Star Trek - The Final Frontier (Beta 1.0)

[rjord2021]

Some races seen in the Star Trek Animated series will also appear in the mod

Example : The Kzinti

[Hattori Hanzo]

do you have an approximate date for the first release of your beautiful Classic Era Star Trek mod ?

[rjord2021]

ORIGINAL: Hattori Hanzo

do you have an approximate date for the first release of your beautiful Classic Era Star Trek mod ?

No date as yet...... I will say that work is being done on this mod every day so hopefully sometime in the next few months.

I am working on finishing the Star Trek Galaxy map and adding characters to the Federation, the Romulans and the Klingons.

Each character is a canon TOS character between Stardates 2249 and 2290

Federation Admirals for this time period were hard to find but I found a source of information giving me Fleet Admirals, Vice Admirals, Rear Admirals and Admiral ranks..... giving me 18 more admirals for the time frame on top of the 11 Admirals I have already added...thus29 Admirals

With Agents I am looking at using the Red Shirt Security Officers and currently have 25 of them to be added...more likely to be added.

Governors I will pick up from colony and Federation planets......

Generals and Ambassadors I will more than likely fill with Commodores and Command Division crew members not listed as Admirals or Captains

Scientists I have plenty of...with 40 currently added and some more incoming.

I also have 49 crewmembers in the Operations Division who need to be added to the mod.

Some of the characters did not have pictures easily available on the Internet.
To find their pictures I went to IMDB, found the name of the actor playing that part and searched for images of that actor to find a picture of their star trek character.

The above research and collection of characters started 11th August last year which is when this mod started being developed.....with some time off here and there.

Stats as of today

Number of character pictures for all races seen in Star Trek between 2249 and 2290 is currently 462 pictures spread over 49 races with more races to be added.

I am currently photoshopping an image of Chief Nils Pitcairn who was the Transporter Chief on the Enterprise prior to Scotty coming on board.

[rjord2021]

With some news I have heard about the possible timeframe of the new Star Trek show coming out in 9 months......

If this timeframe is true then I will more than likely add characters from Star Trek 2017 into the mod as well...... hopefully by then we will be on Distant Worlds 2

[rjord2021]

Some important changes to this mod......

I firmly believe that there is no better real-time 4X space strategy game than Distant Worlds Universe. Even with Distant Worlds 2 in development I believe that there is still a lot that can be done with DWU that has not been done with any other mod to date.

So what I am planning for this mod is something where no man...or modder...has gone before. This is entirely optional for players.

With my testing of this mod as it develops it was becoming clear that some of the features being added to this mod will not be possible in Distant Worlds Universe. So to add these features I am drawing some inspiration from Star Fleet Battles the Board Game.

For those of you who don't know Star fleet Battles it is a popular board game where you can play as Federation, Klingons,Romulans, Kzintis, Gorns, Tholians or Orions... I have already added the Kzinti race. I would play this every day but you need 2 to play unless you play the online version.

With this mod I am going to combine some features from Star Fleet Battles and incorporate them in the mod.

For example, you will have a Captains log that you will need to keep track of certain events. For example Captain Kirk has been in the mod for an hour or so and suddenly Admiral James T Kirk appears. You will use a pen or pencil to place a tick on the Federation form that Admiral Kirk has arrived and be asked if Captain Kirk is somewhere on the map. If he is on the map there will be a defined procedure of how to replace Captain Kirk with Admiral Kirk..

There will also be a story line included in this mod. For example, as the Federation you may settle a colony on Tarsus IV and after a period of time refer to an article in the Galactopedia which will inform you that Kodos the Executioner has just killed 4000 of your colonists. You will tick that this event has occurred. You will then send a starship to Tarsus IV and follow the instructions. If however you are playing the Klingons and you find Kodos and the colony there.... you may just kill them instead and take over the planet. Different stories for different races for different planets.

The Return of Khan mod will retell major events from the TV series and the TOS movies and the story of Khan Noonien Singh will have many alternative stories that will be randomly chosen.

There are decisions to be made in this mod such as do I go to war with the Klingons. If certain boxes are ticked yes you can but if one box is unticked it means the Federation is enforcing the Neutral Zone and you must not enter the Neutral Zone . If you do then you face a court martial and the fate of the captain is decided by a dice roll.

