First off, my apologies if this post is in an inappropriate place, but after perusing the site this seemed like the most appropriate thread. Second, I'm so glad to have found an active BotF community! BotF is by far my favorite Trek/strategy game of all time, and it's wonderful to see so many talented people with so many ambitious plans for its successors.

While eventually I'd be more than happy to help with the development of the mods here on the site, at the moment I have no marketable skills, so I hope y'all don't mind helping out a novice hoping to learn how to mod BotF. I've modded the Armada games before, but those were far easier to work with, and required no actual programming skills to mess with.

Several weeks ago I was lucky enough to stumble across this site (http://titan.spaceports.com/~fax/BOTF.htm) which provided some fairly straightforward editors, and after doing with them as much as I could, I realized I was going to have to learn to make my own editors if I wanted to make the sort of changes I wanted to see. The only problem is I haven't the first clue as to how to go about doing this. Heh.

I have a ton of questions, but rather than inundate you with them all at once, I thought I'd first test the waters and see how amenable y'all were to a newbie stumbling about. For instance, what programming skills should I look into learning so I can make my own ship editors? I'd like to change fairly obvious things at first, like scanning range and ship type (e.g. from strike cruiser to heavy cruiser), as well as the standard stuff like firepower, shield and hull strength, etc. I'd also like to remove ships rather than add them, as I feel civilizations like the Cardassians have too many to be "canon", but other than not knowing how to go about this, I'm unsure how this would affect the game's AI.

Also, is there an editor available to the public already out there that would allow me to do these things? I'd still like to learn how to customize my own editors, but it'd be awesome to tinker with someone else's.

At any rate, thanks in advance for any and all help. :)

lol look here: http://www.armadafleetcommand.com/botf

if you wanna stick to supremacy or bote here however, have a deeper look at the topics here in the forums. there are download links for editors,games and stuff all over the place in recent threads.

on that site above, you find the "almighty" Ultimate Editor for botf (look here: dcer.4shared.com ) and tons of downloadable mods that already have everything modded to your wildest dreams, I guarantee you that. look for example here: gowron.4shared.com .
try to go to here: http://www.armadafleetcommand.com/botf/ ... pic&t=1494 to find all installer enhanced mods for quick and easy access.

Both games (Supremacy and BOTE) come with substantial editors with the download, you shouldn't need to make one yourself.

Regards Wolfe

Hey Timian, welcome to the site!

BotF1 is a nightmare of a game to mod, even if you're a proper modder who knows the game inside out. It is a terribly programmed game because it was rushed to market - it wasn't even playtested because Microprose was on the verge of collapse. And as we all know, Microprose collapsed only a few months after BotF was released. Who knows? We might have been on BotF5 by now if Microprose hadn't collapsed...

Anyways, as Mal and Wolfe said above, the main Armadafleetcommand forums are where you need to head first. It still surprises me how many people find these forums before they find the main forums, seeing as Armadafleetcommand is our parent site!

...But I also found these forums before I found Armadafleetcommand (Which I only found a few months later by playing round with the url for these forums ) so I guess I shouldn't really say anything.

You'll need to sign up to the main Armadafleetcommand forums (Even though they are our parent site you will need to sign up there separately) AND log in before you can download anything from those forums. Once you have done so, look for "The Ultimate Editor", in the downloads section which was created by DCER - the editor does exactly what it says on the tin.

The Ultimate editor will let you change planet sizes, morale levels, how much minor races like you, edit ship stats, change building descriptions...ultimately everything. .

Before you use the editor though, make sure you create a backup of a file called "Stbof.res" - it's a file that is stored in your BotF folder. Stbof.res contains all the files that the game needs to run - graphics, text, models, textures, and so on, so if you make any changes and the game breaks, you can just revert to your original version of the game without needing to reinstall. Armadafleetcommand also contains the only official game patch, and several community-made patches that get BotF working on Windows XP.

...

I've never heard of the site that you've linked to before, but I have seen many of the files that are on there before. The site is either ripping off the good work of the people on Armadafletcommand, or it's run by one of the people on the forums. (Which would therefore render that site pointless)

I'd stick to using Armadafleetcommand if I were you. It's the biggest - actually it's the only - BotF1 community on the net, and is run by the biggest/best-known modders around, so you can be sure that the files there are "safe" to use.

