As far has Fox's idea for the Xindi, it is very interesting, and closer to cannon, but I just dont see it happening. For the sake of the programmers, I would expect to see the Xindi as 'one' minor race, just like the Andorians homeworld will probably be a small/med arctic planet, probably next to a gas giant.

Cannon can only take us so far.

Something else about the list that troubles me. rigel pointed this out to me. you have the ocampa as being able to build the caretaker array that then allows passage to the alpha quadrant. This really is a bad idea, goes against cannon as much as vorta as a minor.

From what I can remeber the Caretakers accidentaly ruined the ocampan home world and sent their species back a few hundred years in terms of technology, feeling bad for them they built the caretaker array and left it orbiting the ocampan homeworld to monitor the ocampans and look out for them. In voyager the caretaker is dieing and is pulling ships with different species on it from all over space to it in order to find genetic material with which it can reproduce its self (or create someone to man the array -something like that). So as you can see having it as a buildable structure that effectiveky creates a wormhole makes no senes at all.

I am new here - been reading through many of the threads... so anyway - hello!

In the first txt file you link to in this thread, you have Andoria listed as Terran... in the Enterprise episode... not sure what it was called - the one in the Romulan arc in season 4 - it was clearly established that Andoria was an actic world

Loving what I'm seeing here btw - very much looking forward to this game.

BTW - another thing - are you keeping those planet graphics from the original game? It might be worth your while creating a new set, to avoid potential issues Its not too hard to do with some versatile shading networks, render out and done

Hey there! Welcome to the threads, Martocticvs!

Jigalypuff has already created some models of the Planets, here are some tasters of what he's done:





They'll look better in the game, he just had to convert them to a lower quality so the site could host them.

Moons and Asteroids will also be in, although whether they will be animated like the Planets or not, isn't known yet.

If you're interested, there will be two new Planet types in the game (Rogue and Demon) and some of the classes have been altered to change them round.

Check out the screenies thread for screenshots of the game, and check out any threads posted by Dafedz - they have the most recent and detailed info in them.

Welcome to the site again.

Welcome Martocticvs. Your point about Andoria has been brought up somewhere recently, nd the general consensus was to make it arctic. so I wouldnt worry.

And as horadrim said, something needs to be done with the ocampa. Like he said, it goes completely against cannon, and even tho it isnt a hugedeal, its one of those things that would be so glaringly wrong, it could almost be a game breaker (IMO). If you wanna discuss it, why not hope over to the Caretaker thread. http://botfii.armadafleetcommand.com/in ... opic&t=552

OK, good to know about the planet graphics... never really liked to original ones much, but never got around to trying to change them either :p

Thanks for the welcome

I did address the Ocampa array issue somewhere, god knows where, its so easy to lose to track of what you posted and where it is. I think the array will probably just end up sitting there, much like the Edo Guardian. It won't do much unless it's attacked.

But it does have potential as a random event. It may have the possibility to take a starship, most likely Voyager itself, across the galaxy and make it appear in the Ocampa system. How about a real tip of the hat to canon. Once you reach Intrepid tech and build a ship called Voyager, it may (as a random event) disappear for a turn or two, and reappear at Ocampa?! That would be cool.

Yup but I think it should pull other races ships to. It pulled the marqee ship. So does this mean teh array wont be buildable then ? ive no problem with it just sitting there ike the gaurdian as long as its not buildable as the minors special and as long as it doesnt create a wormhole to the alpha quadrant on command.

No I don't think it's reasonably to have arbitrary control of the array. It will be like the Guardian in the first game, in that it is controlled by the AI. Maybe up to two or three ships per game might be lost to the Delta Quadrant (including Voyager), who then must return home, (or not, if that is the player's preferance). Not sure about control of those ships though. It might be interesting to have the AI control them entirely, until they return to your empire's space. Anyway, it's a minor point for now.

i think if the caretaker pulls one of your ships as a random event, the ship should automatically set a course for that empires home system and if the ship makes it home you should get some kind of reserch bounus and your map should show the ships path and everything in its sensor range. maybe 1 in 2 or 3 ships would make it all the way home.

How would you get 50 people from the officers pool on board?
Anyway, I love the idea! GO VOYAGER


Why is that a problem? No more range, it's been exchanged for fuel, so there shouldn't be a problem with control
Well, as long as you make an ally or two on the way


Hey, nobull23, haven't seen you around before, so welcome

Well, if you can see the ship going home, you'd get all his sensor information. Of course, I'd like it if he's manualy controled...

Problem with manual controll is it will run out of fule. If you do the ai controlls it and you can't get its map data untill it gets back to your space you could buy into the idea it found fule along the way. I like the AI controll.

