Does This Look Like a Good Engineering Room Design

[trevanian]

My apologies, but I have absolutely no idea what an "Elite Force" is nor do I have the slightest interest in speculating on heretofore unseen interior volumes of the NCC-1701 (or any other TOS-era starship) that were not designed by Matt Jefferies, Franz Bachelin or Pato Guzman.

TGT

So you've giving up thinking about the refit?

 

[GodThingFormerly]

So you've giving up thinking about the refit?

Fudge no! The NCC-1701 Refit is "TMP-era".

TGT

 

[trevanian]

So you've giving up thinking about the refit?

Fudge no! The NCC-1701 Refit is "TMP-era".

TGT

Shame on me for ever even considering it might be otherwise.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Does anybody have any idea what parts of the ship those pictures depict?

CuttingEdge100

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Well, to mod EF, you need a number of programs, depending on what sort of mod you want to do exactly.

I know Radiant is used for mapping, but I'm not sure about scripting or other stuff.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

How expensive is Radiant?

Regarding scripting do you need to be an expert in programming or is it like "if this do that, if that do this" very interactive and easy?

 

[Praetor]

The Engineering room in Star Trek TMP definetly looked spiffy, as did later Star Trek designs. However the TOS design did look most realistically like a power generation room / reactor-room.

This design kind of has elements of both TOS, a little bit of TMP, and some ENT characteristics which I kind of like...

BTW: It's a modification for Elite Force, which takes place onboard a Federation-Class Dreadnought...


CuttingEdge100

Very nice! With the ceiling pipes reverted and the big power things from the original engine room put back, and the grill split into two grills on either side the size of the ones we saw on TOS, I wonder if we might not have what the original engine room 'really' looked like?

 

[darkwing_duck1]

The God Thing,

These are additional pictures from the Elite Force mod. I'm wondering what parts of the ship these pictures depict... (They all seem to be engineering related areas)

These seem to be different shots within the same room...

These seem to be in a similar section of the ship, but they do not appear to be exactly the same room

By the way: What software do you need to make an Elite-Force mod out of curiousity?


CuttingEdge100

WAGging it, I'd say that the first two depict some sort of power distribution center, or maybe the ship's "emergency battery" power cells.

Based on the presence of "pods" within the last two rooms, I'm tempted to call them the matter and anti-matter storage pods. The last image of the four I'd say is the anti-matter pods becasue the feeds from it are going UP, and the antimatter pods are supposed to be at the bottom of the ship for emergency ejection purposes...

 

[Cary L. Brown]

This is the "Dreadnought mod" available from a number of places, but I recommend getting it from here:

http://spacestationk7.autom8on.net/

You need a copy of "Elite Force" (the original, not EF2), and the EF Expansion pack, and you'll need the full "Starbase 11" mod first.

Of course, these two mods are SPECTACULAR. They're not designed for "gaming" exactly (the SB11 one is set up as a "holodeck type museum"... the people are static, for instance - think "wax figures"). The Dreadnought one is basically a mod which replaces the "Virtual Voyager" in EF. A huge amount of the ship's layout is present. It largely follows along with the blueprint set for the dreadnought (I couldn't pick out anything significantly different).

If you take the time to read logs and so forth, there are actually a series of little stories and in-jokes and so forth as well.

As for what the images below are... I believe that the first one is in the laundry facility (though it could be one of the fabrication rooms, which are very similar). I believe that the second picture would be one of those. I'm pretty sure that the third picture is the "waste reclamation facility" (aka the ship's septic system). And I'm certain of the last shot... it's the deuterium tank facility in the secondary-hull strongback.

It's actually interesting you posted that... I've been reinstalling stuff on my computer recently and just played that about a week ago.

The God Thing,

These are additional pictures from the Elite Force mod. I'm wondering what parts of the ship these pictures depict... (They all seem to be engineering related areas)

These seem to be different shots within the same room...

These seem to be in a similar section of the ship, but they do not appear to be exactly the same room

By the way: What software do you need to make an Elite-Force mod out of curiousity?


CuttingEdge100

 

[B.J.]

I've had Elite Force for a few years now, but I've never seen the Expansion Pack anywhere. It's cut back on my ability to use some mods. I don't think it's being sold anymore, but even so, I really hesitate to ask where I could find it. Anybody have some options for me?

 

[Cary L. Brown]

By the way: What software do you need to make an Elite-Force mod out of curiousity?

This program was made using a highly-modified "Quake2" engine, and as such it uses the same basic editor program that Quake2 used... a program called "Radiant."

If you want to get into this, you'll have a learning curve ahead of you, but people who know the software can do just about anything with it.

Here's a good place to start for finding files (including editor programs)

http://eliteforce2.filefront.com/

To figure out if you want to spend the time doing this... here's the basic EF Radiant tutorial.

http://eliteforce2.filefront.com/file/EF_Radiant_Tutorial;748

 

[Cary L. Brown]

I've had Elite Force for a few years now, but I've never seen the Expansion Pack anywhere. It's cut back on my ability to use some mods. I don't think it's being sold anymore, but even so, I really hesitate to ask where I could find it. Anybody have some options for me?

A moment ago I wrote you a private message... and while I was writing it I realized that yes, on Amazon you can still find copies of this (even NEW copies) being sold. You can probably also find it on Ebay, used, for less (if you only want the CD and not the packaging, this might not be a bad choice), though today, only a new one is on Ebay and it's more expensive than the ones you can get through Amazon (lowest-price "used but like new" copy is under $30).

 

[Albertus]

As the last two pics show what appear to be storage tanks (not anti-matter, they look much different) I suspect they are replicator draw tanks, filled with a base organic sludge for the Main Computer to reconstitute into desirable foods and beverages for the crew to enjoy.

