"How to Add Major", a.k.a., Vanilla Dominion

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Marowi
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"How to Add Major", a.k.a., Vanilla Dominion

Post by Marowi »

I have an interest in replacing the Ferengi with the Dominion (starting from the ground up), but changing virtually nothing else--in essence modding BOTF to probably what it should have been without weird inter-studio/network licensing issues preventing the game from acknowledging DS9/VOY (to the extent that the Trill were stripped of their spots). Call it a "Vanilla Dominion" mod if you like.

But what does it take to do this? How do you "add a Major"? I know it's a big question, probably too big to be answered in a post or two, but I'd love to know where to start. But in general the goals are simple: (1) do the Ferengi/Dominion swap, (2) turn one of the more pointless TNG-era minors into the Ferengi, and (3) if I'm feeling really aggressive, do the same to another of the more worthless TNG-minors and add a beefed-up Breen minor.

I have been experimenting with UE (as some of you know) to get a basic feel for how things work under the hood, and I have some basic skills in graphic design and video editing. I have already made a fairly smooth new race intro for the Dominion, as well as a variety of image files, and am working on the other image files I would need to undertake this project. I'm also thinking seriously about creating new audio files for the Dominion and for any minor races that are changed (to the extent of dragooning friend sound-alikes for the other Majors).

Any help, pointers, or advice would be greatly appreciated. I just have this itch to "fix" MicroProse's game that won't go away.
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Flocke
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Re: "How to Add Major", a.k.a., Vanilla Dominion

Post by Flocke »

Essentially just replace all the image files and texts and fix some parameters with UE (open stbof.res with UE to access compressed files). But remember the Ferengi's special ability of establishing trade routes without peace treaty, not sure if you want the dominion to have it. Once that is done you can search the modding index for more.
Marowi wrote:I have already made a fairly smooth new race intro for the Dominion, as well as a variety of image files, and am working on the other image files I would need to undertake this project. I'm also thinking seriously about creating new audio files for the Dominion and for any minor races that are changed (to the extent of dragooning friend sound-alikes for the other Majors).
This sounds real great! Let's see the new video and images. :)
Marowi wrote:I just have this itch to "fix" MicroProse's game that won't go away.
Welcome in the club! :up:
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Marowi
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Re: "How to Add Major", a.k.a., Vanilla Dominion

Post by Marowi »

Flocke--I very much appreciate the quick response.
Flocke wrote:Essentially just replace all the image files and texts and fix some parameters with UE (open stbof.res with UE to access compressed files).
This is welcome news. I've had some trouble editing building images, even in vanilla, but am developing familiarity with it right quick. A few questions that immediately come to mind:

(1) I take it this means that all UIs, menu items, buttons, etc. are just images that can be removed, edited, and re-added--seems easy enough, but...
(2) There's no obvious way to edit which race is which in UE, at least not that I've found so far. For example, when assigning who can build a building, I can assign it to Ferengi, Federation, and so forth, but how would I add the option of a Dominion major? (Or, I suppose, replace "Ferengi" with "Dominion" as I understand that 5 races are hardcoded into the game);
(3) Moreover, vanilla Federation phasers are blue and vanilla Ferengi (will be Dominion) phasers are orange--obviously this should be reversed to comport with the show--is there a way to do that?

These are just items I've latched onto to start with.
Flocke wrote:But remember the Ferengi's special ability of establishing trade routes without peace treaty, not sure if you want the dominion to have it. Once that is done you can search the modding index for more.
A colleague of mine (who's probably going to jump in and help me with this project) and I have talked about this at length. Frankly, the Ferengi AI in vanilla behaves actually as the Dominion does in the show. Think about it: the Dominion forces all these bad deals on people, be they trade or affiliation or whatever, and then spams a bunch of low cost ships that it doesn't mind throwing away. I often see the Ferengi AI do startling things and on harder difficulty levels they seem (at least to me) to be one of the endgame races that I'm contending with. I'm perfectly comfortable with that being "Dominion" behavior.

But what did you mean about searching the modding index for more? You mean more special abilities? Doesn't sound like a bad idea to me, in any event--I just want to put together the "vanilla" Dominion first and see if I can create something modular that can be easily played with by myself and others and added to at will.
Flocke wrote:This sounds real great! Let's see the new video and images.
Be happy to--just want to get things polished and looking real sharp. But what I've done so far for video is taken cutscenes from Dominion Wars, other games, with images, and put them together in Corel VS Pro with 30 seconds of the Weyoun voiceover from Dominion Wars where he describes what the Dominion is. It's sharp, but I'd like to add in a lot of clutter that you see in the normal race intros (blueprints, cityscapes, etc.).

One thing though--I've had a real pain getting the game to play it. I found this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=702

And... I basically have no idea what it means. I've got the video in 800x460 (even though I think the other race intros resolution is different) with 25 fps and 22,5/16 bit stereo, but no avail. I opened up the file in a hex editor and found "JUNK" in the code, which seems to be right. Still no idea what's wrong.

It's a lot to tackle, I think I just need to focus right now and start picking more low-hanging fruit.
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Flocke
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Re: "How to Add Major", a.k.a., Vanilla Dominion

Post by Flocke »

all UI is just images yes, and the races are harcoded and can not be simply swapped in UE, you need to rename files and edit settings each by single if you want to
phaser color like lots of other things can be edited. The midding index I was reffering has it's own forum over here: viewforum.php?f=49
I am sure you'll find lots of useful stuff in there

as for the video issues you found the right topic
I am not sure how exactly it is implemented in botf, but as we found you have to encode with adobe premiere, match exact format and if still it doesn't work check the hex code for differences like JUNQ -> JUNK
thunderchero might help you there

in mpr++ btw I could add theora video playback and lateron might also add VP9
other codecs I could add by FFmpeg but I hate to mess with all the licensing and prefer open formats
VP9 is a fresh new codec released by Google/WebM and targeted to compete with H.265 but open-source and completely royalty-free.
With Youtube going to support VP9 for high res (even 4k) video playback I guess that is going to be the next big video format anyway.
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adi
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Re: "How to Add Major", a.k.a., Vanilla Dominion

Post by adi »

Did you checked Ultimate Dominion mod III 3.0.1dx?
viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1093
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