Hi!

I've recently re-discovered BOTF that I had saved on my HD and, once again, I'm playing the game for hours at a time each week. I always wished for a sequel and was more than happy to find out some ingenious fans were developping one!

This said, I play-tested the Christmas Update of the very promising Supremacy for a few days now. Here are my first comments:

POSITIVE POINTS
- I really like the atmospheric background music! Will each playable race have one (or more) of its own?
- I also like the beautiful graphics, they are the logical, visual evolution of BOTF. I especially like the look of the planetary systems!
- On the subject of systems, I found a nice diversity in planet types, sizes, etc. while exploring space around Sol (I play the Federation - my preference)
- One thing I always thought limited my enjoyment of the original BOTF was the size of the map. Even the biggest galaxy map was never enough for me. Now however, on Supremacy, the huge galaxy is just that - HUGE. Add to that the four Star Trek quadrants and I'm a happy lad
- The integrated Encyclopedia is a nice touch
- When I play a computer/video game, what I look for most of the time is personalization. In BOTF, I am consistently (frustratingly so) reminded of the fact that I CANNOT NAME/RENAME MY SHIPS Yes, there some BOTF ship editors out there but nothing ingame. With Supremacy, my wish is fact

WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE
- Single-player campaign SHOULD NOT have to connect to an online server (the "downloading an updated game state from the server" message)
- The background image confused me several times when I was searching for star systems to explore. Maybe subdue its coloration?
- The Deployment ship option isn't intuitive enough for a newbie player. Will help text popups be used in the final version of the game?
- My agreements with the Vulcans kept falling apart even though they were clearly favorable with me
- Multiple choices of answers for diplomacy would be neat!
- My Federation scout ship can cloak! I'm a Romulan in disguise
- Concerning the naming of ships (how about space stations too, by the way?), I would propose an option to christenizea ship when its construction is finished, or while they are being assembled. Just to make the experience more realistic-like.
- Also, concerning the naming game, just having to hit enter to record a ship's name doesn't always work in my test game. Some of my ships do retain the name I have given them, others simply don't want to be assimilated (sorry, I just HAD to find an excuse to use that cool Borgified Smiley!)

Well there you have it, the first look at Supremacy from a newbie. I hope my comments will prove constructive! If so, I'll post some more in the near future

Gunathar

Hey Gunathar, welcome to the forums!

- We're really hoping to have more original music in the game. We may actually have a bit of a surprise coming up on this front - but i'm gonna be evil and not say an more on it. We are also looking for Musicians (Amongst other people) to make music for us though, so if you know how to do it or know anyone that can make music, please get them to have a go for us. We've also contacted a guy called AndrewJT who has said he would compose the entire theme for us, but only on the condition that ALL music ingame music is by him and him alone. I personally do not like those terms, but we haven't heard from him in a while so I doubt he is actually making anything for us. Another forum member, Sandman, is willing to compose music for us, and he's actually already submitted samples of music Here. The Cirrus_-_March one is my favourite. We will only be able to have a full music score if people continue to provide music for us though.


Yes the game says this, but you're mistaken on its' meaning; it is NOT connecting to the internet. The game works on a client-server basis, but both the client and the server are on your computer. The client is the display of information and how you interact with the game, whilst the server is where all the information is calculated and generated. Many games actually work like this, they just don't happen to show it in the way that Supremacy does, that's all.


You're the second person to ask this in the last week. We know it's a bit bright and we'll try and do something about it. We've also got some new gameplay options coming in the next update that, amongst other things, will allow you to turn the background off.


Almost definitely. If there is anything you would like to see added to the game, just let us know and we'll submit it as a feature request.


Diplomacy is at a very early stage at the moment; it's far from complete. The game also lacks an AI (Artificial Intelligence) at the moment so the minor races are programmed to do everything you tell them to - so you shouldn't be having any problems in getting them to join. I'm not really sure what is wrong there, but it might be a bug.


As i've said, diplomacy is at an early stage at the moment. We might add in additional messages at a later date, although doing so would like have a performance impact on the game...