...

We currently have only one downloadable game on these forums - Supremacy. We completely revamped these forums only a week or two ago though so several modules are not yet active - such as our downloads section.

Until the modules are activated, we are maintaining links to download the game in a thread. You can find Supremacy Here.

Hopefully that isn't an information overload - I have an extreme tendency for long posts - - but anyways, welcome to the site.

Wow! Thanks so much for your help! Clearly I underestimated how much was freely available. The "Ultimate Editor" is, well, more than a little humbling. Forget what I said about making my own editors. Hee! I'll gladly take the easy way out, especially when the easy way out allows me to do everything I could have wished for. (Except for the part where it doesn't allow me to edit the "more Guinans" function. What's up with that? Every ship needs a Guinan.)

Seriously, that editor is amazing. I've been playing with it most of the evening, and I've barely scratched the surface. Already I have a load of new questions (what's that button? what's that do? I've never heard of that…), so thanks so much for pointing me in its direction.

Since at the moment I'm still trying to figure out how the game works, however, can any of you recommend an appropriate forum for me to ask general (and probably hopelessly naïve) questions about the game that don't pertain to any specific mod? Or should I just go ask these questions on one of the mod boards like Supremacy? I don't want to step on any toes or wear out my welcome, but I am pretty excited to be here and to be around people who *know what they are doing*.

For instance, I detest the Galaxy X and would love to remove it from the game, and while searching the forums I've seen many mentions of adding ships, but I've yet to come across any mention of *removing* one. (It's possible I'm very stupid, because I'm having a difficult time using the search thread feature. Hopefully I'll get the hang of it soon.) Where would be an appropriate place for me to ask about this? General chat, where I posted this, or somewhere else?

Anyway, thanks again so very much for the warm welcome and for all the info and links. I'll definitely try to answer my own questions before I go pestering any of you, but it's wonderful to know y'all are here should I hit a roadblock.

Thanks again.

for such a question, sign up here: http://www.armadafleetcommand.com/botf and post it (after you used search there, cause most mods there already replaced the galaxy-x) there. they'll surely help you quickly.

for starters, I'd suggest you take the Ultimate Mod3, download it from the site i mentioned above and start modding it with the Ultimate Editor to your needs. that should be way easier for you than to do all by yourself. remember, ships can't be added that easily. the trek.exe file has to be modified appropriately so that the phasers work in combat. go scour through that site linked above, there are already many popular help thread where such things are explained in detail !

I'll try that. Thanks so much!

The Galaxy-X is one of the least liked ships in the game, (Don't tell Trashman I said that though ) so as Mal said, most of the mods replace it for you.

The Armadafleetcommand forums are focused almost entirely on BotF1, so if you have any questions then post there. Don't worry about feeling stupid, if you've got questions then other people like have too. The AFC forums have thousands more users than these forums do, and have been around for longer too. The people there are used to answering questions - everyone has to start off somewhere.

...

Supremacy is NOT a mod for Botf1 though - it is a complete remake. It will be a game that you can download for free, (Paying for it would be illegal as we do not own the Trek licence, Bethesda currently own that and Atari own the Botf licence) will NOT require BotF1 to be installed or even in your CD-ROM drive, and will contain all the files you need to play it once you've downloaded it.

Supremacy is NOT complete yet though - far from it. There is currently no Diplomacy, no trade routes, no AI, no tactical combat, you can only play as the Federation...tons of stuff is missing, but Supremacy is already far better than BotF in terms of graphics and stability alone. Before you ask though, tactical combat will be the last thing added as combat is the most complex thing to program.

Mike (Mstrobel, the creator of Supremacy) constantly releases updates to his game - the last update was only the day before yesterday, so make sure you keep checking the Supremacy pre-release download thread. Every time Mike releases an update, he edits the FIRST post in that thread and puts in the new download link. He also updates the thread title to the date of the latest update, so if you see that date change, check out the thread for the latest update.