Thats good to hear Major stress i will look forward to it.

Every MOD has its imperfections not everything is perfect anyway i still think is much better than any of the real Trek games.

Limited number of ship slots... This is madness! Or are you imply you only want to have two shipyards, so that would be the limitation, because with more shipyards you can have more ships, and more ships you can have more awesomeness.

I don't like the idea of creating Elite units, but instead I am more of the RPG fan in that I would rather have you build the "stock" vessel and then have it level up and gain an "Elite" status. Also it would be nice if every ship in the game had the ability to level up and gain minor bonuses, most of them standard to almost every ship of that side. Also decrease the bonus per level because I like Elite units, but I hate overpowered ones.

The ability to fire torpedoes could be an ability like the unlock able special abilities with auto-cast, so you can turn it on if you don't need anti-matter, but need the extra firepower to win the fight. For some ships like the sovereign the quantum torpedo launcher could be an unlocked weapon in addition to the standard photon torpedo launchers. Aft torpedoes could also be something that needs to be unlocked. For all of the Torpedo Launchers, they could start off with a low yield like two torpedoes and then get upgrade to four and then six for the larger ships.

Borg would be an interesting thing if there was an invasion of them just like the pirate raids, but they would be random and against everyone, some include a small fleet of small vessels or just one cube.

I hate when mods like to recycle the same unit, in some cases I would understand, but in most it's just a reskin, and that just feels low quality if you are just playing with 5 different things that are just retextured units with the same mesh it looks retarded.

I download all the software needed to start trying to create models for the game, and though I am no great artist I would like to help even if it’s just creating meshes. I mostly just screw around with game code for fun, but I can also assist with anything that needs to be accomplished.

 

 

How about these?

http://starshipdatalink.net/art/breen.html

Those are the original concepts designed by John Eaves.

Whats with the attitude? and that Avatar?

I have had a specific plan for this mod from day one. I am not about to change it, because "one" doesnt like the elite unit system. I did it to limit the amount of non canon units in the game, and to use the cap ship system that is in game. If you dont like it then dont play it. Feel free to make your own mod. There is nothing stopping ya.

I already seen those thanks.

During season 7, the Hideki was scaled down and modified as Cardassian shuttle (""Tacking into the Wind"). Perhaps you can start from there.

What about the Senator's shuttle seen in season 6, "In the Pale Moonlight"? It's possibly armed and can be used to deploy marines.

I was going to use that as its planetary defense fighter...The Romulans never used any small ships in the dominion war. they only used the warbird. I am deviating from this to fill her ranks up, but there needs to be some uniqueness as well. otherwise all the factions will be just the same except different artwork. End of discussion, rommies get no ship borne strike craft.

A scaled down version of a bigger ship is exactly what i am trying to avoid. This is why i hate half of the non canon units i see out there. because they are all the same. Scaled up, or down versions of other ship designs. I was going to retexture the protector from galaxy quest and scale that down to 15 meters, and use that as the cardie fighter. At least that ship is aerodynamic instead of a flying bunt cake mold.

Well I can live with everything but no cloaking. I mean come on here. But I can live with an imperfect cloak. IMO there must be some type of cloak advantage or klingons and rom just arent themselves. Dude its great to hear that your expanding out of the dominion war. I was not a big fan of ds9. Constitution class looks awesome and glad your putting it in. I was really hoping for an older enterprise . I agree with Manshooter that you dont have to be perfect on the numper of phasor ports here. I could live without the moving ships too. I really hope you get to finish this as THIS WAS MY FAV mod so far. I was looking forward to this being finished the most. Good trek games are so far and inbetween if they even exist. Star wars is my other mod of choice but there are alot of games for star wars. Personally I really liked EAW and as far as online play has been least stressful and most fun of any rts game I HAVE PLAYED. It has its flaws in sp but it is soooooo easy to mod to hearts content.Anyways I REALLY hope you get to finish this cause your were doing a most excellent job here.

