The Ferengi as a playable civ

[Iceman]

Splitting the Ferengi-related stuff from the Dominion thread, so we can focus on it.

It doesn't make much sense to have the Dominion "inherit" the Ferengi's slot of the trading civ

Can we make the Ferengi additional to the dominion ?

Can we make the Ferengi additional to the dominion ?

If you mean have the Ferengi as a playable civ, it is possible. It's just not practical.
First, we don't have the assets for it. Most notably, ships, shipyards, stations. A new UI would be needed, some backgrounds, agents, etc.
Then we would have the problem with native quadrants. The Alpha Quadrant would have 3 major civs, BQ 2 and GQ 1. In smaller maps, that would be a real problem.

Getting them to be a playable civ is the easy part.

[geon]

Hi all,

I started playing Supremacy recently, and I must congratulate all those involved. Graphically, it is far superior to the original game, as you would expect after all this time (22 years after the original was released).

I fully realize that this is still an ongoing work in progress, and that improvements will be added in the near future. Neverthless, I would like, if I may to make a few observations and suggestions.

1) I agree with Iscaran that the Ferengi should have been included. Having a financial power like the Ferengi allows another style of play to be included in the game (ie: economic warfare and dominance). Let's face it, the Ferengi in the original Birth of the Federation were fun to play. Any shortcomings they may have had in the original game could be addressed by modding. Since Supremacy can support 7 player races, this can be done.

But like Iceman said,

"Getting them to be a playable civ is the easy part"
but
"if you mean have the Ferengi as a playable civ, it is possible. It's just not practical.
First, we don't have the assets for it. Most notably, ships, shipyards, stations. A new UI would be needed, some backgrounds, agents, etc.
Then we would have the problem with native quadrants. The Alpha Quadrant would have 3 major civs, BQ 2 and GQ 1. In smaller maps, that would be a real problem"

Problems to be sure, but not insurmountable. I'd be happy to lend any help I can in this regard. As to the 'problems with the native quadrants', I don't see that as really a problem. The Ferengi were seen as great travelers in the various TV series, getting to the Alpha Quandrant fairly early in ST Ent, the Delta Quadrant in ST Voy and the Gamma Quadrant in St DS9. The home systems of the Ferengi could therefore be located practically anywhere on the map, but perhaps somewhere not too far from DS9 (since the Federation was able to reach Ferenginar fairly easily in ST DS9, to propose an alliance against the Dominion). An area near the centre of the map staddling the borders of thel Gamma and Delta Quadrants would be ideal, since these quadrants in the game fewer player empires.

2) While I appreciate that a given number of ship slots need to be filled, it still annoys me that many non canon designs are finding their way into this game.(hey that's just me. I'm a purist!). I realise that some races need to be fleshed out since their onscreen navies had few designs during certain eras, but at least with the Federation this excuse should not be used. The plethora of designs, from freighters, transports to cruisers, dreadnauts and explorers from the 'Enterprise' era to Nemesis should be more than adequate fill in all the Federation ship lots in the game. Perhaps one solution is to decrease the number ship slots?

3) Maybe it's just me but I find that Supremacy doesn't flow as smoothly in gameplay as the original Birth of the Federation. What I mean by this is that in BOTF building structures and ships and moving ships on the map seemed to have less steps involved and gameplay was quicker. Maybe this is a consequence of having many more structures to build in Supremacy, and more steps involved in ship construction (in BOTF you chose the ship you wanted to build, pressed a button and the shipyard did the rest. In Supremacy, you have to pick a shipyard, pick the ship type you want, confirm your choice and click to build. Having more than one shipyard in some systems will also slow down the production time.

4) I like the fact that ships from the earliest to the latest eras are present in Supremacy. BOTF was essentially TNG era due to licence restrictions. BOTF could have this also, but only by modding, and the number of ship types was limited by the original game engine. So, bravo Supremacy! I would like to see a feature where games could be limited to a certain era or range of eras. By this I mean that you could have an Enterprise era game where technology development stopped after reaching that era but gameplay continued. Instead of waiting for a specific Enterprise era or TOS era mod for BOTF, you could now have an Enterprise era or TOS era specific game anytime in Supremacy. Possible choices for eras could be Enterprise, early Federation,TOS, Movie era, TNG.

Well, that's it for now. These are in no way criticisms, far from it. Just some ideas I hope you will kindly consider.

Again, congratulations on the game.