Not for much longer. We gave the Scout a cloak simply to test whether the Cloaking code worked. I'm perosnally working on an update that will sort out the shiplist, and the cloak will be one of the many ship changes that i'll be making.


No one has ever propsed naming stations before. I suppose I could ask Mike about it, but I have no idea what he'll think about it. As for naming ships on construction, this could get very tedious for some people. Just imagine you built several ships on the same turn. You'd have to name a lot of ships. I suppose there could also be an option to turn the feature on and off though. I'll definitely mention this to Mike.


The ship naming is a relatively new feature, and we know that it is buggy. Expect bug fixes as part of future updates.


Please do! This game is being made by the fans, for the fans, so we want all the feedback that we can get. If we don't get feedback, we won't know if we're making a game that people like or hate. The more feedback we get, the more we can improve it so more people will like it.

wow...... this one is crazy

Try listening to it with the bass set to maximum. I almost caused an earthquake when I tried! There's nothing like being able to feel the music rather than just listening to it. I could definitely imagine a battle scene going on in the background whilst listening to it...

I really like Cirrus_-_Crimson it sounds like a great opening piece for a race background music. it is a little long to get to the climax of the song, but it is has a very dark feeling to it.

my vote is for either the Rom's or Card's for it.

I have not heard what Mike decided to do with the offer from Andrew. It would be nice to have all the music done but hard to tell the other composers sorry but no thanks.

Actually, I haven't heard from Andrew since he made the offer...not that i've tried to contact him lately either though. I didn't like the way he imposed the rule of him being the sole composer as a condition. At least Sandman is still willing to make a few tracks for us if we want him to.

I can understand why Andrew asked for that. As a professional he composes for games and movies for a living. If he did our game he would be working just for the credits. It would be a way of advertising his work and an exclusive for that is not an outlandish request.

I know that, but it's the fact he imposed the rule then basically abandoned us; it's meant that people like Sandman have been left in limbo because they could produce something for us only to have it wasted because of Andrew's rule.

I'm still in communication with Andrew, and he is working on a score for the game. Like most of us, he also has other obligations and must balance his time accordingly. He has also rescinded his condition that he be the only composer for the game. Matress, I believe the experimental game build I sent you actually includes a new title track he wrote.

Oh...I wondered where that piece of music came from...I assumed it was one of your random acquisitions or something Mike. I had no idea it was from Andrew. I sent him an email a while ago and he never responded, that's why I assumed he'd abandoned us.

Oh well, that leaves Sandman free to submit his music for the next major Aftermath Mod release for Star Trek: Legacy, which will be out in a few months time once the add on packs for 2.0 are complete.

Here's Andrew's track if anyone is wondering about it:


I'll upload it to Sharepoint.

Good outcome.

I really like the opening. It is star trek with its own uniqueness. I like it.

Hi again! Thanks for the speedy reply and the many clarifications Matress_of_evil :D

I am now trying Supremacy on a much smaller scale (small galaxy instead of the huge one) to concentrate less on exploration and more on the functionality of the game. Here are my observations and questions thus far at Turn 75:

Playing the Federation, I made my first contact with the Cardassians. The active agreements text window read as follows: "United Federation of Planets and Caradassian Union agree to renounce fighting and stay out of". The text cut short. Also, I suggest changing "fighting" to something along the lines of military or violent confrontations.

The Romulan default race picture - change it! There are way better images on the net than this one. But maybe it's just me

Is there a way (or will there be) to combine construction ships to accelerate their efforts like in the original BOTF?

On the galaxy map, mouseover information popups of sectors containing star systems, ships and other objects or phenomenon of interest would prove useful and fun. Example: instead of clicking on a sector where there's one of your empire's ship simply to know what type it is (because after a while, if you're like me, you can't remember ALL of your fleet's positioning), you could accelerate the process by simply moving the cursor over the sector in question and having a popup saying something like: "USS Potato, Constitution class".

There is no way to buy the current item to accelerate the building process ala BOTF. Will this option be available ultimately in the game?