More news as it develops.

[rjord2021]

Starfleet personnel is almost finished.

Just added 66 governors to the mod to rule the colonies.

22 agents added but adding another 74 agents to the Federation ranks

After this I add 40 scientists and the Federation is all complete for part 1 of the mod... then I move on to the Klingons and Romulans


The way these characters are added means around 95% of faces seen in the TOS era will be in the mod.... including young Ensigns only seen once walking in the background of the starship.

[Hattori Hanzo]

ohhhhh.. "StarFleet Battles", "Federation Space" and "Federation & Empire" [X(]

time consuming board-wargames but well.. [&o] [&o] [&o]

[Lecivius]

I must say I am....impressed. Impressed enough that I may be buying this over the weekend, just so I may play your mod. Well done!

[rjord2021]

ORIGINAL: Hattori Hanzo

ohhhhh.. "StarFleet Battles", "Federation Space" and "Federation & Empire" [X(]

time consuming board-wargames but well.. [&o] [&o] [&o]

The crazy thing is that Starfleet Battles came out 37 years ago and it is still getting updates... so far this year there have been 3 updates with new stories and gameplay.

The boardgame appears to be thriving with a whole new set of fans.

I had a few more new ideas of things I could add to this mod so will work out how to get those started in the mod over the weekend.

[rjord2021]

ORIGINAL: Lecivius

I must say I am....impressed. Impressed enough that I may be buying this over the weekend, just so I may play your mod. Well done!

Thank you Lecivius..... it may be a few months before the mod is available for download but Distant Worlds Universe is well worth the buy. I spent months playing the game without mods and was hooked from day one. Then found all the mods that were available such as the excellent Star Trek Picard Era mod which is very popular and then started putting in research for my own version of Star Trek.... the Kirk era

At this stage I have 462 characters with pictures ready to be added to the mod with at least another 200 still to go and 568 ships covering 61 races to select which ones go into the mod.

Thanks again for your comment as feedback like yours is always welcome.

[Lecivius]

To be certain, as I am looking into this, I need Distant Worlds Universe?

[rjord2021]

I started adding the Klingon Empire characters into the mod 4 hours ago and was surprised that it was not too difficult to find the names of which Klingons were around during Kirk's time on the Enterprise. After a few hours of research I have 9 leaders of the Empire from Sturka through to Azetbur, daughter of Gorkon who was seen in Star Trek VI.

Currently working through the Klingon Captains at the moment and this is one of the methods I am following to gather names

In Star Trek the Motion Picture.....Stardate 2270 and therefore added to "The Kirk Movie Years" part of my mod, a Klingon Captain named Commander Barak is on board the IKS Amar leading a squadron of Klingon battle cruisers to intercept V'Ger.

On the IKS Amar is a:

First Officer - name found to be Komal.... played by stuntman Tom Morga

Helmsman - name found to be Karnog... played by stunt actor Joel Kramer.

A Navigator

An officer

A Weapons Operator

The last 3 had no names but I want to add those characters into the mod

I look up Star Trek The Motion Picture on IMDB which shows Commander Barak was played by Mark Lenard who is also Spock's father Sarek
IMDB then lists 8 Klingon crewmembers which is 3 more than I have listed above.
I ignore the crewmen on the IMDB page played by Tom Morga and Joel Kramer as I know their Klingon Character names and IMDB tells me that the other Klingons were played by actors

Jimmie Booth
Bill McIntosh
Dave Moordigian
Tony Rocco
Craig Thomas

I then convert the actors names to Klingon and use these as the 5 unnamed Klingons on the IKS Amar

Therefore:

Jimmie Booth's character becomes known as Mog
Bill McIntosh's character becomes known as Kinchlirah
Dave Moordigian's character becomes known as Duralle
Tony Rocco's character becomes known as Mahtou
Craig Thomas's character becomes known as Gretahl


Below is a picture I have created in photoshop to show Kang as he appears in the mod.
Each picture can take up to an hour to do depending on who or what needs to be removed from the background and then merging the picture of the character into the background so it does not look like a 2-dimensional cut and paste. In this picture I removed 5 24th century Klingon crewmen and then added Kang to the image and made some additional changes.

[rjord2021]

ORIGINAL: Lecivius

To be certain, as I am looking into this, I need Distant Worlds Universe?