Regards
Geon

[Iceman]

Hey Geon, thanks for this great post! And for all your kind words.
Mike (Strobel) did an awesome job with this game, and we're trying to continue his legacy.

Yes, now that the Dominion's playstyle was changed, we don't have a financial powerhouse civ in the game anymore (though the Federation kind of is one).

I'd be happy to lend any help I can in this regard.

Oooh, those are magic words! Whenever possible, I have included the Ferengi's versions alongside the other civs' - soundfx, UI and stuff. Whatever you can contribute for them and any other civ, anything, is most welcome! We need more people to work on everything that is still needed for the game. This is a team effort, and the more the merrier!

As to the 'problems with the native quadrants', I don't see that as really a problem. The Ferengi were seen as great travelers in the various TV series, getting to the Alpha Quandrant fairly early in ST Ent, the Delta Quadrant in ST Voy and the Gamma Quadrant in St DS9. The home systems of the Ferengi could therefore be located practically anywhere on the map, but perhaps somewhere not too far from DS9 (since the Federation was able to reach Ferenginar fairly easily in ST DS9, to propose an alliance against the Dominion). An area near the centre of the map staddling the borders of thel Gamma and Delta Quadrants would be ideal, since these quadrants in the game fewer player empires.

Yes, the closest thing to a canon location would probably be the Gamma Quadrant, since they're the closest AQ civ to that Q.
If this doesn't bother you, being a purist, then I don't see a problem adding them.
This is only a problem when playing with Canon homesystems; when set to Random, it's not an issue - if the Borg are included in the game, it actually places 2 empires per quadrant, which is nice.

2) While I appreciate that a given number of ship slots need to be filled, it still annoys me that many non canon designs are finding their way into this game.(hey that's just me. I'm a purist!). I realise that some races need to be fleshed out since their onscreen navies had few designs during certain eras, but at least with the Federation this excuse should not be used. The plethora of designs, from freighters, transports to cruisers, dreadnauts and explorers from the 'Enterprise' era to Nemesis should be more than adequate fill in all the Federation ship lots in the game. Perhaps one solution is to decrease the number ship slots?

The shiplist can be reviewed at any time, but that implies new models, new descriptions, etc.
This is a topic where a consensus will never be reached, I guess.
Would you like to start a new thread about this, with your suggestions? It could be interesting to discuss this.

3) Maybe it's just me but I find that Supremacy doesn't flow as smoothly in gameplay as the original Birth of the Federation. What I mean by this is that in BOTF building structures and ships and moving ships on the map seemed to have less steps involved and gameplay was quicker. Maybe this is a consequence of having many more structures to build in Supremacy, and more steps involved in ship construction (in BOTF you chose the ship you wanted to build, pressed a button and the shipyard did the rest. In Supremacy, you have to pick a shipyard, pick the ship type you want, confirm your choice and click to build. Having more than one shipyard in some systems will also slow down the production time.

You sould have seen the list of Buildings before I axed half of them...
Anyways, having a build queue for the shipyard is in the ToDo list, and there is one proposal to make ship selection similar to BotF (single click instead of double click). These should help a bit with some of those issues.
Re moving ships on the map, what do you mean? What do you find to be different, or more time consuming?
The flow problems you mention, is it just a UI thing, or also related to mechanics?
How do you find the research rate/pace?

4) I like the fact that ships from the earliest to the latest eras are present in Supremacy. BOTF was essentially TNG era due to licence restrictions. BOTF could have this also, but only by modding, and the number of ship types was limited by the original game engine. So, bravo Supremacy! I would like to see a feature where games could be limited to a certain era or range of eras. By this I mean that you could have an Enterprise era game where technology development stopped after reaching that era but gameplay continued. Instead of waiting for a specific Enterprise era or TOS era mod for BOTF, you could now have an Enterprise era or TOS era specific game anytime in Supremacy. Possible choices for eras could be Enterprise, early Federation,TOS, Movie era, TNG.

This can be easily achieved by editing the tech level thresholds. Just increase those numbers for the other eras to absurd values.
ENT 1~3
TOS 4~6
TNG 7~9
VOY 10~12
So to have a game strictly on ENT era, just edit the ResearchMatrix.xaml file and change the threshold for TL4 in all fields to max int. Notice though that research will then become useless.

A couple of years ago I tried to look into how mods work in Supremacy, but I haven't managed to fully grasp it. Modding could be a very useful tool in testing all of this - Ferengi, shiplists, era specific scenarios, etc.