Well, you won't run out of fuel if you make friends with a few minors along the way. Then you can resuply with them.

And if you can't find friends. Then DIE IN COLD SPACE

Agreed. I also think the amount of research points gained should be huge. Just think of all the knowledge Voyager got through its journey home. Also the ship should have legendary XP of course

I'm torn between wanting control, and leaving it to its own devices... I suppose the trouble would be that if you have control, you can open contact with a friendly minor, and pursuade them to join you... then you suddenly have part of your empire on the other side of the galaxy

Will there be something built into the diplomacy section that prevents unrealistic membership agreements being passed?

Not sure exactly what you mean about unrealistic treaties.

Gavin is programming the game to be more 'intelligent' - the minors will react to the Empires as you might expect, so if you mean Voyager going along and making friends with the Vidiians say, but going to war with the Talaxians...i'd imagine you'd need a lot of time to set up such a scenario. It wouldn't be instant.

Remember that Diplomacy will be different as well. There will be more options and the computer will sort of be able to reply to your messages.

No, I meant something along the lines of this: a ship, for sake of argument, we shall call it Voyager (why?... 8O) gets pulled into the Delta Quadrant by our friendly Caretaker. Fortunately, during the transit, Captain Janeway was accidentally brutally stabbed in the stomach by someone (me, actually) and died. Someone sensible took over, and forced all the female crew (the good looking ones only) to work in the nude.... ... sorry, I digress...

umm...

Yes. OK. So, this different Captain, who clearly has the right idea about command, decides that instead of setting off on a stupid 75 year voyage home, he is instead going to stick around and go make friends with the Talaxians. Because for some mysterious reason, he is still in contact with command back home, the Federation and the Talaxians open up a dialogue. So already we are in the realms of complete unrealism. At this point, Voyager's very savvy captain, who spends most of his time in his quarters (not alone, obviously) decides to go and try to hitch a lift home on a Borg ship, so off he trundles, and happens to stumble upon the Barzan wormhole en route - and although detecting a couple of Ferengi corrupting an innocent society, decides to pretend he hasn't seen it and heads through the wormhole and sets up home on a nice uninhabited planet with all of his female crew (only the good looking ones) who are required to be naked at all times... but I digress...

With Voyager safely home, it is ritually destroyed. The funds from the scrap sale are used to help butter the Talaxians up a bit, and the Federation and the Talaxians somehow enter into a trading situation... perhaps they are exchanging saucy holodeck programmes - who can tell? After some time, relations between the two become so very good, that the Talaxians, for some totally unknown reason, ask to join the Federation... the Federation being what it is (now run from a small, relatively cold world, inhabited by the former captain of Voyager-turned-emperor - sorry, president..... and his lovely, unclad female enterage.... ah, but I digress...) gladly accepts the offer and the Talaxians, complete with their little area of the Delta Quadrant, join the Federation, and start building lovely Galaxy class ships with which to start taking over larger regions...

Meanwhile, the former captain of Voyager enjoys the good life with his ever growing collection of... assistants... and I digress.

So, as you see, a potentially very interesting, and, I might say, unrealistic situation, may well occur...

Well for some reason I can't actually imagine naked assistnats dancing around in BOTF2...I wonder why?

You have to remember that if we were to loose total control of the ships, we would instantly have to assume they were destroyed.

You have to remember that this is a game. It runs on computers, and computers are stupid.

To program the ship so that it suddenly comes under AI control, then creates all these wonderful treaties for itself, then the ship and all it's treaties suddenly comes back under your own control is simply unlikely/impossible.

I'd imagine Gavin would screeeam if he thought we wanted him to program that as well.

No matter where a ship is in the Galaxy, it will be under your command. That's the only way you can get the game to work. Jig himself has already confirmed this.

Unless we find a way of making a computer think like a real person, and get it to make decisions that only a person could, and then get it to surrender what it has gained to us...well, you've seen sci-fi horror films, haven't you? 8O

Sorry, should have made it clearer - all the above was assuming the ship is still under the player's control. The point I was making, admittedly lost amongst all the naked (100% female) crew, was that it would be incredibly... odd... to have a race on the other side of the galaxy join your empire... although it wouldn't stop me trying

It might sound odd, but I have seen maps that show the Federation as two distinct 'sections', split apart by many lightyears. (Of course, they aren't official, but without combing over every last detail they are fairly accurate)

I think they used a Wormhole to join them up (Barzan, not Bajoran)

Such things aren't totally unfeasible, I mean the Federation could try and expand into the Gamma Quad if it wanted now the war is over...

Nice theory, except that the Barzan wormhole is unusable due to the fact that one of its ends switches from place to place.