Yes... my mod is designed for Distant Worlds Universe and I am not sure it will work in versions of Distant Worlds prior to Universe.

I will keep posting updates on my progress but it could be a few months before the first version of this mod is available to download.... but plenty of other mods to try in the meantime.

[rjord2021]

Test message created to show an example of story events planned for this mod. The following is just for my testing and pictures and/or story may change before the release of this mod.

After receiving this message at a determined date you will send a starship directly to Tarsus IV as directed by Starfleet.

Once your ship arrives at Tarsus IV you will have one of the following determined by dice roll:

1. You beam down onto the planet and arrest Kodos before he can carry out genocide on the colony. Beam Kodos on board your ship and take him back to Earth to face a Starfleet judge and sentencing. After he is convicted Kodos will then be taken by your ship to the Tantalus Penal Colony for humane rehabilitation made possible by new technologies and drug therapies under the care of Doctor Tristan Adams.

or

2. You arrive at the colony and discover that Kodos has already killed 4000 members of the colony

- if option 2 roll the dice again to determine if
: A) a body assumed to be Kronos is found and the case is closed. Leave the planet.
: B) Kodos is reported to be hiding on the planet. Leave your starship in orbit until he is found
: C) Kodos has escaped to another planet in the system. Send your starship to search each planet.

- if option B or option C then there are more options until Kodos is found dead or alive at which stage you can leave orbit of Tarsus IV


This is a test that I am doing on the mod over the next few days to see how it works.

If Kodos has killed 4000 of the 8000 colonists then Starfleet will need to send other ships to Tarsus IV to provide support and councelling.

With this story event your ship and other Federation ships may encounter Romulan ships as Tarsus IV is only one sector away from the Romulan Neutral Zone. By default the Romulans are aggressive towards the Federation so any Romulan ships (possibly cloaked) may cause you problems.

The above may seem complicated but I will provide plenty of documentation to explain how this will work.

Random events played along with managing your empire mean that each time you play the mod a different story happens. For example, every time you take prisoners to the Tantalus Penal Colony a dice roll will determine if you discover that Tristan Adams is conducting unauthorized and unethical experiments on all the patients .... every time you visit the Penal Colony there is an 8% chance you will discover what Adams is up to... meaning you may find out on the first visit, or the second visit but may never find out.

If you have not discovered the planet Tantalus then other Penal Colonies will be suggested... if they are not discovered either then Kodos or other prisoners are kept on Earth until one of those penal colony planets are discovered and colonised....then you take the prisoner to that planet.

[rjord2021]

Every story of every episode of Star Trek TOS or the first 6 movies will hopefully be added to the mod with possible variations.

For example your ship may end up at Starbase K7 and not only have to deal with Klingons there but prevent them from sabotaging the stores of quadrotriticale. Once that is done you may have an infestation of tribbles on board your ship to clean off your ship before you leave orbit. A roll of the dice will determine if you have successfully transported all the tribbles on to the Klingon D7 ship. If not, you will be there a while longer in an area close to Klingon space and possible Klingon attack.

The Day of the Dove episode may even result in a storyline where Starfleet and the Klingon High Council give you permission to cross the Klingon Neutral Zone and deliver prisoners to the Klingon Homeworld or nearest Klingon base.

And finally...to make the mod a little more challenging...... when you visit a world with one of these TOS story episodes on it... there is every chance your captain will be killed.

Example, recreating the events of "Where No Man Has Gone Before" you need to get your ship to Delta Vega and leave one of your crew members on the planet after he was effected by the Great Barrier and is developing godlike powers. On arriving at Delta Vega a dice roll will determine if you successfully confine the crewman or if he escapes. If he escapes then your captain will be fighting the crewman with a series of dice throws where each dice roll will give damage to your captain or the effected crewmen. After a number of damage points your captain may be dead...or the other crewman.

Is your captain about to die?

[rjord2021]

With Federation Agents I have picked up 43 of them directly from the original Enterprise between stardates 2265 and 2273and 25 scientists from the same ship and the same period.

I have 28 medical personnel that I have to think about where they go as well as 105 other personnel from departments such as Engineering, communications,flight control and administration to add in as well.


Those were for the Original Enterprise.

For the part of the mod from 2270 I pick entirely new characters from stardate 2270 onwards.

