So, when a minor race joins your empire, will you still be able to build their ships?? That was a major fault with the original BOTF.

Also, will there be random events like the appearance of The Crystal Entity and such?? If so, will you be able to do more than destroy them this time? I mean the Feds came close to communicating with the Crystal Entity at one point right??

Leafan.

you will not be able to build minor race ships once thye have joined your empire, random aliens will be the same as in botf, you have to kill the buggers.

Could you maybe add an option beside HAIL, FIGHT and AUTO? Like DIPLOMACY or TRY TO TALK when we meet them. Its far cannon like this than just eridicate them. And that option will be available as soon as you reach level 10 or higer on Computer Reaserch.


For ships its a waste of time and resources, for building and constructing. But just maybe its doable to put some ships in it. Like the one that they have builded so far. Like Yiridian Scout. Just an thought. Soo it wont interupt anything and you still would have to build and entire classes of ships for minor races.


I know that you dont like mine proposals but its just a thopught.

Not being able to build the Minor race ships is a major drawback for me, being obsessive like I am....I have to wait until each race builds at least 2 of each ship they are capable of building before I can let them join me!!! Damn! I use them for defence of thier system, hearts and minds and all that crap.

Leafan.

Just coz you won't be able to build the ships in the main game, doesn't mean you won't be able to mod it so you can.

..

I'm the guy writing the random events, and on the "alien encounter" side of things, so far i've got:

The Borg
They assimilate systems, initially invading with small scout ships and moving up to Spheres, Cubes and eventually even the Diamond. If you take out the Diamond, they will stop invading you for a time, but they will continue to spread from the Delta Quadrant. The only way to completely destroy them is to wipe out their systems.

The Sphere Builders
The Sphere builders slowly make the space around them uninhabitable, causing the inhabitants in nearby systems to die. You need to reach a certain tech level before your ships can take out the Spheres in combat

Species 8472
They pour out of a fluidic gate and destroy everything within sight - including Planets themselves. You have to fight them to stop the invasion. Individual Bioships are relatively weak, but their weapons and shields recharge at an extremely high rate. They also attack en-masse, so it won't be easy to defeat them...

Chodak
Same as BOTF, it appears without warning in a random sector, you fight it.

Giant Amoeba
You fight it. It attacks ships by "eating" them. If you manage to scan it AND defeat it, you will get a large Biotech bonus. If it enters a system, it will begin to wipe out the population until it or the colony is destroyed. It will then move onto another system and begin destroying it if it is left alone.

Gomtuu
One-time all-round research bonus if you can scan it AND survive the encounter. Ships will need POWERFUL shields to survive the initial attack. If you hail it and survive without attacking it, Gomtuu will cease to attack you and will instead attack your enemies until they manage to destroy it.

Jellyfish from TNG Ep. 1/2
Doesn't attack your ships. It will instead attempt to escape as quickly as possible. If you manage to scan it before it escapes, you will get an energy and/or contruction tech bonus. You will get no bonus for destroying it.

Crystaline Entity
Same as BOTF, you fight it. If it enters a system, it will begin to wipe out the population until it or the colony is destroyed. If the colony is destroyed, it will then move onto another system if it is left alone. However, if you kill it, you will suffer from a small Empire-wide morale drop.

Doomsday Machine
If the Doomsday device enters a system, it will destroy one Planet every turn. It attacks ships by ramming into them, and you will have to battle it to destroy it. The Doomsday machine will have many thousands of hit points, but no shields. (It's made of Neutronium afterall, it doesn't need shields!)

Husnock
Same as BOTF, it appears without warning in a random sector, you fight it. Ships that survive the battle get an experience bonus for fighting this unusual enemy.

Calamarain
Same as BOTF, it appears without warning in a random sector, you fight it. Ships that survive the battle get an experience bonus for fighting this unusual enemy.

