Just looking for some thoughts on Technology...

[Peter1981]

I had a look in the modding forum but didn't find an answer so here's the question --

I'm wondering if anyone has tried or knows if I set the technology level of a ship to higher than technology level 10, then does this ship appear at the correct research level?

i.e. Federation Uber Cruiser
biology=12
computer=12
construction=12
energy=12
propulsion=12
weaposn=12
does the Uber Cruiser appear at Future Thec 2?

Well off to test... i'll let you know what i find...

[Tethys]

I tested this with a building once (by accident lol), and if you set them all to 11 i know that the building becomes available on Tech 1, and shows all Tech 1... but give it a try and see what happens, I did it on accident so I corrected it, but maybe you know something i do not

My guess is tech levels above 10 are handled by a different part of trek.exe that has no connection to the traditional levels, thus lacking in functionality and creativity

[Peter1981]

well just gave it a quick try with the Uber Cruiser for the fedz as above all techs=12 and no it does not work !

however... something intresting does happen...

setting the techs to twelve when you go to the ship science (F4) screen you find that the pre-requisits for this technology are computer 1, construction 1, energy 1, propultion 1, weapons 1, and Sociology 1 WTF??!!

wow !

anyway this was a little bit surprising ...

what was more surprising is that clicking on sociology 1 took me to the sociology science screen where i could view the 10 sociology levels discriptions!!!!

We've known for a while that sociology was a science area never implemented by the original programmers but it seems this it was nearer inclusion than i thought. -- maybe we could one day add it back to the game if we can work out how to make the game check this as well as the other six technologies...

[Peter1981]

on reload after tech 12 reached the uber cruiser is avaliable!

I'm guessing that the routine for checking for new buildeable ship(&or/maybe buildings) is only called for tech 1-10? any ideas guys?

[Peter1981]

sociology is'nt increased by standard research, this isn't surprising as there is no allocation of research to this feild of study.

sociology is increased by the -Mudd F9 cheat, this suggests that it was at some point tested with in the context of the game.

[Borg]

If one day you work it out one day let me know man becouse I too try that a few weeks back but like you tech 11 or 12 shows up has tech 1 or 2 that what happend with me lol.

[Tethys]

setting the techs to twelve when you go to the ship science (F4) screen you find that the pre-requisits for this technology are computer 1, construction 1, energy 1, propultion 1, weapons 1, and Sociology 1 WTF??!!

wow !

anyway this was a little bit surprising ...

what was more surprising is that clicking on sociology 1 took me to the sociology science screen where i could view the 10 sociology levels discriptions!!!!

That is surprising, i wonder if Sociology could easily be implemented in the research screen with its own allocation?

on reload after tech 12 reached the uber cruiser is avaliable!

I'm guessing that the routine for checking for new buildeable ship(&or/maybe buildings) is only called for tech 1-10? any ideas guys?

SO if i understand correctly, you had to research to tech 12 to get Uber cruiser to become available, whilst it still displayed tech 1 requirements as well as sociology requirement? hmmmm...

[Peter1981]

Tethys wrote:-

SO if i understand correctly, you had to research to tech 12 to get Uber cruiser to become available, whilst it still displayed tech 1 requirements as well as sociology requirement? hmmmm...

yes Uber Cruiser was not avaliable even when Future Tech 2 was reached ie all tech on tech level 12...
however after saving and reloading the uber Cruiser was avaliable to be built -> that upon loading a game BotF check the criteria for what ship are avaliable.

I [still believe this is to do with when the science levels are reached as clearly two diffrent subroutines handle techs 1-10 and techs 11+ all we really need to know is where in trek.exe the routines are call and we probably can just make it go to the first, tech 1-10, routine which'll most likely checks the avaliable ships criteria.

Tethys worte:-

That is surprising, i wonder if Sociology could easily be implemented in the research screen with its own allocation?

the science screen would have to be redesigned to allow for a 7th science area, this may not be as simple as it sounds, since the energy screen project seems to have stalled.

[Tethys]

Yeah but the energy screen project is a bit different then this, since this already has a functioning 7th tech field, all that would need to be done really is a redesign of the techs (all races) with the correct placements in the .wdf files and pointers to the .exe (i could be wrong, i usually am )

[Peter1981]

@tethys i understand where your comming from but :-
1 7th science would need something to adujust its allocation, a slider and some arrows this has proved difficult with the energy project ie adding GUI artifacts
2 7th science, while can be view (as discribed above), doesn't, as far as i'm aware, get checked for. ie. you don't a get a federatiom research sociology 1 message with the -Mudd F9 cheat. -> is not tested for as a tech requirement -> the trek.exe need to be edited to get this to work... (throw that one out to the codemasters to chew on )

sorry to seem negitive... I'd love though to add this feature back in to BotF since would make the technology tree bigger ~ longer which would work better for a larger galaxy and with the extended shiplists.

(i could be wrong, i usually am )

I know how you feel -- what was it G'kar said about the ants?!

[Peter1981]

had a thought when you slide the RP's the distribute to any unlocked science area...
if you lock all but one science area you cannot reduce it...
if we could make this treat 7th science as permently open then we could slide 0-100% of RP's to 7th Science...
While graphicaly this wouldn't be very user friendly, it would allow for the testing of the theory.

this might make a first step a little less giant leap

also this could become a race specific science field if say only implemented for the Borg in tythes Galaxy Mod -- The borg could reseach only 10 levels of Knowledge Assimilation and not the other 6 science areas <bing>

Does anyone know where in the Trek.exe / .wdfs this is located?

[Peter1981]

just took a look at the dynamic key variable on the wiki... it seems that they are set up to have an allocation of RP's to sociology although the diecription in DKV is 2 bytes unknown they follow the 2bytes for each of the other 6 sciences so boft is probably set up to handle 7th science if only we could get it to test this feild...

[sean_west]

When a vessel is set to a tech level 11 or above, the ship is able to be used from tech level 1, but will not show up in the build list.

Example 1: You are tech level 1. You use a savegame editor to change your scout to a Heavy Cruiser (Tech 7 needed) when you load the game, it crashes.

Example 2: As above, but you change the scout to your Uber Cruiser. When you load the game, you ship is now usable.

If I remember correctly, Thunderchero used this "trick" when he was developing his FlagShip Mod, to prevent players (and AI) from building huge fleets of Flagships.

[Peter1981]

@sean_west actually with tech set above 11 you can't build the ship at level one without reaching the required future tech and you can only build them when you re-load the game.

EDIT: sorry sean mis-read you post -- you are wright about the Flagship 'cheat??' with the extra techs you'd have to use a hight value to get it to work (sorry the appology to ages but i've been working on other project and haven't hade the time to review this area recently.)

[AlexMcpherson79]

I think he said *use* not *build*... with a saveeditor, quite different things...