The constellation was classified as a cruiser, so it would be the rough equivalent of somewhere between a Steamrunner(light cr.) and an Akira (heavy cr.) (closer to Steamrunner)

Yes, but would it really fit into that category in the 24th century?

No matter how much you upgrade a ship, eventually, you will reach a point where new ships totally outclass them.

Surely over time, ships would be 'reclassed'? So say it was classed as a command cruiser when first launched, perhaps it would be classed as a destroyer by the time of the Steamrunner/Akira?

It doesn't exactly seem fair putting a Constellation in the same class as an Akira, does it? (If they were put side-by-side)

If ships weren't reclassed, then the classes would become blurred very uickly, and there wouldn't be much point in mothballing ships - by definition, they would still be useful, even though enemies could outgun, outflank, and outrun them!

Surely Romulan logic is in this? 8O

I didn't mean it like that, Matress. I meant: the Constalation was the ______ of her time (______=Steamrunner or Akira)

Of course the Constitution class is no longer a destoryer

Interesting discussion.

I don't personally think ship designations should change, it would complicate things a fair bit, it also seems a little disrespectful from a naval tradition viewpoint. Besides, these old ships would continue to perform their intended role until they were retired, they might lag behind the newer vessels, but if they're good enough to be in service, they're good enough to retain their designation.

A few bits of canon regarding the Constellation's designation;

*The Constitution was definitely designated a 'Heavy Cruiser', this was shown on displays more than once.

*Since the Constellation uses many identical components to the Constitution, it's easy to determine it's size. The ships are fairly similarly sized, meaning the Constellation should be a 'Heavy Cruiser' also, possibly a 'Cruiser'.

It annoyed the hell out of me in BoTF that such an oafish, lumbering ship was made really nimble and called a Destroyer!!! I'd say that new vessels would be named based on their size, relative to other ships of the time.

For example, the Akira would probably be a Heavy Cruiser. Even though it's much larger than a Constellation, those two ships together would still be referred to as '2 Heavy Cruisers'.

Like having a 1920-s Ferrari car and a new Formula 1 together and saying you have 2 race cars

Exactly, those Excelsiors during DS9 were certainly alongside the Galaxies kicking arse!

the picard move serves as a ... tactical gamble.. every game should have that
you gamble wether you get a closer position and a chance to attack first.. or accidentally collide with anothe ship (or space debris if thats in the game)

From what I know of the battle system, in a battle, you will see: -

- Ships
- Bases
- Shipyards
- Orbital Batteries
- Planets

As far as I know, there won't be things like space debris in the game. However, as I said a while ago in one of the other threads, i'm not a playtester, so can't say this as actual fact. (Theoretical fact is all I can achieve)

Gavin or jigaly will be the guys to ask this question to, or perhaps one of the playtesters if you can find who they are.

It likely won't be for a while that we will find the answer to this question though. I think I can remember a post saying that when the game is first released, combat will be 2D!

A little bit later, 3D combat will be added to the game as an update or something. I think the reasonong behind this is that it gives them longer to make sure the combat system works well. If the game came out straight away with the 3D system, it would either be not fully tested, or the release date would have to be pushed back.

The post was quite old though, so things might have changed. Seeing as Gavin is back on track with the game now, it may be that the post is wrong now.

Does iwulff know anything on the matter?

it will be 2d to start with, mainly cause the 3d part will take a long time to make, in botf 1 the 3d combat part was around 50% of the game in programming terms and most of the bugs in the game were in the 3d part that caused it to crash out, which was a major annoyance in the good old days of botf multiplayer in the msn gaming zone

Well there you are then, ask a question, and you shall receive an answer!

Oh great website of answers, what is the question to life, the universe and everything? (Seeing as the answer is 42)

You mean the reason of the existence of the universe and of live? Well surely you know the answer. As do I.

I know the answer! (42)

I just want to know the question!

Little off topic (or is it?). But did you guys know they are making a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie?

Check it out for yourself. http://hitchhikers.movies.go.com/

Its coming out April 29 in the US, not sure about overseas though.

Oh I know of it - I saw the advert in full about five weeks ago. And it's out on the same day over here!

Can't wait to see it!