Thanks, mate! Keep it coming.

[The_Undying_Nephalim]

First, we don't have the assets for it. Most notably, ships, shipyards, stations. A new UI would be needed, some backgrounds, agents, etc.

Really late response on my part, but I do have a collection of Ferengi ship and station models I made almost a decade ago for a Stellaris mod that never happened. All of them except for the ENT era scoutship went unused. If you guys ever are considering adding the Ferengi I'd be more than happy to let you guys use them, it's sure better than them just sitting unused on my PC until they rot.


It probably still is not enough for an entire roster but there might be some other Ferengi ships from other mods that their creators might be willing to lend.

Then we would have the problem with native quadrants.

I know the Ferengi are technically in the Alpha Quadrant and extremely far from the Gamma Quadrant, but since their homeworld is at the "top left" of explored space, it might be a stretch of the imagination players are willing to accept if they are spawned in the Gamma Quadrant? Just a random idea. I love the Ferengi a lot I'll try to find excuses for them.

[Iceman]

Really late response on my part, but I do have a collection of Ferengi ship and station models I made almost a decade ago for a Stellaris mod that never happened. All of them except for the ENT era scoutship went unused. If you guys ever are considering adding the Ferengi I'd be more than happy to let you guys use them, it's sure better than them just sitting unused on my PC until they rot.

Man, those are great! Where have you been all these years?
I'll ask Danijel to contact you, so that you can share those models. This is awesome, thanks!
You wouldn't happen to have more models of the other empires and/or minor civs, would you? Some of the current models could be improved, and we're still missing some models. Any help you or someone you might know can provide would be extremely welcome.

It probably still is not enough for an entire roster but there might be some other Ferengi ships from other mods that their creators might be willing to lend.

See above.

I know the Ferengi are technically in the Alpha Quadrant and extremely far from the Gamma Quadrant, but since their homeworld is at the "top left" of explored space, it might be a stretch of the imagination players are willing to accept if they are spawned in the Gamma Quadrant? Just a random idea. I love the Ferengi a lot I'll try to find excuses for them.

One thing we can do is "force" (for Canon Home Quadrants games ofc) the Dominion to be spawned in the upper part of the GQ (it's probably like that already, but I'm not sure) and the Ferengi in the lower part; the Borg have something like that in place.

[Flocke]

If you guys ever are considering adding the Ferengi I'd be more than happy to let you guys use them, it's sure better than them just sitting unused on my PC until they rot.

Hey, these models look awesome! Not sure on Supremacy, but for BOTF the Ferengi still are a major player race.
I'd love to see those ships ingame.

We have a whole subforum for ship models here: viewforum.php?f=9
Would be great when you share ship models with us!

To whether they are getting used and by what mod however I can't say. I'm rather coding on technical stuff and so far havn't created any actual mod.

[Iceman]

One thing we can do is "force" (for Canon Home Quadrants games ofc) the Dominion to be spawned in the upper part of the GQ (it's probably like that already, but I'm not sure)

Yep, it is. I pushed the spawning boundary a bit "up" so that it doesn't overlap with:

and the Ferengi in the lower part;

Done (if their home quadrant is set to Gamma); they are spawned close to the Alpha Q.

[The_Undying_Nephalim]

Man, those are great! Where have you been all these years?

I've been on here a few times for the last 15 years but not much. Every few years I get an urge to play BOTF and would come here looking for mods. I found Supremecy the last time I came here 2 years ago and finally was able to play the game more after the auto management stuff got added in. I sadly just have too much trouble managing more than a handful of systems myself, even in vanilla BOTF and can't get far without Auto before people start starving to death.

I'll ask Danijel to contact you, so that you can share those models. This is awesome, thanks!

Awesome!

You wouldn't happen to have more models of the other empires and/or minor civs, would you?

90% of the models I have made are from the ENT era, so if there are minor factions from the ENT era that needs ships I have Arkonian, Elachi, Enolian, Mazarite, Nausicaan, Orion, Suliban (seems like only stations, however they are made of the pods so they could be broken into ships), Xindi (all except Reptilians), and Xyrillian ships. Outside of ENT era I don't have too much, just the Ferengi stuff and a few other very random things I made like the Species 9341 Amoebas, the Taubat from New Worlds, the Ego God/Lysian Starbase with texture variations for both, and the Automated Shipyard from the Deadstop episode. There were plans for me to work on stuff from all the eras but the Stellaris mod got cancelled. Some of my ENT era models ended up in the Ages of the Federation mod for Sins of a Solar Empire.