I am sorry if I offended you major stress, attitude was the last thing I was going for, my avatar is for Ironic humor though it may go too far for it.

 

I like the idea of staying true to the star trek universe, but my idea of having every ship gain experience is more of the idea that you can develop any ship, name any ship, customize its abilities as you see fit, like a standard battle ship.

 

too bad what you woudl like doesnt matter. ship slots are hardcoded into the game. A modder cant change the amount of slots at a shipyard. Theres 5 cap ships Hardcoded next patch it will be 9 but still hardcoded modders cant change that

cant be done hardcoded. Ships built at cap ship yards are the only ships that can gain levels frigates and cruisers cant thats hardcoded too.
Again cant be done. weapon arcs and burst counts are written into the ships entity file in their space for weapon arcs. You cant add dmg to unused weapon arcs or change burst counts with research. Only up existing damage or add secondary abilities.
borg would be nice but dont count on it major tress has repeatedly said they wont be in in the begining and may never be

Ok this forum gets on my nerves. I typed a reply like an hour ago and i dont see it . Anyway as I already said I think cloaking would be a must but it would be ok if it wasnt a perfect cloak but we need something close. Klingons and Romulans just wouldnt be themselves without cloaking. Otherwise I agree with manshooter that lowering phasor port counts would be just fine here. SHooting without moving is ok too. A good trek game is far and inbetween so if we have to overlook a few details to get an awesome trek mod then most people should be fine. There will always be jerks that flame what you do no matter how well you do it so forget them. If they dont like it then they dont have to play it. I for one was really lookin forward to this. It is my fav mod for sins. Star Wars is second but unlike STar Trek there is alot mor star wars games.

Im sure one of the main things when you put in tons of time and work in something like this is to be happy with what you have done in the end and I can understand if you are quiting(for now) because some of these restrictions makes that impossible.

Im glad you are expanding past the dominion wars. I was not much of a ds9 fan. I love the addition to the constitution class. I was hoping to fit in an older enterprise . It looks awesome too. I heard you have said no borg but hopefully this could change that .

It is not that i am trying to dismiss the suggestions here. Some have been valid. I have been a bit testy lately because of all these hard code issues. Manshooter, and Mezlabor are trying to point out that many things about Sins are hardcoded, and some things that are being suggested just aren't possible. Thank you guys for saying what i couldnt at the time. Plus we have the problem of not enough canon units to go around for the non federation factions. Hence that is why i made the elite unit system. I am also going a step further and making role types that use the same hull. The less non canon units i have to use the better. Though inevitably i will have to use some non canon to fill in the gaps.

You are surprised that this forum is busted? This is new how?

The weapon firing arcs are hardcoded as was pointed out many times. You only have left, right, front, and back. Each facing covers a full 180 area with no way to control, or limit it. I am considering lessening the amount of weapon hard points, and compensating by increasing the DPS per point. In the big ships case this may have to be done because of the fire through the hull issues. It is not near as bad on the smaller ships with less weapon points.

Structures can have ether a weapon or a hangar point, not both. trade post and research stations cant be armed.

If you try to trick the game by using a different role type for a certain unit it messes the AI up badly. Example if you do not have any scout roletypes then the AI will not build anything at all. This is why i am trying to use each role type in game. So the hardcoded AI doesnt have a heart attack.

Everything almost has to mimic what is already in Sins for it to work. Even the shipyards.

IF someone can make a WORKING alternative for the cloak then i will use it. All of my attempts at cloaking have met with failure, and CTD's. Perhaps 7ds, or another mod can see what i have missed.

The movement is a total failure. It just is not going to happen. So we are stuck with ships coming to a screeching halt to fight.

Lets get the current factions working right before we bring the borg into this. They just may have their own set of headaches to deal with. Namely being OP, and how to pull off assimilation. I dont want the weak retarded voyager borg in here "IF" i do use them. I want the BoBW "'Oh Shit!" You cant scratch their paint borg.