Marvin sounds like he's going to be just as funny (Or would that be sad?) as in the books...he doesn't look as I imagined him tho...

I wouldn't worry about it, the Picard maneuver was discussed at length and pretty much decided it wouldn't be in. Against anyone with even reasonably advanced sensors, you'd just end up looking really silly.

i like markys idea tho..

What would really be the point of having it in the game though?

Say you gain the technology needed to perform the Picard maneouver around Ambassador class era. You decide to use it against a lone Ferengi ship. It works.

24 turns later, you encounter the Ferengi again. This time, they have bought some brand-spanking new FTL sensors, and they know you have performed the Picard maneouver before. You don't realise they have better sensors, you use the maneouver, and you get Plasma'd to kingdom come!

The isn't really any point in programming complex things like that, if they are going to be used once, and that's it.

Ok, so perhaps the AI isn't going to be so intelligent that they instantly 'buy' FTL sensors and equip their entire fleet, but they aren't exactly just going to let you perform the same tactics time and time again!

You don't want the game to be boring and repetitive, do you? 8O

Ah... the Federations... I wonder what devilish plan they have installed for us this time...
Picard manuevar. They're dead in 2 minutes.

Different guy, different ship

Ah... the Federations... I wonder what devilish plan they have installed for us this time...
Picard manuevar. They're dead in 2 minutes.

Another different Romulan, another different ship

Ah... the Federations... I wonder what devilish plan they have installed for us this time...
Picard manuevar. They're dead in 2 minutes.

And, we come to the real question... WHEN WILL THEY LEARN!!

Ohh...squelchy little things <Looks away in horror> Not the nicest of visions 8O

Imagine they avoided each other though...they would basically swap positions! That would be...confusing... (And fun)

Not really..you could do it another way - subobjects.. Let hte nacelle be a subobject of the main hull..it can be blown off..simple..
Give each ship 2-3 or more such blowable subobjects + scorch marks and that's all that it needs..

Of course, i'd be perfectly happy with onyl scorch marks too..

K'vort was cool. teh main difference was that the K'Vort allways kpt it wings up and hte B'Rel down...

On the side note, the Galaxy-X modification were extensive - the whole ship was changed for head to toe - both externally nad far more internally. It was the flagship of the Federation in the future - you just don't make a SIMPLE upgrade to an old ship to become the flagship... The Flaghips is practicly allways the best ship in the fleet - and that sez a lot.

Just how strong it's hul is or powerfull it's shields are is hard to tell - I do remeber when all 3 enterpresises met, the first two were hit by some energy band - it ripped the old Ent-D immediately, the refit was pouned for several seconds by that band before blowing up, so it must have had quite powerfull shields (or just really fast re-charging). Whatever, that alternate future was more militaristic so I would classify the G-x as a battleship...


I do however agree that it has to be VERY late game, it should cost a fortune and it should kick some serious ass.

In the current shiplist for the Federation, the Galaxy-X is gonna be in, because it simply doesn't fit in with the timeline as we know it.

The Galaxy-X existed only in a possible timeline that had been created by Q, and since so much has happened between that timeline, and what we have seen in Trek, we know that the design just couldn't possibly come about.

What with the Dominion war, Voyager, the destruction of the Enterprise-D, and the building of the Enterprise-E, we know that the Galaxy-X just won't come around in the current timeline, without some pretty major changes taking place first.

it's a shame really, but it just won't be appearing in the 'canon' shiplist, even though she is canon from the fact she was in an episode.

There will be mods however...

...

Anyway, welcome to the site, TrashMan!

I hope you carry on posting like this. If you see anything that you think is orth continued discussion, (Or at least a discussion in it's own right) then get posting!

Don't think that anyone is knocking back your ideas for no reason - that isn't what the forums are (Supposed) to be about. I'm sure you'll think of counter-arguments, anyway.

Happy posting.

Continue posting like this? sure...

In case I sound falmiliar, I'm one of hte members of hte New Botf project (currently on hold becouse the programmer is recuperating from an injury)

Some might see the BOTF2 as competition, but I say it's quite the contrary - teh more good BOTF like games the merrier.


Oh.one more thing - Picard knows about teh G-x, thus starfleet knows about it, thus tehy might try to build it.

