I have been reading the various updates etc regarding the current progress with the development of this game and it strikes me that the AI seems to be the most neglected area?? The game is almost unplayable without this and in my view thats where all of the development should be concentrated on.......all of the images/voiceovers/new races etc can be left until this is complete especially seeing as there are already plenty to fill the game! Obviously if i'm missing something please fill me in!

Well, Mike can only do so much at a time
Maybe he's already working on it while he waits for .Net 4.0 - plenty of time until March

Mike HAS begun development of an AI. But it's an area that isn't his speciality and he's got BIG plans for what he wants to do with the AI. The problem is *how* he actually makes that AI. It's just going to take time i'm afraid.

I'm also hesitant to invest much time in the AI until the rest of the game is mostly in place. New features are likely to be revised several times, and it'll save time if I don't have to rewrite the AI code over and over again.

So do we stop calling her pre alpha when she has an AI?

Maybe. I'm sure I'll make a big deal of it when I launch the first true Alpha release.

Another reason to define what the program will have and will not have in it. If it is nailed down, Mike can start AI. Bashir.

Yes, very soon I want to go "back to the drawing board" to nail down the feature set, player focus areas, and how gameplay should evolve throughout the game. I just need to wrap up some experimental stuff first.

After reading a very good write-up on the troubles that plagued Duke Nukem Forever and sank 3D Realms, I've decided that we really need to lock down the feature set sooner rather than later. I don't need to trap myself in a 12-year cycle of "write, scrap, rewrite", which is exactly what's going to happen if I don't start putting my foot down more often .

I'd like to get to Alpha status in roughly a year, spend another year at Alpha, finish off with a 6-month Beta/RC test cycle, and then release the damn thing.

I'll start writing a thread for features to be added as soon as you lock it down then.

I'm sure I'll have it all mapped out and diagrammed on a wiki or something.

When you say "Experimental Stuff" are you referring to experimental stuff for BOTF2 or another project? Just curious.
Lovin the time line. We're here for ya.

The genetically engineered Bashir

Can't wait, I hope we will see the list soon



Plain and simple Vjeko

The "experimental stuff" is for Supremacy.

Mike, it might be a good idea to set your goals and features ASAP, since those will do more than anything to keep development on the straight and narrow. Discrete features and objectives may change with time, but as long as a main goal or theme is in place, you'll always know when to spend that extra day on something and when to just scrap it and move on.

Best of luck to you! A great project, and very much looking forward to the final product.

Yeah, that's the plan. I've been putting off writing a complete spec for the game for too long now. It's time to take the plunge.

Mike I think Star Trek Supremacy is awesome. I am a long time fan and a adved strategy gamer. I am more than looking forward to a AI and combat system. I may have missed it somewhere in the thread but I got two questions for you.

#1 Will there be Species 8472?
#2 Can you or Will you make it so minor species like Ferengi Tholian and Gorn can take systems as well and have territory?

Keep up the great work I am on the edge of my seat anticipating the release.

Hey Tyberian Mallice, welcome to the forums!

I can answer your questions for you:

1) Yes, we do plan to include Species 8472 in the game. They will be in as a random event (Combat). The precise details may change in the future, but this is the current random event we have for them:



You can find the entire list of 135 random events Here.

Please note, the list is still being written, and will undergo changes in future. We don't even know what it will be possible to implement yet, so just because a random is written in the list, doesn't mean it will actually be added to the game - or at least it may undergo changes before it makes it in.


2) Yes, minor races will expand. In fact, a lot of them will. Approximately a third will expand aggressively. They won't expand as fast as the empires, but given enough time they will take over multiple star systems and build their own fleets, and just possibly their own stations too. Examples of these races include the Vulcans (Who will be the most advanced of the minors, although not necessarily the most powerful), the Devore, and the Ferengi.

Another third of the minors will expand, but will do so much more slowly due to reduced resource availability, slower research rates, weaker militaries, or their personal beliefs. (Prefer to stay on the homeworld, believe aliens are unclean, etc etc) Examples include the Pakled, the Gorn, and the Hirogen.