The Echo Papa 607 Defence System
Similar to BOTF, but can only be found in the Minosian system. You get a weapons tech research bonus by scanning it AND defeating it, and ships that survive the battle get a large experience bonus for fighting this unusual enemy.

Cytoplasmic being/void
Acts like a gigantic Echo Papa 607, but you get a biotech research bonus by scanning it AND defeating it. Ships that survive the battle get an experience bonus for fighting this unusual enemy.

V'Ger
(Not sure yet)

Q
A ship is thrown to a random sector. The ship will have to attempt to make it back under its' own fuel reserves, so making alliances with the locals will be essential. Greatly increases the chances of contact with the Borg, irrelevant of where in the Galaxy the ship is sent.

Caretaker array
A random ship is sent to the Ocampa system in the Delta Quadrant. Contact with the Ocampans is impossible until the Caretaker is destroyed, but the Ocampans will be defenseless and prone too attack if you do this. The Caretaker is a bit weaker than the Edo Guardian.

Think-Tank Ship
Once discovered, you recieve a one-time only ten turns of 50% Research Empire-wide in exchange for a random amount of resources.

Voth City Ship
One ship in the encountering fleet is captured by the Voth. It will be returned 20–50 turns later with a large all-round research bonus.

Krenim ship
If it appears in a system, the system and all nearby surrounding systems will undergo shifts, resulting in different planet types, populations and system bonuses.

Pralorian Androids
Only encounterable in the Delta Quadrant, Pralorian Android ships fight their own private battle – and may attack inhabited systems arbitrarily until destroyed.

Promellian Battlecruiser
May be found afloat in Nebulas. If you scan the ship, you will recieve a 4 turn 100% research bonus in a random field.



Of course, these are ALL subject to changes, additions, or even removal from the game. I have written every event that I could possibly think of, with help from Dafedz and OmniQ, but this does NOT mean they will make it into the game. It will ultimately be up to Jigalypuff to decide which ones to include/are programmable.

i`ve had an idea with regards to people wanting to build minor race ships, i think it should be ok depending on your tech level, say you get the vulcans and andorians early on, you still have nx-o1`s and intrepids, but they can build kumari and d`kyr cruisers, i think in that situation being able to construct those vessels until your tech level has improved would be kinda cool.

Or..

We have the home system of the minor race outputs 1 ship per 30 turns or somit which is what it would kinda do in original botf when it wasnt occupied or affilited with a major. Just keep that independent production going but u can use the ships when they appear?

Having the ships appear at random intervals might be a good idea, and having it tied in with your tech level might be cool as well.

As you tech level gets closer to the level where the minor race stops producing ships, we could set it that the rate at which the ships are produced decreases, eventually stopping when your tech exceeds that of the minor race.

There may be a down side to this however - if a ship is produced, it's gonna cost you to run it. Some people may decide to decommission/scrap it - so they would basically get FREE resources - or some people may end up in economic difficulties because they couldn't support another ship.

The only alternative that I could think of is that the minor race itself pays for the upkeep or something, or that the decommissin/scrap otion for these ships would be disabled.

Another idea could be that once your tech level exceeds theirs, they would "reclaim" the ship(s) for their own private defense fleets, which would stay in orbit of their homeworld and/or nearby systems.

During battle, these ships would act independantly but would be on your side.

Is this programmable?

They dont have so fast weapons. And if they do, what advantage will that be? Greater fireing rate? BotF dosent have that kind of spec.

Implementing something like this would be possible, but it wouldn't be practical. In ST:Supremacy, I blur the difference between minor races and playable empires in order to allow minor races greater diplomatic, technological, and expansion capabilities. Further, tech objects like ship types are not statically linked to a single race, so it would be difficult to track whether or not a ship was built by a minor race. For something like this to work you would need to track extra data: where a ship was built, which races owned and inhabited that system at the time of construction, the relationship of the owner race to the inhabiting race, etc.

If you went as far as to have minor races reclaim ships for defending their own systems, those changes would propagate to the Fleet Commander AI and other parts of the game.

