Academy.

The Kobayashi Maru appears in the mod as an actual civilian freighter crippled near Klingon space after hitting a gravitic mine.

In the picture below the Kobayashi Maru seen top right of the picture is trying to escape a Klingon battleship which has entered the sector...

A Federation escort warps in and immediately engages the Klingons.





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Star Trek : The Return of Khan (TOS Era)

Post by rjord2021 »

General Chang from Star Trek - the Undiscovered Country will appear in the mod in a big way.

During the era of the Kirk tv series he is already a General and was heavily involved in the Klingon war with the Federation as per the episode "Errand of Mercy".

General Chang during this mod is busy advocating the Klingon Empire construct an entire fleet of Birds-of-Prey that could fire while cloaked in order to bring down the Federation . Until that happens he is leading the Klingon fleet running skirmishes with Federation ships near the Neutral Zone.

I have modified the image of Chang so he is younger and at this stage he had not lost an eye during battle.
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Star Trek : The Return of Khan (TOS Era)

Post by rjord2021 »

Was not happy with the images for the Tholians so have made some changes to them.
The changes are to imply that the environment of the Tholian Assembly is similar to living in a hot furnace.

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Star Trek : The Return of Khan (TOS Era)

Post by rjord2021 »

Designing the Constitution Class Starship Enterprise requires a complete replacement of every component and adding in the various sections of the starship.

The picture below for example shows the addition of the Bridge which was the first area to be added.

Since the picture was taken the component Tritanium was renamed to Tritanium Alloy for improved accuracy.
Bridge became the Main Bridge as there was a secondary bridge on the original Enterprise.

The full list of components used to construct the Main Bridge was:

Tritanium Alloy
Duranium
Aluminum
Ceramic-polymer
Liquid Crystals

There were other components used on the Main Bridge but my understanding is that I am limited to 5 resources for each component.

There are 23 components used to create the Enterprise such as the
ANTIMATTER REACTION CHAMBER
POWER TRANSFER CONDUITS
WARP FIELD NACELLES

I am testing these as I add them as I am not sure if there is a hard limit to number of components used.

Resources are used for more than one comonent.

For example when you have Duranium this is a resource needed for the construction of 9 components

MAIN SKELETAL STRUCTURE
HULL LAYERS
HANDHELD TOOL
MAIN BRIDGE
WARP FIELD NACELLES
IMPULSE DRIVE
REACTION CONTROL SYSTEM
NAVIGATIONAL DEFLECTOR
INTRASHIP COMMUNICATIONS


When you start playing the mod you should have enough resources to build the first two starships but you will need to manage resources very closely.

For the design of the Enterprise in Distant Worlds with correct resources this took 3 months of research.




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RE: Star Trek : The Return of Khan (TOS Era)

Post by rjord2021 »

So how many resources are used in construction of all parts of the Enterprise?

There were 38 separate resources required for the Enterprise to be built.
I have not decided yet if all or only part of these resources will be in the mod.

Resources such as Food, Water and Oxygen should be readily available on all M-Class worlds with other resources such as carbon, silicon and magnesium being more challenging.

There are actually 39 resources as water is divided into drinking water as well as sea water, the sea water being important for warp propulsion to occur.
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