This is only one mans opinion, but NO WAY! It may be a nice little tip of the hat to the series, but no way. I know the game is BOT Federation, but theres no need to only give them things like this. Personally, I plan on playing as the Feds very little, so I definately would not want to see that. [End of Rant]

People, a good place to discuss this is in the Caretaker thread. Its what its there for. http://botfii.armadafleetcommand.com/in ... 2&start=15

Should definitely just be a random event, applicable to all... imagine if you needed a ship - just one ship! - urgently... that ship was an Intrepid... out of the shipyard it came, the bottle of (miraculously un-frozen) champaigne smashed on the hull as she is named Voyager... and then she suddenly disappears...

My reaction would be thus:

[JeremyClarksonVoice] NooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! [/JeremyClarksonVoice]

This is a very nice issue started by poeple who actually like to search inconsistencies. There are two major drawbacks:

1) One thing that indeed has to be taken into account is the Avogadro'sche Constant, which says that there are _two_ components defining a substances agregate state: temperature (taken into account: near 0K), aaaaand pressure! And since this is a bottle of the finest champaigne, someone might have taken care of shaking it a bit before throwing it at the new vessel

2) Regarding the fact we speak of the 22nd and 23rd (in case of an intrepid class vessel launch), who said it was champaigne at all? There might be materials capable of being in a liquid state at those deep temperatures, so who cares?

Can you clarify the 'sympathy rating' for me? I ask this because one of the races doesn't make sense. The Cytherians don't exactly strike me as a race that hates everyone. I know that they are going to be uber, and thus should be difficult to get and court (perhaps impossible?), but if it is anything like the sympathy in BotF I, then they will just declare war on everyone they see. They seem pretty nice to me.....

Could there be changes such that a race can be friendly and still not join you? perhaps a modifier that sets a set of criteria before they accept? (x tech level, x systems, x research or something for Cytherians). The empire that meets these the best gets the best chance to woo them.

They should also be extremely difficult to conquer..... they'd make the Klingons seem like pathetic little pushovers, simply by virtue of their technology.

Thinking about it more, I don't see them joining anyone unless certain situations occur:

1. a Borg invasion near them, and you have a powerful empire that might protect them
2. one of your rivals attacking them, and you offering to defend them.
3. if you liberate them
4. if you reach the top of your tech tree. I know that they are supposed to be uber-helpful in research, but I don't see them working with anyone unless they were equivalent to them. Perhaps they could give a bonus for future techs only!

Does this make any sense? I know it has probably been done already, or is otherwise impossible, I just don't want to see them hating everyone, given that what we know of them they seem pretty friendly....

About champagne:

What about some sort of local shield that retains acceptable temperature and pressure in the bottle, thus keeping it liquid until broken?

Perhaps it is something you can research?

"BASIC CONSTRUCTION TECH 1: micro-integrity fields allow items to be sent through a vacuum without ill effects.

ALLOWS: ship launches, Champagne bottle II, shipyard I."

Lol. Until this discussion I never gave that champagne bottle in Generatons a second thought.

The Cytherians. Who knows what they'll be or how they'll work. But at the top of the table it states that the sympathy rating is tied into 'stubbornness' and 'desire for independence'. I didnt have enough room in the table for other fields and values. I'd like to think that separate aspects and qualifiers can be programmed into the rating of a minor, meaning in the Cytherians' case that their rating of 10 is not their attitude/sympathy per se, but how stubborn they are in not responding to bribes. But they're almost like the Organians in a way, being highly advanced, and very difficult to contact. There will I hope be some sort of prerequisite involved in order to contact them and to get them join.

less spam more thoughts if you please

I could never underdtand the point of that champagne apart from that it really couldn't be there....i think. K Jig, i'm finished!

Champaign? ... Weird. I'll look into it.

In the "RESOURCE LIST, AND COMPREHENSIVE GALACTIC RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION" web link created by Dafedz on page 1 of this topic, I have some nits to pick.

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How is Neptune a 'Crystalline world'? To me it's a gas giant. What am I missing?

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Both a 'Radio Pulsar' and an 'X-Ray Pulsar' are Neutron Stars. So is a 'Magnetar', by the way; and I notice it didn't make the list. The difference between these is the amount of energy coming from them and how that energy is created.