I would say that it would be too much extra work for a feature with dubious gameplay benefits. If someone really wants to build minor race ships, it would be much, much easier to modify those ships such that they could be built by the empire to which a minor race belongs. That wouldn't even require any additional programming.

sirNemanjapro, you don't seem to understand the new mechanics that we *hope* to use in BOTF2.

Basically, when your ship first fires its weapons, it's beam weapons fire at full power. On the second turn, the weapons will fire at perhaps only 75% power, because you've used up some of the power and your weapons are still charging.

On the third turn, your weapons will be back to full power, then 75% on turn 4, full power on turn 5, and so on.

So for example, a ship whose beams do 200 points of damage will do 200 points of damage on turn one, 150 damage on turn two, 200 damage on turn three...

By having a high recharge rate, species 8472 will be able to have extremely powerful weapons - ones that are almost uniformly effective - so your shields will take that much more of a pounding.

If you want more in-depth info, have a look at this:

Dafedz's Comparitive Stats Balancing

Near the bottom, (But not actually at the bottom) there is a section called "SHIP VERSUS SHIP". Have a read of this section, and it should make it easier to understand.

Every ship in the game will have its own recharge rate. These rates are also listed in the link.

We keep mentioning all the work that Dafedz has put into the game but is he still doing it or has he disappeared again? btw, i like the ideas of being able to create one ship that's indiginous to a minor race every few turns. Would make the game a#more canon considering that on many occations we see members of the feds using ships that are their own ande not standard starfleet

You'll have to excuse me because I'm new here and I don't know to whom this should be addressed. But in regards to the ability to build minor race ships (MRS from here on), why not?

OK The major empire's in the 'real' Trek world might not build them, but whats to stop players having more fun by building MRS? The Federation wouldn't bombard a planet either but you can still do that right?

I remember in the original BOTF when playing as the Ferengi especially, there was little choice when it came to ships (especially when compared to the Feds) so to get say...a Talarian or Trill ship was a real bonus. Also the cloaking abilities of the Yridian Scout was useful to say the least.

Just because a race joins an empire, why should they loose their identities. I dare say the Federation would let them build their own designs anyway for exploration and stuff. The Federation is exactly that, a joining of cultures for a common interest. It's not an empire like the Klingons. It's Birth of the Federation after all.

I'm ranting now so I'll end here but I just think it'd be a BIG bonus to have the ability. I'll look for the MOD.

Leafan.

P.S. - Does anyone know whatever happened to Universal Evolution? It was pitched a few years back and it got to the screenshot stage but the website went dead.

universal evolution collapsed. i am going to look at the easiest way to implement a way for minor race ships to be built if there tech level is higher than yours, but as moe said you mat not be able to afford a suddenly increased fleet, scrapping these ships will get you nothing back though, it would prvide to much of a bonus if it happens very early in a game.

Then can't we set it so it will only happen when you reach a certain level in the game then after that it becomes random

Sounds like a plan. But no good for cheats like me who 70% of the time used the -MUDD cheat )

Oh well, it's all mod-able.

Leafan.

BTW are you the maker of the game? If so, are you still open to idea's?

Leafan.

If you look at the forums, it lists the makers of the game in the box for the staff room.

Jigalypuff (Project leader) Iwulff, Skeeter, Dafedz, me, Captain_Chao, Undated, Silvercliff, and MStrobel are all working on the game, but it isn't exclusive - if you have any skills that you think may be of help to the team, then let us know, and we'll see if we can give you something to do.

We are all fans of the game, but this is by no means a professional project. We don't hold the licence to Star Trek and have never claimed that we have. We're just doing the best we can coz we were fed up with waiting for the professionals to listen to us for once.

Unfortunatly all ideas have been discussed in the ideas forum. We can no longer take new ideas as if we allowed more ideas the game would never be done.

