(Download) ST:BotF Galaxies MOD v0.4.0

[ZeroChance]

... oh my... what is this I don't even... sorry Tethys! Not paying attention. Just finish your mod already!!!

[Tethys]

LOL. I am working on it, just reinstalled Windows so ETA on next version is TBD. Hopefully in a few weeks though.

[Tethys]

Latest version is uploaded and ready to download. New version has many new ships for the ENT era so it will NOT work with any save games!

Techs have also been extended to 20 to account for the new era. Below is an alternate download link.

Galaxies_Mod_0.4.0a

EDIT: Sorry, new version has a bug, should be fixed now. Forgot to combine some palettes, should be sorted now.

[ZeroChance]

LOVE YOU.

[shadow18]

I just downloaded this and had a look around. I really like the build list extension, being able to queue 8 items instead of 4 really makes a difference! Thanks Tethys!

[Martok]

great a new version! testing it out now

[Beano]

I finally stumbled upon this mod this week after having played a bunch of the other mods more prominently posted on this site. I really like it. Major kudos. Looks to be my mod of choice.

A few comments and first impressions from about 95 turns in playing as the borg on a medium irregular at tech level 2 (for all) on impossible difficulty. I think I am dominating. I just mowed over the federation who put up little resistance (I think they were softened by the Dominion). I've been cranking out a Cube every 4 turns from Unimatrix 1 since around turn 10. So I have around 20 now. The Dominion and Romulans have about 60-70% my military score and I haven't encountered the Klingons yet.

1. At first I thought there was something wrong with some of the minor races not having special buildings, but then I teched up a full level and suddenly there was new stuff available! And not just at the races missing buildings, but some races had multiple. This is frackin cool and adds a lot of character to the game. I really like it, and I haven't even explored all the minors yet.
2. I'd love to see a full readme listing all of the buildings and ships like some of the other expansions have.
3. All in all, I really like the elimination of building upgrades. It seems to streamline play so much more and make colonies so much more relevant.
4. That said, industry is amazingly weak without ship building structures. And it seems like it is never practical to build natively any of the non basic buildings in the game. This isn't necessarily a problem, just very different from most games I've played where industry rules.
5. Furthermore there seems to be a massive inequity at the early tech levels where the Federation and the Borg have their ship building structures at tech level 3 while the Dominion, Romulans, and Klingons need to wait until tech 8. Admittedly, I find this inequity intriguing. The Dominion appear to have their ships set up to where it isn't a huge problem, e.g. Troop Transports and Colony Ships don't tech up until much later meaning that they are affordable. The Romulans and Klingons tech up in the 4-5 range meaning that their TTs and CSs are extremely expensive relative to their building capability and at starting level 2 (tech level 4) they would presumably be at a major disadvantage expanding. Perhaps this is why you've indicated that tech level 1 is the best starting point. Much of the expansion would be complete (at least on a medium galaxy) before teching up to the expensive CS + TT. That said I'd think that Romulans and Klingons would struggle to conquer with poor access to TTs until the orbital shipyards are available. I think inequity is fun and interesting which is why I found UDM kind of dull. But, expansion is a very important part of the game, and if an empire falls behind, then if all is roughly equal, then they should get run over by the much larger empire.
6. That said, number 5 is almost irrelevant, because money seems to be so plentiful and that it completely dominate the game. Colonies seem to pour out money by the truckload especially if they have dt boosting structures. From what I've seen, after an initial burst of expansion, you can just buy everything including ships. On turn 95 I am pulling in over 100K credits with 30K of that going to ship support. I've accrued over 2 million dt in reserve and that is with me buying every non basic building in the game for my 29 colonies. I'd spend the money on Cubes and other stuff, but it hardly seems necessary. I could start buying 5 cubes a turn just to break even on income. If I wanted to blow through that cash, I have enough alloy to easily do 10 cubes a turn. So the fact that I can build a cube every 4 turns from unimatrix 1 and I have a few colonies that are spitting out assimilators every 2-4 turns is more of an economic benefit than anything else as that just means that I don't have to buy them. Your alloy changes that you have been talking about will help, but it sounds like it really just puts a cap on what can be built per turn. Ultimately, the fact that I could buy them makes my industry pretty irrelevant. Perhaps things have just gone too well for me, and I should be maintaining a fleet more representative of my income. We'll see when I collide with the Dominion soon. It is kind of ironic that the Ferengi are not part of the game, they would enjoy seeing money dominate.
7. Changes that I'd be tempted to consider making if it were my mod (and I might try it out if I can figure out how to use the UE that has been mentioned). I'd significantly reduce how much money is earned to make industry more relevant. I'd also drop the cost of most of the "special" buildings so that they can be built in a reasonable amount of time rather than needing to buy them (which seems to be the case now). Then either lower the maintenance cost of ships or bring back the population support. That would marry what I really like about your building methodology (no upgrades, low output totals, specialized buildings for huge multipliers which helps control over production particularly if the building is "expensive") with the more traditional economics of the game where credits are much more precious.
8. It took me 95 turns or so to research up one full level to 5 for all 6 techs as well as a couple of more to 6. That is a very very small portion of the research tree. I don't necessarily have a problem with slow teching (and maybe I am just slow), but I am just concerned that the game will be over before any significant teching has been accomplished. This is perhaps more of a problem with the game in general with the game, but with additional levels and more stuff that I haven't gotten to play with before, it is more noticeable. And the research bonus buildings just don't seem to make a significant difference (Trill only give 1% Bio?)
9. I really like the concept raised earlier that the Borg would be designed to have no colony ships or very few colony ships (perhaps obscenely expensive or not as good at establishing a colony? can you have colony ships and make them such that they can only terraform? would the AI struggle with such a config?). It just means that they would play radically different than other races and would be way more dependent on conquering/assimilating. I can see how the map would be too sparsely populated to support this (minor races being key to the Borg expansion), but if it is easy to remove the colony ships using UE (can it?), I will likely try out a game with the Borg starting one or two (out of the 5) start levels ahead to make up for their lack of colonization ability. Then it becomes a race to tech up and power up before the Borg show up (like it should be ).
10. The Breen Strike Cruisers suggest that they have "shield penetration" from their description. Is this just character text in line with their appearance on DS9? A few quick tests suggest that torpedoes act just like any other torpedo weapon.