Neutron stars are the remnants of large stars that have gone supernova. I aint gonna get into the mechanism of these here things, 'cause it's *way* the blue blazes off topic! (Though fascinating!) Instead I'll simply say that many of the physical aspects of the parent star is transfered to the child neutron star, including mass, rotation and magnetic field. Basically, it's a mass the size of our sun and a little bigger smashed down to the size of a major city, like New York or London. (This is somewhat incomprehensible to me, as I can't grasp the mass of Sol. Still, them's the numbers.) Thanks to the symmetry of Guage Theory (don't ask) this means a neutron star consists entirely of neutrons. (Which makes a neutron star the largest nucleus in the known universe... Of course, as it has no protons, it can't be considered an 'element'.) Again, all pulsars (with exceptions, as usual) are neutron stars.

Radio pulsars are more accurately referred to as "Rotation-powered pulsars". The name is quite descriptive: it is the rotation of this very dense object that is powering the beam of radiation it puts out. Literally the magnetic field, rotating with the star, is rotated through a electrically charged gas, sweeping it up and accelerated it onto the surface. When the gas strikes the surface, its momentum is turned into energy in the form of light. The faster it was accelerated, the harder it hits, the more energy is released and the higher the frequency of light. Most of these types of pulsars are old and so their rotation has slowed and the energy is in the radio frequencies.

X-Ray pulsars are doing much the same thing as radio pulsars except instead of collecting left-over gas from the supernova that created it, it's stealing plasma from a companion star. This means that the pulsar can actually increase its rotational energy, and thus the amount of power it's emitting.

Magnetars have an enormous magnetic field. So huge, in fact, that "the magnetic field of a magnetar would be lethal at a distance of up to 1000 km, tearing tissues due to the diamagnetism of water." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetar). These amazing creatures emit huge amounts of energy via resettling of their internal structure, which reshapes the magnetic field. This reshaping emits powerful burst in the gamma-ray range.

So, I suggest that you have a probability for the existance for neutron stars, then a percentage of that probability for that star being a pulsar and a probablility for that pulsar being one of the three classifications. For example:

Neutron star rarity: 6 (as listed)
If neutron star, Pulsar probability: 20%
If pulsar, Radio Pulsar probability: 80%
If pulsar, X-Ray Pulsar probability: 18%
If pulsar, Magnetar probability: 2%

All these things would be good things to study with a research vessel, with the most interesting the most rare. Also, all of these things would be quite deadly, with the most deadly the most rare.

Last thing, you are more likely to find heavier objects, like neutron stars and black holes, closer to the center of the galaxy, not the outer regions. This is because when two bodies in the galaxy interact -- like a neutron star and a G2 type star -- it is likely the more massive object will be sent towards the center -- ie, the neutron star. (This is one of the arguments that supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies were created by the galaxy, as opposed to having them the galaxy's starting seed.) It must be stressed that this is about *probability*. There is a higher probability of finding massive objects closer to the center of the galaxy, though you'll find them through out the galaxy.

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Nebulae, as I understand them, can be classified into three major groups: explosive, stellar and coalescent. In astronomy, this is not how nebulae are classified. Instead, they are classified by how they emit or effect light, not how they are created. But for this context, their creation is more important. So, just so it's understood, the below classification is completely of my own devising.

Explosive nebula are created by the explosive death of stars. These types of nebula can sometimes be found close together, as one supernova explosion will induce another near by star to do the same -- the shockwave turning an already unstable star into a bomb. Within this type of nebula you are very likely to find a neutron star or black hole. Though not all such dense objects are in planetary nebulae -- many have left their place of birth -- all planetary nebulae have such dense objects within: by the time a pulsar or black-hole has left its birthing nebula, the nebula has already dissipated into 'ambient dust'. This type of nebula tends to be small -- for the game, not much bigger than one to three hexes in diameter. It's also relatively rare as their lifespan is comparatively short.

Stellar nebula are areas with plenty of dust from a local cluster of stars that are spewing out gas like you wouldn't believe. This type of nebula is rather thin and isn't likely to effect much, though it might be an interesting place to study. They're rather large, all considering, from four to 10 hexes in diameter, I'd guess. Star systems would be found within and, again, the nebula would effect little but the appearance on the screen. These kinds are relatively common.

Coalescent nebulae are areas gas collected by mutual attraction, often initiated by the passing of a massive body. The largest of is the type of nebula becomes stellar nurseries, form which all stars come. Larger stars, such as class O and B, can be found near such a nursery: they usually don't live long enough to travel far from their place of birth. Such nebula tend to be dense and large, anywhere from 10 to 40 hexes in diameter, assuming one hex is 4 light-years across. These things are truly huge. These are the nebulae that you'd find a hard time scanning or entering and where you'd find all the interesting stuff.

Of course, saying a nebula has 'x' radius is ridiculous, as stellar and coalescent nebulae have a random shape: not spherical. Several types of explosive nebula do have spherical shapes, though far from all.
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I'm gonna stop now.