The remaining third will not expand in any form, whether due to a lack of Dilithium, terrible research rates, weak or non-existant militaries, previous invasions/occupations, or their personal beliefs (Xenophobic etc) Examples include the Mintakans, the Lurians, and the Malcorians.

You can find more advice on the minor races in Dafedz's Database.

Thx for the answers. Now if I may I have a few more. I did some looking into the other major races more and more and I was wondering about a few more things maybe even give a small idea.

#1 Shouldn't the Negh'Var be the top echelon for the Klingons
#2 Would you consider putting in the Hutlet Class "Carrier" for the Cardassian's it is a massive and powerful ship?
#3 What about the Avenger or Vanguard class from STO. They are sweet in design. And would be a great addition to the Starfleet repitwa.
#4 Have you thought of being able to build Transwarp conduits as a station?
#5 Will the Borg be a non-playable race but still be a major race and expand like any other? Or will u keep it as an event, and make them able to start assimilating worlds at a certain stage of the game?

Keep up all the good work the anticipation grows

1) The Negh'Var is set as the Klingon's supreme battleship, so i'm not sure why you don't think it is. Check the Shiplist On Dafedz's Database. It's in there as their tech 12 ship. (Note: the link is a page link - you won't be able to access the rest of the database from it like you normally can. The full database link again is Here.

2) The Hutet IS in the game. We've simply called it the Koronak. To be honest, i'm not sure why we changed the name...but the model has already been built. It's also in as the Cardassians' premium battleship, NOT a carrier. There are no carriers in the game, as there are no fighters.

3) The shiplist has been developed over the last six years. We're constantly getting suggested about adding this ship or that. The truth is if we keep fiddling with it, we'll never have a workable shiplist. The ships that are in are those that give a balanced overview of ships from the entire shipbuilding histories of the empires. Obviously we've had to take some liberties with the Cardassians and especially with the Dominion since these histories are canonically unknown, but where the histories are known, we've had to intentionally leave out specific designs to keep the shiplist balanced.

STO is a brand new game, and while the ships are cool, all of the above points apply. We would also have to wrestle with the legalities of taking ship designs from a specific, current, commercially successful game - it would be obvious where our "inspiration" came from, and that could be grounds for legal problems. Our models would also have to build the ships in the first place, and they've already got hundreds of other models to work on.

This doesn't mean "no, not ever to the designs", it simply means not yet and not by us. Others are free to mod the ships in if they want them that badly.

4) No, we haven't thought about this. We've had problems with an issue that we've called "feature creep". The problem with a game like Supremacy is that there are sooo many features we could add, the game will never be finished if we start adding even a few of them. Supremacy has already been going for three years, and it's still on alpha release. We DO have a lot of new features, including Wormholes, so at least one faster travel method is on the way.

5) Again, the Borg are a random event, so yes, they are non-playable. But i've also put into their scope that they would be expandable based on assimilation, so they technically become an empire from the moment the random event is triggered and they manage to assimilate a system.



Please note: the anti-Borg alliance was a speculative idea and is almost certainly NOT going to be in the game. I wrote this particular random a few years ago, and it's now in need of updating.

I have found a bug in the game. I cannot build with the Federation ship Construction II, I keep getting an error msg. Thought I would let u know. I must be blind b/c I couldn't find the bug report area. I am just tired I guess.

Thx for answering all my questions so far I appreciate it.

What sort of error message are you getting? I *think* we did have a report of some problems with the construction ships a while ago, but I must've forgotten to list it in the known issues thread.

Off the top of my head, I *think* the Construction ships are incorrectly set to upgrade to either a non-existent ship, or they actually downgrade. The problem can't be fixed at the moment as the editor is not longer supported. Mike is currently building a new editor with more features than the old one.

Anyways, I wouldn't bother building Construction ships at the moment as there is actually a crash bug with the Stations themselves:

I don't mean to be asking so many questions but I do have another. I know you are tired of hearing from
me.
I am not an expert on coding and all that I know a few things but I am no where in your guy's league. I was wondering why can't u create a simple AI for now and add onto it as you go. What I mean is wouldn't it be possible to create an AI with simple diplomacy, empire building directives and a simple combat auto-simulation? Just thought I would ask oh and I love all the minor species in the game, but may I ask why you left out the Garidians?

