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Distant World 2 creates the name of the characters by using a random combination of the first and second names specified in that race. Of course, that means instead of having James T Kirk I would possibly have James McCoy.

So with the mod, this has been fixed as you can see in the screenshot below where we now have his full name appearing as James T Kirk.

Though he is a Prime Minister here so this needs fixing.

The last number of posts were added in by rjord2021... who is actually me..... not sure why my login details changed back to my original login name but I am back to RunAndHideGamer.

Sorry for any confusion about who this rjord2021 actually was.....

So will the Vulcans and Andorians appear in this mod if I have this mod based in the year 2270 at which stage a number of races had already become part of the Federation?

If the Vulcans had not been part of the Federation and appeared in the mod as a separate race, does this mean Spock is not on the Enterprise?

I have an idea of how to explain all this as the mod progresses.

With the Klingons now added, the screenshot below shows the selection screen of which races to add to the game.

The mod screen showing the mod selections for adding the Andorians, the Klingons, the Romulans and the Vulcans.

These are the races added to the Star Trek mod today.

The following could get a bit technical but explains how modding in DW2 works...

To work out how modding works I look in the data folder and for example see a file called ShipHulls.xml
I then see a number of other files there with a similar name but with a "_" underscore after the name and then the name of the race
Example : ShipHulls_Ackdarian

The ShipHulls_Ackdarian file is a modified version of the ShipHulls.xml and clearly deals with just the Ackdarian race.

So why create another copy of the ShipHulls.xml file and put an "_Ackdarian" on the end?

When you look at the original file for the game, ShipHulls.xml contains 482,840 lines of code.... a huge file. You have probably seen people complaining about how large the files are to go through to edit.

But if you look at ShipHulls_Ackdarian.xml this file contains 53,653 lines of code and is specifically holding the specs for all ships the Ackadarians are going to build. Whatever changes you make in this file will override the same data in the base file ShipHulls.xml but will replace it with the new modded values.

So to add the data in for all the ships the Vulcans would use, I create the file ShipHulls_Vulcan.xml file with all the information for the ships I want to mod for the Vulcans to use.... it could be just one ship...it could be all of them.

Now during setup of the game, DW2 will look at the ShipHulls_Vulcan.xml. If the Vulcans had ships in the base file ShipHulls.xml , DW2 would override that with the data in the modded file....ShipHulls_Vulcan.xml.

But the Vulcans do not exist in the Base file ShipHulls.xml... so what does DW2 then do?

Well it then, without changing anything in the base file, will add in the ship data for the Vulcans into memory in the order that the files appear in the folder.

So if for example I only want to add in modified fuel tankers for the Vulcans, I would add in the 491 lines of data which relate to Fuel Tankers alone and add them to ShipHulls_Vulcan.xml and give the Vulcans their different types of Fuel tankers.

Then I want to give the Klingons Fuel Tankers too,..... I create the file ShipHulls_Klingon.xml and copy in all the lines that make up a Fuel Tanker and then change the values to what the Klingons would need.

Then in 2 weeks time I decide to give both the Klingons and the Vulcans a ship called a Construction Ship..... Get the lines of code for the construction ship from ShipHulls.xml and append that data to the end of both the files ShipHulls_Vulcan.xml and ShipHulls_Klingon.xml.

So rather than make changes to the base file of over 482,000 lines, I create a modded file with much fewer lines that will be read at the same time as the base file.

In DW1, these files were spread in different folders for the different races which could be confusing. Here the data is in one location which does make it easier to mod when adding new races.

All Klingons in the mod will belong to one of the 60 Houses that Klingons belong to ... as seen in the Screenshot below.

11 Star Trek races so far and so many character names to put in...at least 200 names for each race.
I make it out to be 2200 names to add into Distant Worlds 2... and this is just the first 11 races.
This will take forever!!!!

Actually not so fast.

I grab the 200 names I have for the Romulans.... paste them into an Excel spreadsheet
Then type in a formula to pick up that name and add it to another cell to look like this

="<string>"&D3&"</string>"
D3 of course being where the name of the Romulan is saved
In this case D3 has the Romulan name Kuboh.... a fine Romulan warrior

Result is
<string>Kuboh</string>

Copy this formula from Romulan #1 down to Romulan #200

Then copy paste all 200 Romulan names in the required place in the Romulan Race file in DW2....

Result..... 200 Romulans in 5 minutes

We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships.
We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own.
Your culture will adapt to service us.

Resistance is futile."

2300 characters have been added across 11 races.

Took the opportunity to add in more realistic names for

- Vulcans
- Andorians
- Romulans
- Klingons
- Cardassians

The Federation Cruiser

The USS Enterprise is almost ready to leave Space Dock......

However Engineers are still working on how to get a problem resolved in the Stride Interface.

Chief Engineer Scott does assure us the Enterprise will leave Space Dock on time.....

Yesterday I added this logo for the Star Trek Mod.

I have redone the art for the 11 races you can play so far in Star Trek.

runandhidegamer wrote: Tue May 09, 2023 7:32 pm The USS Enterprise is almost ready to leave Space Dock......

However Engineers are still working on how to get a problem resolved in the Stride Interface.

Chief Engineer Scott does assure us the Enterprise will leave Space Dock on time.....

Wow - really looks gorgeous !

runandhidegamer wrote: Fri May 12, 2023 12:09 am I have redone the art for the 11 races you can play so far in Star Trek.

The pics are all great, too - but "the art" - are you saying you already have ALL art that will be needed for characters, dipolmacy, etc.

This is turning out great! When you finish some ship models I'll give it a go!

frankycl wrote: Fri May 12, 2023 8:22 pm

runandhidegamer wrote: Fri May 12, 2023 12:09 am I have redone the art for the 11 races you can play so far in Star Trek.

The pics are all great, too - but "the art" - are you saying you already have ALL art that will be needed for characters, dipolmacy, etc.

Not yet....... the last 2 weeks have been spent trying to access the game files where the default art is saved..... once I have access to those..... hopefully in the next day or two...then I can start adding the art to the mod.

OrnluWolfjarl wrote: Sun May 14, 2023 5:08 pm This is turning out great! When you finish some ship models I'll give it a go!

Will definitely let you know...... I have the ship models.... all I need do is work out how to get them into the game.