New Borg Ship Graphic Mod For Modders (Preliminary)

from Stardock Forums
Have fun with a Borg Cube ship graphic....

This is in a zip file for those wishing to take a peak or use it in its current state which is fully fucntional in the game. It won't cause issues with any existing installation of GC or AP with or without mods.

The Borg Cube graphic MDL file requires no tech file in order to be built... and it can built on the first few turns of the game in order to be looked upon and tried. It will change color when you give it to an AI player, but not as much as I hoped. I haven't got the colors set as close as I would like for each race yet.

The final version will include a whole tech string (including existing nano-technology mods already released by others), the borg cube graphics, associated Borg improvements (like the Hive Mind Complex)... including a Trans-Warp Hub module for the Star Base and an MDL for Trans-Phazic Torpedos (for attacking Borg cubes). Due to the complex interaction inside the technology tree and the fact I use mods already released by others; and that such other mods had to be modified for play balance and to be compatable with my mods and other mods related to my Borg and Telapath mods (for use against the Borg for play balance by players aligned on the "good side").... so... the Borg Mod will likely have to be an entire package release combining many elements here as mods in the public domain plus my own (existing mods by others will reference the respective authors for due credit, of course).

I decided to just make it available in this manner, as I'm not sure it is wise to try and release a large scale mod as I was saying in the previous paragraph. This way anyone who wants to use the Borg Cube graphic can, and can do so in anyway they wish.

Download the Borg preliminary mod zip file here:

http://users.rcn.com/aulonacara/Galatic%20Civ/

P.S. Unpack the zip file into a temp folder and read the readme.txt file for a few additional details and instructions.


[Message Edited]
1,749 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Final (I think)

Done! Well done as far I plan to go. I'll do the rest of my learning stream-lining on the next ship, a Babyalon 5 ship or Trans-Phazic Torpedo.

Here is the link:

http://users.rcn.com/aulonacara/Galatic%20Civ/

The AI are configured to have Borg Cubes and the over-lay cube graphic permits a color pick under it to show the color of the AI player which controls such cube. It took awhile to figure this out! Arg... I had a problem with PAL files not working well in GC if thier colors had been sorted earlier by in Paint Shop. I'm still not perfectly clear what when wrong, but I re-copied the Pal_ files to the MDL work folder and renamed them and called them from within the Sprite Utility. All went well that time, err, some 8 hours later!

The Cubes are distinctive now in color, but I decided to keep thier size reasonable. The game will accept larger graphics of the cubes, but I needed to let the Rotator Program chop the corners off the Cubes... they didn't look as good. Borg Spheres are really smaller then Cube, but would be easy to make much large in GC/AP (heh, of course). No, I didn't make any of those, but I might for the Yor AI.

Next time I will try to use a master PAL_ file which will have all the colors I need! What a pain messing with those. BTW, if the Dark Rain is reading, it'd be nice if the Palette Program had a way to export PAL_ files to PAL files directly for Paint Shop's use. This would make it easier to keep using existing color schemes by the designers of GC/AP. Err, assuming Dark Rain wrote the utility program.

Also, is/are there any utiltity programs that could merge two seperate PAL files into one (when dealing will small numbers of color; total less than 256 - whatever)?

For the time being, I will keep the "blue print" graphic as it is with the Borg infomation on it. It's a Borg Cube, afterall.

After I finish my Trans-Phazic Torpedo graphic MDL, I'll see if I can't make the whole Borg Mod available as a package, since the mod interconnects a lot with other existing mods, like those for Nano-Technology.

To all modders: have fun with the new ship Borg Ship MDL. Use it or modify it anyway you wish.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
I finished a test run on my new Trans-Phazic Torpedo graphic for destroying Borg Cubes (available late in the game in my mod). I kept it as a race 35 graphic only and it works very well for all races! I still need to improve the "Blue Print" imformation graphic. I made it look more like a rocket with some flames coming out the back... I wanted something more interesting to look at... even though such a SciFi item probably wouldn't look like that.... it might make a good graphic for the Nuclear Missile mod available here at this site, however. I'll put it up at my ftp site later this week (Tft.MDL).... keep an eye out for it.

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Hi, the Tft MDL is available at the link (my ftp) I gave earlier. To use it, edit the antimatter ship data file to use the model called "Tft." Or it can be used in any other way you wish.

I want to try to make a better Trans-Phazic Torpedo, one with a blue shield with the torpedo graphic pulsing the player's color.... that'll be tricky... I hope I can figure out how to make it do that. I'll make it about the size and look of the antimatter torpedo plus what I just mentioned.