In order to demonstrate the game at the Las Vegas Star Trek Convention efforts are being directed at making the game playable. Diplomacy, espionage and combat without the 3D combat engine are the priority items for now. When these elements are in place the game will function with multiple human players. Then we can run a demonstration of the game being played. Once we have these elements in place it will be possible to code an AI that uses diplomacy, espionage and combat elements that are currently lacking.

Look across the forums. You'll see i've been answering questions for six years and i'm still doing it. I guess i'm a glutton for punishment.

As Kenneth said, the AI isn't being worked on because we have other priorities. Supremacy is being presented at the Trek convention in Vegas in August, and Mike plans to release the next major update there. The AI just isn't part of those plans, because we don't *want* to have a simple AI at such a major event - it could actually subtract from the game if people start playing it against a sub-standard AI. But if we instead make the game much more multi-player-capable, we should have a more rounded game - and that's what we're doing.

The AI is coming, it's just not coming with the next update.

As for the Garidians, we've got a set of rules that we abide by when deciding whether they make it into the game or not. Yes, we've got hundreds of minors, but there are a few that we've actually had to reject:

1) The race must have been explicitly named within an episode or film. Therefore they must be canon. Races that are only identified in books or have not been named explicitly cannot be accepted.

2) At least one individual of the race must have been seen AND there must be an image of that individual available that is of acceptable quality.

3) They must come from a planet or star system that has been explicitly stated in an episode or film. Again, locations that are only identified in books or have not been named explicitly cannot be accepted.

4) The minor race must have a personality trait, technological capability, biological capability, unique trait, philosophy, religion, work ethic, unusual planetary phenomena, etc. etc. that could be used to create a unique special structure for that race.

5) The more information available regarding the minor race, the better.


I have to admit, i've not personally heard of the Garidians, so I did a Google. The only information I could find was on Memory Beta, the non-canon Star Trek wiki. Straight away this makes it unlikely they will make it into the game, since they are non-canon. This is further reinforced by the fact that it's stated that the Garidians are from Star Trek: A Final Unity, which is a PC game. This means the source material itself is non-canon, so we're unlikely to include them.

On the subject of whether various different ships or races will make it into the game I'd direct anyone to the primary mod site for Bridge Commander- http://bridgecommander.filefront.com/

That game was launched with only about 5 Federation ships. In time members created all the older ships like Mirandas/ Excelsiors etc, then all the other random starfleet and alien ships, after a while they started uploading versions of classes that were already in the original game- just cos their versions looked so much better. Now, you can literally download and use any ship that's ever been so much as hinted at in Trek, as well as several hundred that haven't. There are proabably about 30 standard Galaxy classes of various levels of quality, not to mention Borg modified versions, AGT future versions, USS Venture phasers on nacelles versions etc etc etc etc.

You can literally go in, find a ship you like, download it and play with it. That's exactly how I see this game going in time, after the game is finalised the mods will start to come in, individual ships to use, replacement versions of the original shiplist, Babylon 5 universe, Star Wars universe...... It'll be the same for races I'm sure, and if nobody else creates a download for your race I'm sure someone will talk you through how to do it.

Me, I'll have a vanilla version for multiplayer and my very own version with a ship added here and a building taken out there..... I certainly wouldn't orry about whether you can play with a certain class of ship.


Edit- Someone really needs to get in contact with this Rick Knox guy.... http://bridgecommander.filefront.com/fi ... alaxy;4104

I read from time to time this forum to check how it looks with a playable version from Supermacy (single campaign) and what i readed sounds rly nice and makes me glad to play it when the major updates are updated. I wont ask again "when" this AI will be updated cuz there was allready enough questions about it i think, ori wont punish any1 with that question hehe .

But maybe u can tell us, when we can count with an AI ( around not exactly in months or weeks maybe ^^).

We will have a playable version for multi-players first.
That being the case it would make sense to have
a way for players to link up. Without a lobby one
option would be teamspeak.
If you download and install teamspeak 3 you could
advertise your game here and link to your
password protected channel.