Star Trek - The Final Frontier (Beta 1.0)

[rjord2021]

ORIGINAL: Hattori Hanzo

hi Rjord1, when do you think to give us a first (altough incomplete) taste of your HUGE work ? [X(]

I will have an idea this week when the early version of the mod is available.... It could be as early as next week but may not include everything I am working on at the moment.

[rjord2021]

The Distant Worlds Universe research screen is divided into 4 sections:

- Weapons
- Energy & Construction
- HighTech and Industrial
- Research Stations

The first 3 tabs are being completely overhauled with the 3rd tab being used specifically for role play. I have some ideas on what to add here but need to do some testing to see if it will work.

[rjord2021]

With a lot of work done on research I have implemented a frequent backup of files I am working on.

With research if I remove particular research items and try to run the game I will find the mod crashes with errors.

Example removing Efficient Blasters breaks the game and I assume this is because this research item improves the component Maxos Blaster.

Dealing with items like this need to be handled differently so I don't break the mod.

[rjord2021]

When you play the major races such as the Federation, Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans, Andorians etc you will have the option to copy files unique to those races to the mod which will change the way the screens look.

If you don't want to copy and paste files you can use a generic set of files that will work no matter which of these races you play.

The screen below shows what the research screen for Starfleet looks like so far..... still a WIP.

You will notice under the Federation Starships tab it shows Projectile Weapons is being researched...... this is because Projectile Weapons is part of the vanilla game that still needs to be removed from research.

[rjord2021]

I have started a redo of the planets in our solar system using the same Photoshop technique I have being using on the other planets I have recently created for the mod.

[rjord2021]

The location of the Martian Ship Yards

[rjord2021]

I have removed all vanilla research items in the weapons tab so all I have there in weapons research are those found in Star Trek.

It takes a lot of time to mod the research tree as you can't simply remove the tech by removing it from the text file.... guaranteed to break the mod doing it that way.

[rjord2021]

I am currently working on finalizing a mod which can be used by anyone who wants to create a mod from scratch.
For it to work in Distant Worlds Universe you need specific records to be in your mod for Distant Worlds Universe.

At this stage I have got the mod to the stage where I can switch themes and go to the Blank mod without errors crashing Distant Worlds Universe.

I need to do this as work on Star Trek and Star Wars is slow due to work on research....it is taking too long to remove vanilla research items.

Once I have the blank mod working I can use it to transfer Star Trek and Star Wars to new mods where I have only one research item and can simply add new research and new components.

[rjord2021]

The Star Trek mod currently has 117 civilizations that you may encounter. Once I have the research screens finished I intend to bring the number of races to 150.

[elvendeathknight]

Just posting to thank you for sharing your work with us and letting us enjoy your mods.

[&o]

[Hattori Hanzo]

ORIGINAL: ArchMike

Just posting to thank you for sharing your work with us and letting us enjoy your mods.

[&o]

me too, but I would like to try it before to get too old.. !!!!! [:D]

[rjord2021]

I have discovered a few bugs in the mod and am working on fixing them..... hopefully this fixes the issues I have with the research modifications.

[rjord2021]

The Star Trek mod is still being worked on daily........

This stage of the mod needs 100% of the research screen to be replaced by first dismantling the existing research tree.

At this stage I have finished clearing the first screen for Starship research.

I am currently working on the second screen for planet and starbase research.
This will be completed by the weekend.

On the weekend I will begin clearing the research tree used in the third screen which will be used for role play.


At this stage I had also gone through the 1551 lines of the research file clearing the research tree links to other files such as the components file.

This made clearing individual research items a lot easier escpecially when components no longer depended on other components.

[rjord2021]

I have made a lot of progress on removing the existing research tree and creating a template for the 3 mods I am currently working on.

Each of the mods can then use the blank template for the specific mod.

The following screenshot shows 2 hours of work this afternoon with each row having 9 columns going across.

[rjord2021]

I have completed dismantling the default research screens for:

- Weapons
- Energy and Construction

In the Star Trek mod (when playing the Federation) these screens are

- Federation Starships
- Federation Planets and Starships

This means I am now ready to begin adding in the research items unique to the Star Trek world.............

Over the next few days I will complete work on dismantling the research screen on the 3rd screen which will be used for role play purposes.

[rjord2021]

I have started work on the documentation which will be necessary to get the most out of the Star Trek mod.
Even if you are a huge Star Trek fan you will still need to occasionaly look up when certain things need doing.

Example:

Before your ships can go to warp speed, and therefore be able to leave the system, you need to have certain resources unique to Star Trek to first build the Warp drive as well as plasma and Verterium cortenide which is needed to generate a warp field.

If you do not have Verterium cortenide on your home world then you will need to find it on another planet. This will be the first Star Trek resource added to the mod as I need to tweak the values to make this resource common enough to be found in most systems without being overly common to find.

[rjord2021]

The documentation will show that before you can build a starship that you will need to have completed research into transporter technology.

When you construct the orbital space dock needed for building starships the modules that are needed to be added together to build the space dock are transported into space from the planet. Construction workers are beamed up to a workers module fitted with oxygen etc needed for the workers to live in during construction. With a living area in place the workers do space walks building the space dock together from the various modules.

As you can see before this happens you need to have transporter technology researched and built.....therefore it needs to be researched very early.

[rjord2021]

One of the great things with the Distant Worlds Universe is not knowing what the game is about to give you.

For instance with this mod you will need to mine valuable resources in order to build your starships.

So you may be playing as the Federation and you have the resources to develop warp drive.
However a valuable resource may not be in your system , which could happen 5% of the time, (if I tweak it right) and you begin looking in nearby systems and you find the resource in a neighbouring system.

The only problem is that it is in Klingon space.

Do you wait for merchants too hopefully one day bring you that resource?
Do you send a mining ship accompanied by a Constitution class starship and mine the resource before the Klingons arrive?
Or does it mean Game Over?

[rjord2021]

Now comes the exciting part of creating the mod.....adding in the new research tree.

This could get a bit complicated as I will need to plan where each of the different technology exists on the tree and what that research does...such as which new Star Trek components are unlocked or improved.

So for example I would look at creating starting technology research for:
- Signal Jammers
- Deflector Fields
- Artificial Gravity
- Fusion Generators
- Hydrogen Fusion Reactors
- Fusion Power Cores
- Inertial Dampers
- Phase Inverter
- Transporter technology
- Emergency forcefields
- Subspace technology

....and the list goes on......

[rjord2021]

This part of the mod development is pretty daunting as there is so much to do to add in the new research tree.

What I do always in these cases is to start small and do each bit in groups and test before moving to the next step.

And of course I first add the tech for the Federation, the Klingons and the Romulans with other races coming later.

I also saw the update from Eric with some news about Distant Worlds 2 so I am keeping DW2 in mind while I work on the 3 mods I currently have under development.