Thoughts on the Star Trek Mod

My personal consern has to do with the order in wich that the federation gets their hulls. Right now the federation starts the game with several different cargo hulls. But no scouting hulls. At first i didnt really think twice about this. It wasnt untill i had already colonized the whole map and was in need of a military that i started throwing alot of research towards the hull techs. after working for quite a while i got the next hull tech... and it gave me the Phoenix. For those of you not familiar, this is the FIRST warp capable ship humans ever made. I love that this is in the game... but its alittle sad to be getting the first ever warp ships after having colonized the whole galaxy. as i looked forwerd through the next few techs (wich i honestly didnt even play to after how put off i was) I saw that it was gonna take another 3 or so techs even get to TOS erra ships... then after that you get to a sovereign (post TNG) with in another 2 or 3 tech... forgive me if i get the numbers wrong its been a good day or two since i looked at them and i dont have the mod on this particular computer. Either way. I think it would be good to see you start with the ability to get the Phoenix and then the first research will give you the NX class. I honestly would like to see the cargo hulls need some researching. I dont really like that we start with the ability to transport "millions" of people to other planets light years away but cant even mount a gun on a very small ship that isnt supposed to leave its home system. In keeping with the Star Trek timeline, this would also make sense since we didnt start colonizing other systems till about Star Trek: Enterprise erra. And if your really conserned about being able to colonize mars... still give us that first colony ship. we can either use it as a "sleeper" ship to go find a bigger planet or go colonize the smaller insystem planet. Either way we only get one till after a small amount of research...

Maybe a little tweaking is necessary, but i have confidence it will turn out will... id like to be able to enjoy it while i have the time over christmas break... though that might not happen. Maybe ill try messing with the files myself and see what i can come up with. Ill let you guys know.

Hey thetravelier

i'm still mulling over the message on the forum and trying to come up with a good balance... i'll let you know when i get something good...

Seeing the transport hulls requiring research would be awesome, however, the AI won't be able to handle it and you'd probabily end up colonizing the entire galaxy before they would build their first colonizer.

Yeah ive spent all night tweeking with the XML files... wich btw is alot of fun. at least its still alot of fun what ive done is ive made the Phoenix available with Xeno Eng. and 2 of the 4 cargo hulls available with basic hulls. i may have to go back and tweek with the "AI value" on the basic hulls. ill try playing with my new goodies tomorrow. Iv done all sorts of tweeking with HP/Speed/Size/Cost ext... such as making the Intrepid Hull have an extra 2 speed but cost a little more. and giving the Deffiant some TLC... while still trying to keep it balanced. im about to go through the other races to see where they have stuff comming available. ill need to tweek with every one's hull techs to keep it balanced but that should be the easy part. The hard part is figuring a way to spread the few alian ships over the same techs as the huge number of fed ships, and still keeping it balanced.

Any Ideas?? Im not sure how well the AI can handle seeing Hulls with different streingths and weeknesess. This might just be candy for humans... but it sure will taste good!

yeah btw. i spread the fed ships back out over a larger tech tree area the way it used to be. I know you consolodated to make it more balanced... but i just couldnt handle getting an Ambassador class at the same time as my Sovereign... it just wasnt right. (thats a 2 generation gap for you who dont know)

I think ill wind up doubling up on ships. Like have a Vorcha (Klingon) and then later have a Vorcha Refit that has better stats to make things more balanced against the fed.

One thing I remembered is how each tech level gave you more ships, but you really had no incentive to use the new ones apart from looks. The first few techs actually wind up giving you bigger ships. But once you hit, what ive termed Pre-TNG, everything is the same. So what I did was, starting with the Enterprise-C erra on each new set of ships has an extra speed boost of +1 to it. So by the time you get to the "Future Hull" tech your at base speed of 4 just from your hull. I think after all the other tech bonuses this will provide a nice little insentive to go design new ships after each research breakthrough.

Just an idea, but if the miniaturization tech field was removed couldn’t you just make a TOS era ship hull 10% bigger then a TNG era ship hull and so on?  

im sorry, but i dont really understand what your suggesting? what would be the advantage of removeing the mini techs? I see it could be done if properly ballanced by hull size, but in what way would it make the game beter?

I think the goal he is aiming for is an even more accurate star trek mod since the series doesn't have anything that shrinks ship parts. Well besides that one episode of DS:9.....

ohh... ok, well the point of the mini techs (i thought) wasnt like "shrinking" more like electronics getting more advanced. this analogus to laptops getting thinner. But ok, if this is what you mean i get it.

Forgive the question if its already been posted, but can someone post a link to the Star Trek mod? Is this compatible with the TA beta or just DA?

Go to the "forums" link in the actual star trek mod post. once you sign up for the forums the file is available in there. and it is only compatable with DA for now. alot more info is on the official forum.

We're making it compatible for TotA after the official TotA is released. We've "rushed" to put things out right on time, and have seen too many mods (our own included) not fully take advantage of what the new system has to offer, or be filled with unexpected and unknowable bugs.

We are going to be increasing each race ship amounts, as well as doing what thetraviler is working on by varying each ship a little, as by creating "refits" (for lack of a better term) for all races and make it so as you gain hulls they become stronger even though they may be considered a medium hull. (More info on what I Mean later but its essential what thetraviler is doing on his own, so we'll definately get his imput and help!)

The mod CAN work in TotA but I've seen a few bugs, right now I have the only working copy of it in TotA that I know of, as i'm working to get it going. Whether or not at the official launch of our version of the Star Trek mod for Tota will have race specific techs remains to be seen, but its something we've wanted and attempted for DA but gave up on due to the complexity at the time (now it seems so simple, but not worthe the time with TotA coming out)....