Again on the galaxy map: x-ray pulsars, radio pulsars and the like would be that much more interesting if by clicking on their sector, the extent of their influence would be highlighted on the map. Example: A radio pulsar disrupts sensors in its sector and adjacent ones. It's interesting to read (the first time around), it would be better to see the effect for a lasting entertainment. Plus it would add to the strategic element of the game.

I like the idea of stranded ships However I would love it if these isolated ships had a (reasonable) random amount of turns to be rescued before they were foerever lost in the cosmic sea (maybe due to the ship's lifesupport systems failing). It would add an urgency to the game, sort like a mini in-game rescue scenario in the spirit of Star Trek

Speaking of in-game scenario, what about adding a scanning option to appropriate ships. This could add a sense of exploration of the unknown. Information could be learned as well as tech points to be gained, and maybe possible bonuses. Example: Scanning within sector containing a black hole would be a dangerous business yet could also wield satisfying rewards.

Besides adding to the planets visuals, what do the moons do... really? And why the different sizes? Raw material bonuses?

An option must be integrated into systems containing a shipyard to refit active ships. Example: I have a cruiser II exploring the unknown and now have developed the tech to construct a cruiser III. I'd like to bring my ship back for a refit instead of paying more to construct a mark III from scratch.

More on the way... comments are welcomed

Hi Gunathar, thanks for the continued feedback.

The diplomacy text is still under development, so there are bound to be a few diplomacy issues. I could fix this myself, but I don't want to make changes to the diplomacy text because i'm not really sure what changes Mike is undertaking, so i'll PM him about the issue instead.

We used that particular image for the Romulans because it's a relatively unknown actor, ie. it's less likely that we'll get sued for using an image if it isn't someone "big" like Patrick Stewart. Same goes for the images of many of the other races. Where possible, we try to use images of lesser-known aliens to avoid legality issues. However, we also want images of sufficient quality - there's no point in using images of unknown actors if those images are pixellated beyond recognition. And sometimes we simply don't have a choice because we've only ever seen one individual of an alien race. Ok, when it comes to a race like the Romulans, you imagine that there would be a lot of images that we could use, but that isn't always the case either. If you can find a better image for us to use then we'll use it, but it's one thing to find an image; it's another to get permission to use it.

We've been asked about combining groups of different ships to boost construction rates in other threads before. I really don't know if this is posible; you would need to ask Mike about it. I'll ask him and see what he says.

We do have some plans to improve the ingame mouseover info, although i'm not sure precisely what will be added in the future. Again, i'll ask Mike about it.

No, there will not be an instant-build feature in Supremacy. There will - eventually - be an option to increase construction speed, but only by about 10% or so. And it will cost you a lot of resources to pay your workers to do double-shifts. It's one thing to increase the number of hours your workers do. It's another to simply magic resources out of nowhere, which is why we're not having an instant-buy feature. This is also somehting that was discussed on the forums for well over four years, and the general concensus was that people didn't want an instant-buy feature, but they did want something to increase construction speed where necessary.

Sensor strengths haven't really been properly implemented in the game yet, so the Pulsars etc don't have the correct effects yet. Yes, it would be a nice graphical addition to see these effects though, so i'll mention it to Mike and see what he says.

Stranded ships are stranded until they are destroyed by enemies or are rescued. They don't run out of life support or anything like that to my knowledge. I suppose it could be added in, but i'm not really sure whether Mike would want this particular feature in or not. I'll mention it to him anyways.

The game won't have any scenarios. We do however plan to add certain ship options; you will be able to tell a ship to simply "Explore" or "Scan" sector. Virtually every ship in the game will have an innate science ability; some better than others. Science ships, Explorers, and Scouts will have the best science ability, based on the size of the crew and the percentage of crew who are science-based. If you set a ship to scan a sector, they will generate a small amount of research; this amount is increased by crew experience and the surrounding space, ie if there is an X-Ray Pulsar or some other special object in the system. Whilst we haven't confirmed it yet, we're also thinking about making the only way to find Wormholes is to scan the sector(s) that they are in - so finding them will be down to luck and patience. Obviously keeping ships near Black Holes will also be risky.

