Hi all,
Taking a first look of the game, it seems that it is going to be great ! I played some ~170 rounds and I now have a few simple questions and some suggestions. Knowing that the game is fan-made and still in pre-alpha, please don't take me wrong...

Here we go:
1) How much developed is the game's A.I.? In my game the Romulans accepted both my offer of alliance and (later on) my request for tribute without hesitation!

2) Clicking on a ship a yellow rectangle shows up on the map, clearly the maximum radius before the dilithium runs out and the ship is "Stranded". On most cases however, (at least in my game) this yellow rectangle is well within Federation space. Isn't this a bit strange?

3) Is it possible to create Fleets by combining say 2 or more ships?

4) When upgrading technology (say the Automated Farms from type 1 to type 2) it would be nice to have a global option as well, so as not to have to go to every system and do it manually.

5) It would be nice if next to the number of turns the game showed the Stardate as well! Or at least some approximation of it anyhow.

Thanks for bearing with me,
Savvas

I think you'd have a massive headache getting a stardate system in there that matched up with what we saw in the series - the original series system and the TNG system just don't work together properly - in fact stardates just don't make any sense at all Much better would be to just show the normal calendar year, as that would give a much more meaningful indicator of the passage of time.

In fact, the stardates do have a meaning but I guess that it is very difficult to patch together the TOS with the TNG, Voyager and DS9 . However, a fiducial stardate system would be nice as it would add to the "realism" of the game and perhaps just a few selected events could be triggered, when a specific stardate is reached .

I still don't understand how the shape of the galaxy influences the game... Help, please!

You can't realistically calculate stardates because the system doesn't actually make any sense, and if you take a moment to work out the passage of time they depict, you see that they have to reset the system every so often, so dates repeat - this makes it meaningless as well as nonsensical If indeed there is any real difference between the two

Stardates do have another meaning. It's the way people in the fictional Star Trek universe measure time (at least in the Federation). Since, we are talking about a Star Trek game it makes sense (at least to me ) that time in the game should me measured in stardates as well.

Actually, I know a few thing about stardates etc since I am an old fan of the series and I used to participate in Alt.StarFleet.RPG (an RPG game via emails in the Star Trek universe - http://www.alt-starfleet-rpg.org/)...

Cheers

PS I remember more than one cases where the episodes start with something like: "Stardate xxxxx, Captain's log. bla bla bla" So this I think proves a point?

By "hassle" I meant the inundation of posts about changing the system or requests for how it works, not that we couldn't figure out how to implement it.

If there's enough requests from the community for it, I imagine Mike will add it to his to do list, but it certainly won't be a priority over his current priorities - like the AI for instance.

hehehe I know how it was used in the series... my point is.. oh, read the article

You could implement a similar system, but it wouldn't match up without some serious headaches... which means ultimately, what's the point?

That wasn't what I meant It becomes clear if you read through that link I posted, but otherwise I'm just going to shut up now hehe.

With regards to the galaxy shapes, the spiral galaxy star positions are calculated using a Gaussian distribution, and the irregular galaxy star positions are completely random (based on the Mersenne Twister pseudo-random number generation algorithm).

Regarding Spirals, I think that their centre should be untransversable and full of black holes (and/or other anomalies), don't you think? Nobody can go there (at least as it is shown in the series) and in reality 1 (or 2) supermassive black holes dwell there.

Impementing a Gaussian distribution, doesn't allow for voids between the spiral arms, does it? Having voids would make it more realistic...

Have you considered using some kind of mask to overlay when calculating the star positions? Not sure how easy that would be to program, mind... been a long time since I did any serious programming If you can call it serious...

To help define the shape better.. ie getting the spiral arms in.

A standard gaussian distribution laid around a circle with right sigma and ny gives you exactly that. no need to cut off certain regions like the inner disk with a mask. some star systems should still be inside that ball but sufficiently few of course which is guaranteed by Gauss .

Gotcha, cheers

would it be possible to steal technology in the game? Not just research points but ship blueprints or structures. It would be nice if ( when ) I invaded a system I could keep there superior technology, at least for a short while.

Good Evening.... i have been playing botf again and i was wondering would it be possible to build say Vulcan/any minor race ships if they held a membership treaty with you? You do control any ships they already had but can't build them. Even if they could only be built in the Vulcan/minor race system.

If this were to be possible, Mike would have to make some changes to the editor to allow me to implement it; the only way would be to allow the empires to build the ships, but that would allow them to build the ships at any time, regardless of whether they had even made first contact and membered the owning race. There is also currently no way to set it so they could only be built in eg. Vulcan-native systems.

It's a feature I would certainly like to see myself, but as I said, changes would first be needed.

Here is an unorthadox solution. Assuming any ship yard the race you are playing.

Once you get the homeworld (not a colony) of another race with a SIGNIFICANT shipyard, you can build a (one per empire) shipyard racially tagged? IE A Vulcan shipyard, so it makes Vulcan ships.

Is this kind of racial and limit tagging workable???

I think it woudl be a kick to have Breen or Tholian capability.

Or even when the Gorn go on the rampage....

If it's a possibility then someone can spend some time and make some ship packs (stats)... For variety.

But that way they are vulnerable if the planet revolts, or others take it from you, you LOSE the yard and ability to make those ships...
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I also have a question:

I can't get the Combat Simulator to work beyond the choosing stage. When this is implimented in game eventuall, can I ignroe it and just use AUTO.

OR will that cause the game to freeze? Does the battle have to play out in the sim if you dont' do it manually or can it be calculated purely mathematically.??? Might not be asking they right way so my apologies if it sounds confused.


On the other hand I can't wait until we get a basic combat and active AI in game. I have been playing original on and off more frequently since this project started.

"I can't get the Combat Simulator to work beyond the choosing stage. When this is implimented in game eventuall, can I ignroe it and just use AUTO."

Do you have Xp or Vista?

Regards Wolfe

Vista Home Premium

Doesn't run on vista yet sorry,

You can try these dlls and replace the ones in the demo/debug folder

http://cdr.wolfe.googlepages.com/BOTFIIdllsVista.rar

They will let you get in and move ships about but once they fire, uurmmphh CTD.

Regards Wolfe

Thanks! I'll try them a little later, but how will that affect the future?

Can you still play the game once the combat part is implemented if you use the "auto" function assuming they carry it over the BOTF to Supremacy?

Would that be possible?