I didn't know about 'New BOTF' - thought BOTF2 was the only one currently being made. 8O

On the point of the transparent TGA file, that idea has been mentioned before. Jig said he was going to look into it when he had the time, but he never said what happened with it.

It's possible that he simply forgot, in which case, mention it to him again. You never know...

Will you use LOD's?

i don't know whether this idea has been discussed anywhere else, but i would tell you what i have thought about:

if a battle between ships takes to much time the battle would be frozen after maybe 15/20 rounds and would be go on in the next turn (in the game). So you could send ships as "reinforcements". The battledamages and the capacity from shields of the ships who were earlier in the battle should be as they were in the last round before "break". And the ships who are in battle couldn't leave sector/system as long as the battle ends. What do you think?

this i like a lot, there have plenty of botf games where this would have come in bloody handy for me, especially for starbases and outposts, that cant retreat but have to take a dozen turns to blow up. The battles would go on for so long (especially with the bmod installed) that i felt the entire fleet should have got here by now..

i dont mean to say the boogie phrase, but i dont know how easy to implement this will be, if it turns out that it is possible i whole heartedly go for the idea

Don't know about this..

A turn in BOTF is supposed to represent a long time...weeks, months. Battles usually last for hours, and if they break, they usualyl start agin ina few hours.

that said, if a battle breaks, the damaged ships won't stand around, but the crews would work on reparing the famage.. And not to mention that a few hours is enought ot fulyl re-charge the shields.

A turn in the game is gonna be the equivalent of about a month.

This makes life a LOT easier when it comes to sorting out Stardates, and growth rates in the game. It makes life a bit more more difficult for Hospital ships though.

in Voyager, they mention in an episode that it takes 45 seconds to fully recharge the Shields. Whilst I imagine they are relatively advanced shileds, I think this would be roughly the same for the rest of the federation fleet. (Although older ships would of course need longer)

Whilst your idea is cool, Thunderchild, the guys are right, implement it if possible, but it just wouldn't work very well time-wise.

Perhaps as a compromise, at the start of a battle that you suspect will be very long and drawn out, you could have a button to request reinforcements.

Any ships within...say 10 sectors would stop what they were doing (You'd have to be careful, as this could expose key systems to later attack, or allow other enemies into your space)

The ships would of course use up fuel to get thee, but would more as though you were using actual turns in-game, so after the 20-turn battle, a speed-4 ship would have moved 4 sectors closer. (Sat it was 10 sectors away)

After another 20 battle-turns, the ship is now 4 sectors closer, then after another 20 battle-turns, (Battle-turn 60) the ship(s) would have arrived. Of course, if the ship(s) had only been one sector away, it would only have taken 20 battle-turns to arrive.

This sounds like the ships would come too late, but you have to remember - battles will be far more strategic. It will take time before you even get in range of the enemy, you can withdraw ships from the line of fire so they have a chance to repair hull/recharge shields/Cloak/Decloak/make ship formations, and ships themselves will have different types/numbers of weapons than in BOTF.

Ships will generally have fewer weapons, but they will be more powerful. They will also have specific ranges, so Beams will be longest range, followed by Torpedoes, followed by Disruptors/Pulse Cannons, and so on.

Because of all this, battles will take far, far, longer, especially against Bases, which will be incredibly powerful.

Any requested ships would then have to make it all the way back to their own sectors (Normal turns now) which would allow even more time for enemies to strike you. Of course, enemies would also be able to request reinforcements, and they would suffer the same problems.

Requesting reinforcements would work really well if implemented in this way, and like I said, you'd need to think real hard, because you may end up removing ships from the active defense of key sectors. 8O

I like strategy.

I thought about your arguments. The ideas that ships in range could arrive in the battle i like. but it should be ships which are in the near within their warp-capacity(max. 5 sectors away, i think the ships would go to maximum-Warp to help (this max, where the computer would automatically shut down the warpdrive after 12 hours. 5sectors i think because 4(normal speed)+1(emergeny speed) in the result after the battle those ships maybe are only at half speed as they could fly normally, until they would go to a starbase/outpost to repair their damages. So you have to think wether you need really reinforcements)