Some of the current models could be improved, and we're still missing some models. Any help you or someone you might know can provide would be extremely welcome.

Unfortunately these days I am so swamped and busy I don't think I'd have time to model new stuff. No promises though but maybe I can do something here or there. The Ages of the Federation guys might be willing to lend models after they've finished up all their mods.

We have a whole subforum for ship models here: viewforum.php?f=9
Would be great when you share ship models with us!

Yeah I might just release them all publically somewhere for any star trek mods. At this point they've been sitting around for almost 10 years and I doubt I'll be using them for anything myself anytime.

[Flocke]

Yeah I might just release them all publically somewhere for any star trek mods. At this point they've been sitting around for almost 10 years and I doubt I'll be using them for anything myself anytime.

Who knows what future games and mods are being created.
If you have any objections, just add a notice. For any official usage I guess people will talk back to you anyhow. Afterall, who knows for sure where you got those professional looking models from.

[Iceman]

and finally was able to play the game more after the auto management stuff got added in. I sadly just have too much trouble managing more than a handful of systems myself, even in vanilla BOTF and can't get far without Auto before people start starving to death.

Yeah, kudos to Misfire for the auto management implementation! It was a great step forward in the development of the game.
The game does auto-assign pop to food PFs when needed, regardless of auto management, though. There shouldn't be many instances of starvation (as long as you have unmanned farms).

90% of the models I have made are from the ENT era, so if there are minor factions from the ENT era that needs ships I have Arkonian, Elachi, Enolian, Mazarite,

These aren't in the game, but we can use the models for other minor civs, if you do not have any objections

Nausicaan, Orion, Suliban (seems like only stations, however they are made of the pods so they could be broken into ships), Xindi (all except Reptilians), and Xyrillian ships.

These are in the game, so we obviously want them

Outside of ENT era I don't have too much, just the Ferengi stuff and a few other very random things I made like the Species 9341 Amoebas, the Taubat from New Worlds, the Ego God/Lysian Starbase with texture variations for both, and the Automated Shipyard from the Deadstop episode.

As per above, we can probably use everything in some other role.

Unfortunately these days I am so swamped and busy I don't think I'd have time to model new stuff. No promises though but maybe I can do something here or there. The Ages of the Federation guys might be willing to lend models after they've finished up all their mods.

Whatever you can help with, it's most welcome.

Yeah I might just release them all publically somewhere for any star trek mods. At this point they've been sitting around for almost 10 years and I doubt I'll be using them for anything myself anytime.

Misfire really liked your Ferengi models, for the combat engine.

If you need a place to host your models, even if temporarily, maybe Danijel can help. The downloads page of the Supremacy site might not be the best definitive place for them, but it might be a good start.
We are actually making a smallish improvement to the site right now And at some point I'll have a new version of the manual ready to upload to the site.

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

We are actually making a smallish improvement to the site right now And at some point I'll have a new version of the manual ready to upload to the site.

You should think about adding the page link in your AFC signature.

[Iceman]

Done

We need a new description text for the Ferengi, as the current one implies they're a minor civ.
Any takers

The Ferengi are a race of hucksters, living for material wealth and possessions, and the constant desire to acquire more by any means necessary. Their traders can be found across most of the known galaxy, and their trading fleet is an unparalleled economic force. But the Ferengi cannot be trusted, and it will be difficult to maintain political links without a financial incentive to keep their interest. The potential boon to our economy that Ferengi membership would bring cannot be overstated, however.

[Iceman]

I'll ask Danijel to contact you, so that you can share those models. This is awesome, thanks!

Awesome!

Sent you a PM.

[The_Undying_Nephalim]

These aren't in the game, but we can use the models for other minor civs, if you do not have any objections

I'd not mind, although I'd of course suggest adding more minor races if possible! I can already imagine the Enolian Prisons being some kind of industry boosting building that maybe hurts morale.

As per above, we can probably use everything in some other role.

Maybe the 9341 Amoebas can be some kind of new monster event.

[Iceman]

Questions:

Should *all* Ferengi colonies (including member and subjugated colonies of non-Mercantile civs) be able to establish trade routes without an Open Borders pact, OR only Native colonies

Should an empire's subjugated Ferengi colonies "inherit" the ability to establish TRs without a OBP

Also, is this color ok for the Ferengi ?
Or should it be something more distinguishable (from the Cardassians mostly), like yellow or something?