I haven't gotten through the whole new version yet 0.4.0a. But it looks to be an instant classic! I eagerly await a more full featured version.

Once again, awesome job here.

[meslinjf]

I finally get a day off and want to check out this new version of the mod...

i love it!

[Tethys]

Changed the version back to 0.3.0a until I compile the real update. Happy April fools day everyone

[shadow18]

you are so mean

[Tethys]

It does not look like I will be able to get an update by tomorrow, I worked all week and I work all weekend as well. I will try my best to get it compiled and uploaded asap for the new version. Sorry

[zoommooz]

Just a quick question. Because I like longer games, I like to mod things like research rates and ship building cost etc. I was trying to double all ship costs when I discovered that around thirteen ship/stations were already so expensive, the 65000 limit would be reached. I decided to attack this from another angle by lowering the output of industrial buildings, and got a little confused.

First there is only one 'industrial building' ie=6 industry with no upgrades. Now, reading though this thread, I can see that this is done automatically, so as to limit micro. Now, when in game I noticed, under the destroy building tag, that the federation version produces +6 industry. However, when you allocate with the slider, each one is worth a lot more then +6 (and the higher the tech level, the greater the difference). I believe this is due to the automated upgrade of buildings, but trying to achieve my aim of much longer build times for ships, much slower game, is hard if I don't understand the exact mechanics of the above mention industry. Any chance of explaining the difference between how normal BOTF works (which I understand) and your mod?

Cheers

[Tethys]

I dont have the mod or even BotF installed on this new install of Windows, have not had the time, have been working almost every day for the last 2 weeks because 2 peoples cars at work broke. So I cannot say for certain whether or not I applied TC fix for industry to upgrade with each tech level up automatically. Best thing to do is download QD's patch tool (its somewhere here in the Modding Info) and see if that mod is applied. If it is applied, UE will not really affect industry costs that much, because I believe it uses a % value and is also part of a patch with hex information included. At least, the later levels will take much much less of hit than tech level 1. Hope you figure it out.

[Haleth]

Looks very cool and much work seems

After a short few over the mod i think i noticed some fails

The TT Medium and TT Heavy have at all races different techs needed exept the klingons they can build it bouth at Tech 5 4 5 4 5 3

and Some ships whit speed 6 (Cruiser Deep Fed) seems strange because it should not work

mfg

Haleth

[Haleth]

One more thing noticed

The romulans have a 2 ships at tech 1 and 2(4) that have high torpedo damage

War-Bird
Tech 122122
2 Torpedos a 250

Bird-of-Pray
Tech 112112
1 Torpedo a 300

That sounds not correct much overpowered maybe

mfg
Haleth