New and not too bright.

[Jester]

Hello everyone. I just learned about this site today and wanted to say hi.
I've been playing BOTF since I was about 11-years-old, and I didin't fully learn how to play every part of the game until I was 17, and now I'm 21 and lost my CD, and I am NOT about to pay $150 for a new one, lol. SO I found this website looking for a download and I just spent the last 11 hours getting my star trek fix.

I'm rambling because I might be a little tired. And I know I'm probably not posting this in the right place, because every time I'm new to a forum I do it wrong.
Regardless, I would like to play with some real people online, not just this sad little computer's AI's. I downloaded WarZone but no one is in the BOTF place. Anyway, I'll keep checking back to this, I just wanted to see what time you all like to play.

Also I'm not very keen on the mods, partly because I'm lazy and don't want to learn a new way to play the game, but if someone tryes sweet talking me into how they play, I just might convert. ;P

Thanks all.

[Tethys]

Most people play in the 'Other Games' lobby since most people have a modded copy of the game.

Make sure in order to play mods you grab the Main Multi Installer from the New Multi Installers category in the Downloads section (top left links) and a few of the mods in there. Alot of ppl like UDM3 which is probably the best mod out, and BoP which tries to balance out the empires.

Hope u find what ur looking for and look out for new mods

[Martok]

Welcome to the BOTF forums, Jester!


FWIW, I strongly recommend you try out a few of the available mods -- if for no other reason than that if you're seriously interested in playing the game online, I believe most MP matches are played with some sort of mod installed. Also, virtually all the mods are a major improvement on the singleplayer experience as well, and are worth getting for that reason alone.

My personal favorite is BOP with UDM3 placing a strong second, but there are other excellent mods available as well: All the Ages, Ultimate 4, Uncivil War, and the Galaxies mod are some of the other more notable ones that are out there (and that's still not all of them!).

Good luck, and have fun!

[Jester]

Okay, thank you very much.

[Tethys]

and the Galaxies mod are some of the other more notable ones that are out there

Hey thanks Martok, but its not quite done yet and doesnt have a Multi Installer at this time

[Gertjan]

Funny I'm in a similar position. I also began playing this game (I own the original, that I bought about 10 years ago) last week. I first want to master the vanilla version again. Unfortunately the game becomes pretty unresponsive after 75-100 turns. How can I fix this? I remember this was also the case 10 years ago. But my pc is now like 1000 times afters, isn't?

[KrazeeXXL]

kill some enemy shipfleets. game runs faster then again

[Gertjan]

Are the mods faster/more optimised than the vanilla version of the game (performance wise)?

[KrazeeXXL]

nope not really. At least I didn't noticed anything in this direction. ok vanillas tactical combats may be a few frames faster but just because of the ugly shipmodels with its few hundreds of polygons

A way to optimize the game in a great way would be to edit the stupid AI's behaviour.

IMO most slowdowns occur 'coz the AI is redeploying its fleets in every turn. And as in later stages much more ships and fleets are available this becomes a bit of pain in the...

But I hope someone will find a thing or two out in the future to edit AI's behaviour. Would be a great deal.

btw, welcome to the forums Jester and Gertjan

[Jester]

What time are most people normally on to play BOTF? I started playing UDMIII and I was surprised how much I like it.

[KrazeeXXL]

good time to meet some ppl at warzone #other games lobby is the evening and the weekend. depends on the timezone. but as we have ppl from all over the world here it shouldn't be a problem to find someone to play a round or two