Below is an example of an early concept design for event cards I am currently testing with my mod. I have 40 cards designed at this stage.
An example of how some of these cards will work.
When your ship arrives at a new planet your navigator will achieve planetary orbit. You will check the card for that planet and depending on what timeline you are in (based on your roll of the dice before starting Distant Worlds Universe) you will be instructed either of the 3 following.
1. No life forms have been discovered on the planet. Scan the planet from your ship and leave orbit when complete.
or
2. Life Forms have being detected but the civilization is primitive. Under the rules of the Prime Directive you must not make contact and you and your ship must not be seen by them.
or
3. Life forms have being detected on the planet. Establish contact and send your captain and a landing party down to the planet.
The completion of these 3 options is determined by the roll of the dice.
Example 1 and 2 Planetary scan is complete when 2 dice rolled and result is 6 or more
Example 3 Landing party returns to ship when 2 dice rolled and result is 9 or more
These are just what is used in my testing and dice values will more than likely change before mod is released.
I am also testing the following idea for ship construction.
This requires that ship building is done manually and not automatically and instead of adding 1 to 8 ships in a build queue you will do them one ata time. This will simulate the actual ship docks where a completed ship must have orders giving permission to leave dock and then leave before the next ship can start being built.
For example you or your advisors will suggest 4 new explorer ships to be built.
You will build the 4 ships but only one at a time.
Build the first explorer. When complete the ship will be in space dock or planet dock waiting for departure orders. Assign a captain or command and crew and when you achieve the required dice roll you are permitted to put the ship on automatic or manually give it orders to warp to a specific system.
After the first ship is built and while you are throwing the dice to determine when the ship is ready to leave docking, you can give orders to build the 2nd ship, then the 3rd ship and so on.
I know a lot of this sounds complicated but I want to stress that it is optional and you can play this Distant Worlds mod the way I am designing it or the way you play any other mod for Distant Worlds.
My initial testing shows that using these cards and 6 different timelines adds another dimension to this game , and yes makes it a little more complicated, but it does give a more Star Trek feel to this game. Ship building may end up slower but this is determined by dice roll and nothing more than chance.
First and foremost I am primarily designing this mod for my use and enjoyment putting in random events and drama which I would love to see in other Star Trek games. I am a Trekkie of many decades and have being looking for game software which can be modded to recreate Star Trek adventures and immerse yourself in the role. Distant Worlds is ideal to do this.
When the mod is finished the mod will be uploaded to the Internet for anyone who wants to try it out....including documentation on how to play it the way I will be playing it.
As I mentioned in an earlier post this is my concept of giving my Distant Worlds Universe mod some additional complexity as seen in the Starfleet Battles board game as well as in the 9 different Role Playing games I have seen for Star Trek.
So please do not be concerned if what I show here looks too complex as the mod can be played any way you like.
The design of the card below will change over the coming weeks as below is just an initial form used for testing.
Each set of cards will be customized for the 29 races in the mod . This means that the Prime Directive rules set by the Federation will not apply to the Romulans and Klingons for example.
With the example below with the Great Barrier as seen in the Episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before" at least one of the timelines has the possibility, based on a dice throw, that your ship has been so severely damaged by the Barrier that you will send a distress call, be picked up by another ship and unfortunately implement the Self Destruct on your ship. Then be taken back to your home world, assigned a new ship and head out into space again.