They could also be air-scrubbers for environmental control. I work occasionally in my local sewage/waste water facility and the images look very much like the three storey air treatment/containment vessels.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

As the last two pics show what appear to be storage tanks (not anti-matter, they look much different) I suspect they are replicator draw tanks, filled with a base organic sludge for the Main Computer to reconstitute into desirable foods and beverages for the crew to enjoy.

They could also be air-scrubbers for environmental control. I work occasionally in my local sewage/waste water facility and the images look very much like the three storey air treatment/containment vessels.

I already said what they are. If you get the mod, you're told exactly what every room is. The guy who created this mod knows what he intended, of course. And those are the deuterium storage tanks in the last picture, and the "sanitary waste recycling system" in the second to last one.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

It wasn't too long ago that I reinstalled "Elite Force" and went through this stuff, but I'd had a bug (I couldn't see any ships in drydock). There's a solution for that, by the way... a command-line "tweak" to your Elite Force configuration... which I finally found. So I went back in and decided to try out the "Starbase 11" mod again.

The images seen earlier in this thread are from the "Dreadnought Mod" which is heavily based upon the "Starbase 11" mod, merged (in essence) with the "Virtual Voyager" mini-game from the Elite Force Expansion Pack (in other words, it uses stuff from both).

The "Starbase 11" mod isn't "live"... meaning that while you can walk around and explore, and even do some things ("use" a food slot and food appears, for instance, and some character will speak the first time you walk up to them... like McCoy saying (in reference to the Star League) "By God, that's a big ship" and so forth). But mostly, it's just something to explore and "sightsee" in.

The "Star League" mod, on the other hand, is "live"... crewmen walk around and will interact with you, and you have missions and goals to perform. Much (but not all) of the interior of the Star League was provided in the "Starbase 11" mod.

Anyway... I just thought I'd share a few shots from that, since I just got it working correctly (and since we were discussing it in this thread).

First off... here's where to find this mod (two places, each of which tells you different information re: the mod itself... and both places also have the Dreadnought mod available if you're up for it!)

http://spacestationk7.autom8on.net/index.php?f=starbase11

or

http://elitefarce.planets.gamespy.com/mods/starbase11/index.html

Now, much of the game "tour" is based planetside, but there's a full orbital facility you can explore. So, besides the interiors you see above, here are some of the other particularly interesting bits to be seen in the orbital facilities.

(To save load times for the entire page, I'll put these as thumbnails. Click the thumb to see the image in partial resolution... and then click it there to see it full-sized. Thanks for adding another step there, ImageShack! )

First... they came up with a pretty nifty (and consistent) idea for "workpods" in TOS times.


The drydock facilities are filled with "tabletop models" of various ships... here are a couple of the more interesting ones:

Obviously, the "refit" design was done at this point, even if not yet built...


And as you'll recall, Starfleet operates a fleet of freighters, not just Class-One Starships:


Now, there were several ships in drydock... three Constitution-class ships (including Enterprise), plus the FJ destroyer "Revere," and a two-nacelle-plus-torpedo-pod "heavy destroyer," a transport-tug (you can go on board the "liner pod"), and the Dreadnought "Star League" (which you can explore throughout).

Here's a view from the observation gallery of one of the Cruisers...


And the same cruiser, viewing aft... having one of its nacelles swapped out:


I didn't take any shots of the destroyers or the transport... but the Star League has several more galleries to view it from, so I took quite a few of this one. Now, the really cool thing about this is that everything is to "real scale"... it just feels HUGE.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Cary L. Brown

Yeah... 320 meters is almost as big as a Nimitz Class Carrier (332 m)

 

[Logan Byrne]

I am a massive newbie to mods, how do you gt them to work and what platforms do you have to have the games on?

 

[Cary L. Brown]

I am a massive newbie to mods, how do you gt them to work and what platforms do you have to have the games on?

Okay, I'll presume you've read the rest of the thread... and still don't have enough information to understand that... and I'll work from there.

"Elite Force" is a game published by Activision for the PC (Win9x/XP) several years back. You can still find copies in various places (Ebay, for instance).

The "Elite Force Expansion Pack" is required for this particular "mod" to work. That, also, can be found in various places. The expansion didn't really give you much new, but what it did give was reasonably cool... a lot of new "holodeck" (aka "player-versus-player combat," though possible to play against A.I. enemies as well) levels, not part of the main game. A couple of the "holodeck" games were short free-standing ones... like a fully black-and-white "Captain Proton" minigame. It also implemented the latest patch, and added a new "minigame" called "Virtual Voyager" where you basically get to explore the Voyager (and there are a few mini-missions, more like a scavenger hunt than anything else).

To get the two mods I mention above, you simply have to go to the websites I already provided the links for. To find out how to install them and run them, you simply need to READ the websites I linked you to.

Since this is an older game, you can easily crank all of the settings up to maximum, no problem.

If you've done all of the above and still have problems, you can spend a little time here:

http://spacestationk7.autom8on.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=24&sid=00ec08959c64e4ab502e4c173e0ded9e

... to find out the answer to your question. But don't do that without first reading the supplied "readme" files provided with the downloaded mod.

In my case, the problem (which WAS in the readme, even though I'd overlooked it!) was this:

To load the Starbase 11 mod, double-click the starbase11.bat file. If you haven't already done so, you should set com_hunkmegs to at least 128. To do this, bring down the console and type:

set com_hunkmegs 128

Quit EF and relaunch it, then load the mod. For best results, set com_hunkmegs to half the amount of your pc's total ram if you have more than 256 MB.