Unfortunetly as the game stands now for this mod to finish there are some things that wont be trek-ish. Like i said how many flaws can you live with?

 

It is tough to balance the ships with nothing but canon units. Ive spent alot of time digging through the entity files of the demo releases and come up with the very same problem Major Stress has mentioned here. The thing is the Feds have such a vareity of ships to choose from you can easily spread out ship roles and costs and damages for the feds. This isnt true for any race save perhaps the klingons who have the next best ship selection.

If you try and balance say a combat frigate from the dominion vs the miranda you can balance them one to one but overall the races then become unbalanced becuase the feds can build exclesiors and centuars and the klingons can build brels and k tingas where as the romulans have just the talon, the dominion just the dominator, the cardies just the hideki. Its really apperehnt at the cruiser level where feds and klingons have three ship choices and the dominion one. If you just say well factions with fewer ship choices should have better ships it seems like a good idea. Until you reach end game where everyone has maxed out fleet caps. The the races with fewer ship choices just wipe the floor with the ones whovve been nerfed to allow for the better selection.

If you decide to up fleet supply on races with fewer ship choices and buff their damage they suffer badly early game before fleet caps get maxed and players have to use a smaller pool of ships in more locations. Now the races who have lower fleet supply and better choices become more versatile and can easily outnumber and rush the other players.

 

For example the romulans and the federation. Romulans Warbirds and valdores are better then any cap or cruiser the feds have. they also cost more and use more fleet supply. Sounds balanced right? Wrong. The problem here is that while the romulan player is struggling to earn the resources early on to up his fleet cap and build these expensive ships the federation player can spit out clouds of miranadas exclesiors and centaurs and frigate rush them. Talons dont stand up at all to the k tinga or the miranada and theres not much a romulan player can do to counter it. Its the worst fo the romulans because cardassians and dominion can at least spit out combat frigates that can match the federation ones. The Talon is a scout. The only solution I found was to make the Talon much more powerful then it should be which of course leads to fleets of talons with a few cruiser warbirds and valdores and cap ships to compliment. This of course isnt ideal either. And since the Talon is a scout type the ai wont build them and use them in matches vs the computers which makes ai controlled roulans pushovers. Yes cloaking would help them alot but noone has found a way to make cloaking work with Sotse hard coded limits. The only advice I have for the rommies is to add in canon ships from other eras. While not ideal a romulan warbird based off the ent or tos model might help them be more competitve. This of course isnt pure canon but at least the ship design comes from canon and can add some more versatility in romulan early game ship selection.

 

As for the Borg I agree with Major Stress that assimilation doesnt seem very feasible to add into Sins. I would still like to see them but again its a huge balancing act. My suggestion for the borg would be to make their Cubes ungodly powerful and of course appropriatly expensive with enomours fleet supplies. We're talking The dominion Enslaver and beyond. Use the Vasari as a base race and include the phase stabilizers as transwarp gates. This way the borg player can quickly redirect a relativly small amount of cubes to the areas he needs them most. And the Vasri nano tech tree is very appropriate to the borg. Along with all their Nanite cap ship teks. But the borg just arent the borg without the ability to assimilate ships and teks and theres no way I can see to reproduce an ability like the Borg cubes technology assimilator in Armada2 or the ability to assimilate ships and crew.

BTW For me the answer to these questions is YES I can live with it. Of course I have an understanding of what can and cant be done right now with sins and I cant speak for those who dont.

The Romulans are going to have a wide variety of ships to chose from in 0.03. Most of them will be FASA designs like the winged defender, whitewind, and bright one. I tossed in the Melak from ST: New Worlds cause that would make a nice in between cruiser. The Romulans will also have a mobile jump inhibitor ship. The 0.02 rommies are a joke, and i knew that when i released it, but there wasnt much i could do with them at the time without making them ridiculously OP.

if the borg were added you would need at least 100+ in fleet cap worth of ships to take on just one cube, and still the cube may win as it should. the problem is if i make the borg NPC like the pirates then a cube can pop in at any given time and totally kill you in the early game. That will not be fun. Realistic, but not fun at all.

