Topic: Is it possible to add seperate playable races to SFC3?

[Captain KoraH]

Anyone done this yet?

Captain KoraH

[3dot14]

If anyone finds out, please post.

This question has been asked since SFC1, and there is no success story yet.

[Aenigma]

BUMP

i would like to know this as well  

[Captain KoraH]

I found referances to the Cardassians and Species 8472 in many of the game files. Perhaps the .exe was left with the bits necessarry to make them playable?? If so, I will never say anything bad about Taldren again, no matter what they do. I'll kiss their feet till the day I die.

Taldren, what files would have to be modified to add say, the Cardassian race to SFC3???

Captain KoraH

[Sorok]

Well, this is a two sided question.....  However, before answering, there is a difference between "Is it possible" and "Has anyone figured it out yet" .  The server kit for SFC3 is RIDICULOUSLY non-user friendly.  I'll never understand why, but someone made the executive decision to produce a server kit which is downloaded completely seperate from the game, and has virtually no user interface whatsoever.  IMO, this severely inhibits the growth and versatility of the Dynaverse.  Having spent the last 2 weeks fiddling around with the server kit, my respect for the server admins has increased tenfold due to the complexity of changing any options for an individual server.

Having said that,  a couple D3 admins have successfully added the Cardassians and Dominion as playable races.  Unfortunately,  due to the fact that there are only 4 available slots for human players to choose from, any additional races you will find will be intermingled with one or more of the existing races. Example: Chris Jones has made a fantastic mod, using ships from the Dominion Wars.  All the Dominion, Cardassian, and Breen ships are found in the romulan shiplist.  All the romulan ships, are subsequently moved into the Klingon shiplist. Other people have made similar mods, and have also used identical methods to add new races.

 Using that as an example, to answer your question: Yes, people CAN add races to a D3 server.  But at the same time it is an EXTREMELY daunting task whereas it involves some pretty detailed script modifications to the server kit. This task becomes even more compicated when trying to determine racial alliances.  At this point in time, I believe that NOONE has figured out how to add a race while setting up every race as an enemy (ie. every race for itself).

If anyone wants to at least try out a new race, I recommend heading over to the "New Worlds Server". I am in no way affiliated with that organization, but the server admin was a tremendous help to me on this particular subject, and he has modded his server to add the Cardassian and Dominion as a playable race.  (Of course, all clients will have to download and install his mod before joining.)  

[Koloth]

The biggest problem is the Character Selection Screen. There is no user access to the sprites.q3 file to get a hold of the art assets for this game to mod. If we had that file user-accessible; then, we could add profile pictures for the new races and change the layout of the buttons and the interface for the game. Then, all we would need to go is alter some gf settings and walla, new races. I made some neat race-specfic interfaces using Adobe Photoshop. However, they cannot be used because they go in that file. Personally, I do not think Taldren is going to open that file anytime soon because SFC still makes money. When SFC makes no money anymore a long time from now, perhaps...a big perhaps.

[3dot14]

Quote:
The biggest problem is the Character Selection Screen. There is no user access to the sprites.q3 file to get a hold of the art assets for this game to mod. If we had that file user-accessible; then, we could add profile pictures for the new races and change the layout of the buttons and the interface for the game. Then, all we would need to go is alter some gf settings and walla, new races. I made some neat race-specfic interfaces using Adobe Photoshop. However, they cannot be used because they go in that file. Personally, I do not think Taldren is going to open that file anytime soon because SFC still makes money. When SFC makes no money anymore a long time from now, perhaps...a big perhaps.  

Agreed. the most unmoddable part is the sprites.q3. and that is essential to any large scale race additions.

(being able to add/tweak weapon behaviors is the other essential yet unmoddable part)

Frankly I don't think you should count on the "references" too much. SFC2 had refgrences to Tholian and Andromedans too. and none of them have materialized.
 

[Aenigma]

Could someone from Taldren answer the question?  