We're always at least open to hearing new ideas (as long as they're not too radical), and they will be judged on merit. And yes I'm still here Trekboy, never gone away. I'm working hard in the background to compile all the data for the complete Botf2 reference database (coming soon).

Yeah.

I meant to say that most game design ideas are closed and finalized but if we see a really good suggestion and its workable into the current game design then sure we "could" add it in. But in general we have more than enough game design ideas for a few games lol so we dont really "need" anymore.

Dafedz if u need a hand with it at all just pm me

I like what you guys are doing with this game. You are boldly stepping into making a game that no big time developer would touch.

You know turn-based strategy is a dying genre but it has it's hardcore fans (me included) and you're keeping the dream alive. Real-time doesn't factor in complex strategies and they're made for the impatient.

Keep up the good work!

Leafan.

Oh we're certainly patient. Jig's game isn't scheduled for release until 2007 at the earliest!

BTW I can't be of help in a technical way, because I'm 'Mintakan' when it comes to programming and such, but I do have idea's for future mods (after games release).

A few years ago I came up with a (much liked) story involving the Federation, Earth, the Voth and the Breen. Go on guess! Needless to say it involved a full out invasion by the Voth of the Sol sector. If you're curious (even just to know, not for the game), then let me know and I'll post it.

Leafan.

This is the general chat forum, so you can post whatever you like. Being that we're all trek freaks though, i'm sure people will like any fanfics you post up.

If you'd like to carry on making more of them, talk to Scatter. He's our resident fanfic writer, and is currently writing his Star Trek: Illustrious series. I'm sure he wouldn't mind talking to you about writing fanfics.

The Quadrant

If you look at the thread starters, you notice a lot of the random ones are by me...

So like I said, feel free to post anything.

OK everyone knows that the Breen have an unhealthy fascination with getting their grubby mits on Earth. Also, the Voth originated from Earth right!? Sooo here's a theory...

The Breen and Voth are the same race, split apart thousands of years ago as they left Earth (yes, Earth is the Breen's original Homeworld!) and evolved seperately. The Earth was going through extreme climate changes (an ice age) which led to the inhabitants leaving for the Delta Quadrant in the first Transwarp ships. The Breen 'faction' split off from the rest over a fundimental difference of opinion. The Breen never wanted to leave Earth for good and the Voth wanted to make a new start. Thats why the Breen want Earth so badly and live in protective suits (they were built for the eventual re-habitation of Earth, which would be a warm environment by then), and why the Voth cover up their origins so well.

I had a big story about how the Voth come back to re-take Earth after being summoned by the Breen, but I can't find it...

Leafan.

Ooh, I like it.

If the Breen left Earth during the Ice age, then they would likely have adapted to the extreme cold over time.

When they found a new world to live on (Breen) it was cold coz that's the way they like it. (It was mentioned in DS9 that Breen is an arctic world, although this may or may not have been a ruse to throw the Federation off finding it)

Over the millennia, they would have evolved to cope with cold environments, which eventually created the need for their environmental suits, sicne the warm temperatures that most other species live in would likely have boiled them alive. 8O

I had some ideas to help pad out the story, if you don't mind. You could say the Voth and Breen are the descendants of the "missing link" between humans and chimpanzees or something.

You could have a Federation research team discover a crashed Breen ship. They would discover some bodies, scan them, resulting in the discovery of the genetic link between Humans and the Breen, and they would realise the significance.

Fast forward a few months, and the Federation would send out a convoy to try and establish talks with the Breen. When the Breen realise that one of their ships was boarded, they would take insult, finally tipping the balance into them having an all-out attack on Earth. Not only would they be there to take what they see as rightfully being theirs in the first place, they would also be out for revenge then.

They would also know about weaknesses in Earths defense systems because they've already attacked Earth once during the Dominion war...

Just some thoughts...

I like the ideas moe but how would we implement any of this into the game?

Eh? This hasn't got anything to with the game Trekboy!

This is just making theories and ideas for a possible fanfiction.

So have you got any ideas on it?