The ones that dont understand we need to educate, and help them to understand.

Yea and I understand those problems with the rommies really well.

And I can see the big problems with the borg besides adding in teks that cant be added in right now they could either be horribly op as a player race and as an npc race they could utterly destroy a match with one appearance. I think you made the right call leaving them out.

Im really wexcited to see the final version and to see what youve done with the non canon ships. I just dread having to put back in the sins plus planets and hope they work with 1.1 they may not whcih woudl leave me with danmans solar sins planets but I dunno how the new weapon animations are gonna affect the soa2 ones and I know I gotta figure that one out myself. Another few days of poking around mod files! All the work i did erbalancing the soa 2 demos and adding in the sins plus planets gave me a pretty good understanding of it all

 

One thing I dont get is how sins cacluatates weapon damages. What you write into the entity file isnt what your gonna get in game. So obviously ship type and weapon type affect the games final weapon values I just dont know how they do and I havent seen a chart that breaks it down.

Well what if you make the cubes only buildable at latest tech level? The borg have smaller ships you could use for early game?

Sticking to cannon is best choice but if you have to fill gaps nothin you can do about it. It seems you have a clear goal for this mod so anything you make should fit well.

I know the borg are op but to me thats what makes them interesting to fight if you know what I mean. Destroying a huge nearly invincible ship is grattifying

well heres the problem with tying them to tech levels. Cap ships cant be tied to tech levels and if you stick them in the cruiser slot then theres no cap ship crew limiting how many you can have.

Actually Mezlabor, research prerequisites can be made for capital ships.  That way you can get a non-free OP game-ending leveling capital.  Especially if you need to do filler techs to finally be able to research the prerequisite.

Major Stress,

Just thought I should add my two cents, and try to convince you to stay with your quest.

I also have to live with the hardcodes as you know, and the ship movement thing is the worst.  For example, my resurrection of the Star Control games calls for contant, dynamic motion.  This is not done in Sins.  But, since it is the best game engine for space type games out there, I am willing to live with it.

Now, to let you know what I have accomplished thus far, which of course I am willing to share:

More than one planet in a gravity well.  So, yes, you can have a dual planet, or a planet and a big moon, etc.

Level unlocking Capital ships.  You would need to research to unlock the capital ship.  Good for those Borg cubes. (if you do them!)

Assimilation.  You can take over other ships, modules, even planets.  Only thing is the texture cannot be changed yet.  However, the sheilds of the ship will turn green (if the Borg's shields are green too!)  I can do this now in 7DS.

I am also working on a fully working cloaking device.  If I get it, you will be the first to know.

And I am still working on our movement issue.  So don't loose hope.

And lastly, if you do not make the Borg, I will.  I have already started.  I have all the models, and textures ready to go.  I just need t dedicate myself to making them work in the game.  I am also working on a tractor beam for the Borg, as well as the cutting beam and adaptation. 

So, we are all behind you, even us over at the 7 DEADLY SINS group.  We eagerly await your next release.

DANMAN

Adaptation = shield mitigation.  'Nuff said.

Sparda Danman thats good news real good news. Danman If you do add the borg would you also think about adding the solar sins planets?

Please do not add solar sins, the addition of habitable stars is just no cannon in star trek.

I wasnt asking major stress I was asking if danman would release a combo mod of solar sins and soa2 if he released a borg addon. If you don want solar sins then you still can get demo 0.003 which wont have it.

Well, since Major Stress said DANMAN can do whatever the hell he wants for SoA 2 for Sins, expect Star Trek in 7 Deadly Sins 3.0!

wouldnt that also mean they are mixed up with the other non trek races in 7ds?