This post is for renfl. i have been trying to get on your website in order to get the startrek mods and it says that i cannot. I am new to all this modding stuff. If you could help me I would appreciate it. I have galciv2 gold edition and also what is tota and DA.

Something else that would be nice is some kind of post on your main website to let us know you still exist! The last update (even mentioning that you all are working on it) was months ago! I'm a big fan of your MOD, keep up the good work.

Go To:
WWW Link

Sign up, onces your approved you can download.

I agree that it would be a lot better if some of the small-hull ships would be ready earlier on in the tech tree. I find myself using the cargo hulls until very late in the game, while other races are well into their more advance hulls. I would be happy to start with just one of the three hulls (like the NX). Is this easy to do myself, and if so where is the file I need to modify?

Apart from that this mod is fantastic! Well done  

I have had a quick look through some of the modded files and have been able to reduce the amount of time it takes to research the techs needed for the small hulls. However, if anyone knows how to modify each individual ship as to which tech makes it become available, I would very much appreciate it if they could share that info with me   

The small hulls thing is a bug in the mod; I was told it would be back to normal in the next version.

For a quick fix you can either edit the ship required tech in the \Data\ShipComponents folder. Open the .xml files and find the ship you want and change the Tech Requirement.

Or you can edit the RaceConfig.xml in the /Data folder and add the required techs for the small hulls in the starting race techs for each race.

yeah what ive been doing is messing with the ShipComponents.xml file. I still am having trouble with it though. Ive Modified all the ships to have enhanced varied attributes. ex. Intrepid gets extra speed. Defiant increased space for weapons but more expensive. that sorta thing. What iv tryed to do also is make the cargo hulls available after some easy research. and I've made the first tear cargo hull size 30 instead of the ridiculous 80. Except there are these three pesky cargo hulls that have eluded my modding. No mater what i do I cant get them to disappear from the beginning of the game. Having an 80 hull kinda kills the game. I did all this over christmas when i had time. And after no body could help me figure out why these three cargo hulls, wich apear no were in the ShipComponents file, wont go away i just gave up and kept playing Sins of a Solar Empire. Drij mentioned editing the RaceConfig.xml files. never thought to do that. I always thought the begining race stats were given elsewere. I guess i shoulda guessed. Hopefully that will be were i need to look. If i can get this modification working ill let you all know. I was proud of all the work i put in over christmas and extreamly bumbed when it was simply ruined by those hulls. Anyway well see.

ok so i lied. i definitely already went through the RaceConfig.xml file. I was thinking you meant the .costomracexml file which i cant edit. Or if i can i cant open with the program i have. Does anybody know anything that could help me out? im bumbed that i cant make those three hulls disappear. It totally ruins my mod to have these HUGE 80 size hulls available from the beginning.

oh and ALSO i have been thinking about the idea of getting rid of the miniaturization techs, and i actually reallly like it. I dont know how the AI would respond to everything. we would probably have to delicately up the AI importance value on all the hull techs, but this idea is actually very good, despite my initial ignorant blasting of it. It would definitely make the newer hulls more important then the previous ones. If i can ever get my basic idea put out there id like to mess around with that to see how it affects game play. I think it would probably work well with the star trek concept.

Is there a way of modding the descriptions of the ships in the screen thta displays ship info in-game? For instance, I'm sure the NX Class had more than a crew of 3...?

Right so,

The STAR TREK mod is the BEST ever. I hope it continues to be updated. Though, I wonder why the Andorians and the Vulcans are in the game.. mmm. You should put in the Gorn and the Orionians as they were at least independent and played some major roles.

KEEP STAR TREK ALIVE.

The Gorn and Orions are minor races in the mod. Neither the Andorians or the Vulcans are in this mod version.

Mykuss Here and putting in my 2 cents about the new DA Star Trek Mod...

First I would like to say that I see all the work that was put into the various Screens! Good Work!

Second, Lots more additional ships for the Feds! They being the Standard Yardstick for the different types of ships. I like the addition of the Phoenix! Nice!
Other ships including some that I can't find in most Star Trek Internet Databases, like the Supremus Class and the Evocke Class. Where did you get them? And what are there Stats?

Now my beefs, and this is something that I have brought to the attention of the makers of the Mod along time ago especially about Ship Requests... I see two major gaps in the Federation Ship Line Up!

I am also interested in authenticity according to Star Trek Cannon and Lore as someone said before.

My interest especially is the period concerning the early history of the Human race venturing out into space after ST:First Contact and before ST:Enterprise and the period between ST:Enterprise and ST:TOS was a period of about 181 years in total!

The ship mostly that carried the load for the Earthers in those early days was the Valiant Class spaceship (I haven't found a .x format model for this one yet, but I am still looking). This Ship was launched about a year after "The Phoenix" made her maiden voyage.

Then about 8 years after the Warp 5 capable "NX Class" of ST:Enterprise fame was launched, came the Daedalus Class! This was the premier Cruiser for about 86 years untill the launching of the "Miranda" and the "Constitution" classes in ST:TOS era (this model is available in the .x format).

I would like to see these two ships included in the Federation line up to fill these two gaps mentioned above!

Besides these two omissions, there are enough in the Federation line up to carry the day.

I haven't checked the other races yet but there are scanty lineups of the Romulan and Klingon ships in ST Canon so I mostly applaud the makers using the models from popular games like Armada and BOTF in the mod for Dread Lords.

Just a note*
I also am modding the game to reflect authenticity in gameplay especially concerning travel speeds and time to cover the the 880(270 Parsecs)light year distance in the Gigantic Galaxy Map. Through my calculations, even a Sovereign class couldn't do it in half a year doing Maxium Warp (using the TOS scale and not the TNG scale-the TNG Scale shrinks the Map too much! Maybe not in the new expansion pack with the "Immense" Galaxy").