[rjord2021]

The Orions

While operating in or near Federation space the Orions maintained an air of neutrality to avoid any retaliation from Federation ships. However, this did not stop Orion ships from raiding unsuspecting starships, even Federation freighters, and to maintain neutrality with the Federation the Orions were willing to go as far as to destroy the ships they raided to eliminate anyone pointing fingers back at the Orions for the raid on their ships.

The Orions will play a heavy part in the various parts of this mod as there were not many episodes about them as they travelled between worlds covering up their usually very shady operations.

I photoshopped the image below as a test of what they may look like in the mod.

[rjord2021]

Part of developing the mod is testing it as it is being developed.

Just completed a 2-hour test of the mod (still in early build stages) looking for any issues to be resolved early on. Last year the issue I had was that when the mod started I had two leaders. Got that resolved thankfully as that one issue had delayed development of the mod by several months.

The Federation side of the mod is almost complete but still reviewing names I have for scientists and agents.

Also looking at the ships going out to build gas mining facilities and having a look at the resources the "build" ships have in their cargo bay. Resources will be completely revamped to those you would find in the Star Trek Universe and updated with descriptions in the Galactopedia with pictures and descriptions to show what the resource is used for and why you need it.

I had been running a test for a part of my mod which would require a ship to be recommissioned with a new name...example changing the Enterprise from NCC 1701 to NCC 1701-A. Suddenly got a bit worried because I knew the ships could be recommissioned with a new name in Distant Worlds but could not find out where to do it. Eventually found it and added to my documentation that comes with the mod.

Yesterday I showed a screen of events in this mod based on the Star Trek character Kodos the Executioner. This addition to my mod involves 2 dice and uses the rules of "Game of Chance" to determine what steps you as the Captain take. For example, with arriving at Tarsus IV you will have a landing party down on the surface investigating the colony after reports of genocide were sent to Starfleet.... or you are looking for Governor Kodos to take into custody. One of the rules I added to my Distant Worlds Universe mod are game rules to follow if a Romulan ship arrived in the Sector . The ship captain is down on the planet with the landing party and the rules , decided by a dice throw, would be to stay in orbit and see what the Romulan does, or leave orbit and warp out of the system and come back for the captain when the Romulans have gone.

Below is the list of the next 10 story events being added into the mod for the following planets you discover:

1... Cestus III This is where Kirk battled the Gorn (Episode-"Arena")
2... Omicron Ceti III The colony is infected by spores from mysterious plants (Episode-"This Side of Paradise")
3... Psi 2000 The crew of your ship is infected with a virus picked up from the planet (Episode-"The Naked Time")
4... Alpha 177 The ship transporter has malfunctioned and a landing party is stuck on the planet (Episode-"The Enemy Within")
5... Delta Vega One of your crew is developing godlike powers and is a danger to the ship (Episode-"Where No Man Has Gone Before")
6... Space Station K7 You encounter the Klingons and a whole lot of tribbles (Episode-"The Trouble with Tribbles")
7... Ceti Alpha V You meet Khan Noonien Singh (Episode-"Space Seed")
8... Halkan homeworld Members of your crew dissapear into an alternate universe (Episode-"Mirror, Mirror")
9... Romulan Neutral Zone You are sent to investigate the destruction of 2 outposts (Episode-"Balance of Terror")
10.. The Gateway Planet... Your crew meet the Guardian of Forever and discover your past has been altered (Episode-"City on the Edge of Forever")

[rjord2021]

Working today on correcting some issues with the Federation fleet.

Replacing the Daedalus Class starships with the Constitution Class as seen in the picture below of the Enterprise in the Ardana system. The ship does not look 100% correct so will be tweaking the image tonight to make the saucer section slightly wider.

[rjord2021]

This picture shows a convoy of Federation transport ships leaving the Breen system and heading for the Federation Home World.

In the map in the bottom right of the image you can see a gap two sectors wide running between the Alpha Quadrant on the left and the Beta Quadrant on the right. I am slowly adding Alpha Quadrant worlds to these blank sectors using the Star Trek atlas and this is a very slow process.

In the image you can see the system of Luria...the planet in this system was featured in the Deep Space 9 episode "Who Mourns for Morn?". In the mod the Lurians will appear as they did in the Kirk era.