The Moons are colonizable - but you need to reach the right tech level and build Habitation projects to colonize them. Unfortunately, the code that allows you to colonise them is buggy, so these buildings are currently disabled to prevent the bug surfacing whilst people play the game. I will re-enable them once Mike lets me know that the code is fixed. Whilst i'm not sure of the exact numbers, I *think* the largest Moons give 40 population each, Medium Moons give 25, and Small Moons give 10.

Refits *will* be in the game, they just haven't been implemented - yet.

Keep posting if you have more comments.

Hmm?! Last time I checked, the worst inhabitality factor in a small planet made it 5 pop max IIRC. Moons have no inhabitability factor, but most should be hostile anyway, so I'm finding these numbers exagerated (I was actually thinking it'd be something like 1/2/3 for s/m/l, with the current # of moons). I know you want to increase pop in systems, but this probably doubles pop in most systems - and in some systems, it might even happen that pop in moons is actually higher than in planets I guess. This will also have an effect on Area of Influence.
I'm not really sure the concept of moons is actually a good one. On one hand, if you can colonize hostile planets, you should also be able to colonize moons, without any (other) special tech. OTOH, if you can get a tech that allows you to colonize moons, why can't it also be used to increase pop in hostile planets? Just doesn't seem to make much sense. Not that it has to.

we're reasoning along the same lines in bote, that's why there's no special moon colonization there. It's "built-in" when colonizing a planet, that's also why there are smaller max pop differences for each planet compared to the standard value of its class. It then simply has more or less moons. A moon is essentially a usually very small class C planet so there shouldn't be any differences or as Iceman says there should be pop increases for other barren planets too.

Here are the numbers:

Ideal
5% growth rate
Tiny = 30 max pop
Small = 60
Medium = 90
Large = 120
Giant = 180

Comfortable
4%
Tiny = 25
Small = 50
Medium = 75
Large = 100
Giant = 150

Marginal
2%
Tiny = 10
Small = 20
Medium = 30
Large = 40
Giant = 60

Hostile
1%
Tiny = 5
Small = 10
Medium = 15
Large = 20
Giant = 30

So moons with those specs are actually better than Marginal planets of the same size...
Not sure what the growth rate would be on moons too.

The numbers are not accurate, they're just what I *think* they were before we identified that the moon colonization code was buggy. Systems would simply stop growing from the turn the structure was built, so I removed them from the game until Mike could fix them. We identified the bug months ago, and Mike has made changes to the editor regarding how Moon Colonization structures are implemented, but he hasn't told me if the bug itself has been fixed. I'll quickly add a moon colonization structure then play a game, and if it works correctly, i'll reimplement the structure proper.

Mikes editor changes work exactly as you think they should, .Iceman; the population size increases based on a set amount per size. However, you cannot set the class of the moons because Moons don't have a class. The population bonus you get from a moon is based purely on its size and nothing else.



Moons *should* affect system growth rate, but only by small amounts. I don't have any way to set these in the editor; like the Planets, these are decided on by the game.

Due to the way it is set up, you can't have improving bonuses as technology increases though, so you can't have eg. an early tech level 1 structure that allows you to colonise the large moons, a mid-tech level 2 structure that allows you to colonise the medium moons, and a late-tech level 3 structure that allows you to colonise the small moons.

I'll go and test the structure now and implement it fully if it works.

*Edit - the bug IS fixed, so I'm guessing Mike just forgot to tell me about the fix. Dafedz was expecting the Moons to work slightly differently, so i'll discuss with him the balancing aspect of the population size and growth rates of the moons. Once i've done that, i'll reimplement the structure correctly. Chances are though, i'll probably give the Moons 1 population per size; when i tested it, Sol's population went from 195 to 390 because there were so many moons. There was no effect on the growth rate so this will need to be set as a static bonus or something.

From this I gather that it's one structure for the entire system? Hmm. Doesn't make much sense. I mean, you pay the Cost(s) for the same structure in different systems and they have different "outputs"... having one per moon could have some impact on performance though.
Do these structures have an Energy Cost? I'm asking because standard procedure is non-base structures do have an Energy Cost - except the Aquaculture Centre that is, but that's a fluke
If they do have an Energy Cost, additional considerations arise. Sabotage, bombardment, anything that can decrease energy production can indirectly kill pop in a fully populated system. You could even willingly turn off the structures, to redirect energy to something else, but that wouldn't be very nice of you as a leader

Honestly, I think it's an unnecessary complication. Increasing planets' max pops is much simpler, and presents no problems whatsoever - except that growth rates would be tied to the respective planets' (moons on Ideal planets would have 5% growth too, etc.), but that's really minor, especially if the way they work now is going to be changed (assuming to the system's global rate at all times). [The overall growth formula is pretty straightforward, it's a weighted average]

Energy cost is one of the things I want to discuss with Dafedz. he's got it set at 200 energy in his database (As with the number of structures and the build cost, it isn't dependant on the number of moons). I personally feel that with the way that the game currently works, this structure should NOT have an energy cost to stop players accidentally killing off millions of people should they accidentally turn off the power supply as you said. Come to think of it, i'm not sure how the game would react to the sudden maximum population decrease if you did actually do this. Would the people die instantly or over time? How does the game handle having more population in a system than the current maximum? I'll test that out once i've finished typing this post. What would really be needed is a warning message that turning off the power would result in the murder of x million people. It would then be up to the despots out there to decide whether they care or not.

As for increasing the planetary sizes though, we've gone back full circle. As i've said countless many times, this simply isn't something that I can personally do. The population sizes are programmed rather than set in a text file, so Mike would have to overhaul the planetary code to make even small increases in population sizes. It's therefore out of the question until he has the time to do it - and that assumes he actually wants to do it.

Hmm, hardly worth it if not with huge pop increases.



The effects only take effect next turn, you'd have to be really distracted



Nobody said it would be you doing the changes

Hi only found the game today while searching for the original. Was hoping to buy that but it seems you can no longer get it, anyway I would just like to say what an excellent job you guys seem to be doing on the game. I have only just more or less started playing it, the only problem I have with the game and I think someone as already posted this problem. (Not sure though) The problem is when I reach a certain amount of turns the game seems to freeze mid turn with the dialogue box in the middle of the screen . I like the fact that you have added the dominion as a playable race. (look forward to playing them) Anyways I look forward to the development of the game and keep up the good work.

P.S Will play somemore soon and keep a eye out for more bugs.

Hey BenSisko1, welcome to the forums!

It doesn't matter that you can't buy the game anymore - there are other ways to get it. Obviously it's not technically legal if you haven't already bought it in the past, but seeing as the game is so old now and the original company doesn't even exist...meh. Armadafleetcommand.com have an .iso copy of the game freely available for download in their download section. You need to sign up to the site before the downloads section is accessible though. You'll need to mount it with Daemontools or Alcohol, but the at least you don't need a CD to run it. AFC is the only BOTF community still in existence, and also has tons of mods available for the game. AFC was in fact originally our parent forum as well. We split away last year because of server problems. Anyways, many of the people here are also members of the AFC community, including myself, so you can be sure of a warm welcome. There's a lot of info on there as well if you run into installation or play problems.

Alternatively, you could have a look on ebay. The game crops up on there from time-to-time, but it's usually up for quite a price when it is. God knows why anyone would want to part with their game though.

First off thanks for replying.

Yes I once owned a copy of BOTF but I threw it away like a mong as I could not get it to run on my VISTA system even in compatability mode. But now I have got my XP computer up and running which it used to run apart from the odd crash here and there. But I do find this odd as last night I was reading that BOTF seemed to run ok on VISTA and not XP is this true?.

Anyway played a bit more on BOTF2 last night, still getting the turn freeze so must be a bug even when playing as a different race and I noticed when playing as dominion when you look at ship stats it does not list what weapons the ship has. Is this to be added later?. One thing I wanted to ask when the game is in finished product status will there be options to set one race more advanced than the other like there was in the original when setting up a new game. I am very impressed with the over all feel to the game. If you carry on the way you are I think this game could be better than the original in some ways. Also when the game is complete will you be charging for the full game because I, (proberly like most others) will be willing to buy the game.

Will the BORG also make an appearence?

P.s Keep up the good work .

AFC have got patches that some very talented forum members made themselves. These patches make the game playable in both XP and Vista - so god knows what the post that you mentioned was on about. To my knowledge, BOTF is more compatible with XP than with Vista; not the other way around. Again, they are freely downloadable from AFC's download area. There are also some patches that make the game a bit more stable during combat, which is perhaps the most buggy part of the game.

By the way, there's a thread on how to download and mount the .iso copy of the game Here.

...

The ships are a work in progress; one that i'm personally working on at the moment. But we plan to have over 200 ships in the game, and each ship has a lot of stats for me to add/update, so it's going to take me a while to finish. The Dominion weapon stats are just simply one of those stats that are yet to be implemented, but it's not all that important since the combat system has not yet been merged into the game.

I'm not sure whether Mike has plans to add advanced startup options, but I would assume that he does. He's got quite a lot of options in the game already, and I know for a fact that he's planning to add more in the next update, so fingers crossed.

NO. We will never charge for the game. We won't even accept donations. Whilst we did make it, we are making it without a licence from the powers that be to do so. If we were to charge for the game without a licence, then Paramount, Cryptic, whoever, would come down on us like a ton of bricks. It simply would not be legal for us to charge for it.

But anyways, we're a fan community. We WANT this game just as badly as Joe Bloggs on the forums. Getting paid to make the game would simply be a bonus, not the driving force behind our making it. And for that reason, we will never charge for the game.

Yes the Borg will be in the game. In fact, we've already got some Borg ship models. They will be in as a random event though - you won't be able to play as them. That seems to be how most people want it to be. I imagine that someone will create a Borg mod for the game one day though...

If you count the minor races with over 200 ships it is over 400 ships total.

I got the information from Wikepedia about which system the original game worked best on, out of XP or Vista. Here is what it said:-

At first glance, the game does not appear to run under Windows XP. However, this can be rectified by configuring Windows to run the game in Windows 2000 compatibility mode. Note that 1.0.0 BofF-CD won't work without an XP patch, while 1.0.1 BofF-CD will work in compatibility mode.

Surprisingly, the game runs well on Vista; however, freezing may occur later in the game which is solved by clicking the Windows button twice.

If I recall correctly, MOE, every planet in Sol in the game has two to four moons or something, which is clearly inaccurate. Earth obviously only has one moon, and the moon that orbits Mars is more of an asteroid. While Saturn and Jupiter might have dozens of moons, many of them are also relatively small... and I don't think Mercury or Venus have any moons. So, the fact that Sol's population spikes so high is simply a result of an over-abundance of moons in the system.

In any event, the way the moon buildings seem to work appears kinda clunky. Clearly, a way to increase max population is desirable to the player. But the energy costs appear to be pretty high and could thus be very susceptible to sabotage, bombardment, and random events. This, of course, means that billions of your virtual people could be killed quite quickly and easily.

Now, I'm hoping that people in the future will be smart enough to incorporate multiple redundant backups for such critical systems where people's lives are in danger in hostile conditions (like, say, a vacuum?) So, I'd imagine that there would be backup generators housed within the complex in case there is a power outage or shortage. I'd also imagine that these generators would be capable of sustaining the basic needs of a colony in an emergency for a period of time, like, say, five turns. That should be enough time for a player to hurry some infrastructure to begin supporting the moon colonies long term once again if something should happen (depending on how the "hurry" option works).

Like I showed above, max pop per planet is quite simple. Adding some pop to it according to its number and size of moons shouldn't be too hard. I guess MoE just really wants to add the structure

As for the energy thing, the whole way it is implemented doesn't make much sense IMO. You'd think that military installations at least would have their own specific power generators. I'm eager to see how sabotage works, to see if it's possible to take down all of a system's defenses by sabotaging their power generators