[FEDX-Laad]

whats even more intersting is the fact there is oganic weapon damage in the assets/texture section. and yes there is alot of references to species 8472 and cardasians and it would appear they were slatted to be added and tauldren found the ran out of time and delete or didn't finish adding all of those 2 races to the game. It is impossible to play as those two races for the ship models do not exist for them.

[Stormbringer]

Of course models exist for them. I've seen them at several SFC model sites. What if all you need to do is add the models and tinker with the maps (+scripts)?

[Captain KoraH]

Ok, here is a list of all the problems I know about with regard to adding a playable seperate race to SFC3:

1. You cannot add any new entries to the XXXitem.gf files in the "CommonSettings" folder.
     a. No "Dominion Shield X" for example.
     b. No Dominion Warp V" for another example.

2. You cannot add any new weapons to the game.
     a. All your Dominion ships will have Romulan disruptors... because you can't make entries for "Domionion Phased
         Polaron Beam" or any other new weapon.

Without this functionality, talk of adding races is pointless. I have concluded that it is impossible without support from Taldren to add seperate playable races to SFC3.


Taldren: Would anyone care to answer this for us? Even a simple and polite "No way." would be better than silence.


Captain KoraH

[rdwhitley]

Hello Taldren? I would like to see this happen. What would it take for Taldren to open up the parts of the game that we need access to? I would like to add the Gorn as a playable race. I am writting an adventure I would like to use in sfc3 and need the Gorn to be playable.  

[Captain KoraH]

Anyone done this yet?

Captain KoraH

[3dot14]

If anyone finds out, please post.

This question has been asked since SFC1, and there is no success story yet.

[Aenigma]

BUMP

i would like to know this as well  

[Captain KoraH]

I found referances to the Cardassians and Species 8472 in many of the game files. Perhaps the .exe was left with the bits necessarry to make them playable?? If so, I will never say anything bad about Taldren again, no matter what they do. I'll kiss their feet till the day I die.

Taldren, what files would have to be modified to add say, the Cardassian race to SFC3???

Captain KoraH

[Sorok]

Well, this is a two sided question.....  However, before answering, there is a difference between "Is it possible" and "Has anyone figured it out yet" .  The server kit for SFC3 is RIDICULOUSLY non-user friendly.  I'll never understand why, but someone made the executive decision to produce a server kit which is downloaded completely seperate from the game, and has virtually no user interface whatsoever.  IMO, this severely inhibits the growth and versatility of the Dynaverse.  Having spent the last 2 weeks fiddling around with the server kit, my respect for the server admins has increased tenfold due to the complexity of changing any options for an individual server.

Having said that,  a couple D3 admins have successfully added the Cardassians and Dominion as playable races.  Unfortunately,  due to the fact that there are only 4 available slots for human players to choose from, any additional races you will find will be intermingled with one or more of the existing races. Example: Chris Jones has made a fantastic mod, using ships from the Dominion Wars.  All the Dominion, Cardassian, and Breen ships are found in the romulan shiplist.  All the romulan ships, are subsequently moved into the Klingon shiplist. Other people have made similar mods, and have also used identical methods to add new races.

 Using that as an example, to answer your question: Yes, people CAN add races to a D3 server.  But at the same time it is an EXTREMELY daunting task whereas it involves some pretty detailed script modifications to the server kit. This task becomes even more compicated when trying to determine racial alliances.  At this point in time, I believe that NOONE has figured out how to add a race while setting up every race as an enemy (ie. every race for itself).

If anyone wants to at least try out a new race, I recommend heading over to the "New Worlds Server". I am in no way affiliated with that organization, but the server admin was a tremendous help to me on this particular subject, and he has modded his server to add the Cardassian and Dominion as a playable race.  (Of course, all clients will have to download and install his mod before joining.)  

[Koloth]

The biggest problem is the Character Selection Screen. There is no user access to the sprites.q3 file to get a hold of the art assets for this game to mod. If we had that file user-accessible; then, we could add profile pictures for the new races and change the layout of the buttons and the interface for the game. Then, all we would need to go is alter some gf settings and walla, new races. I made some neat race-specfic interfaces using Adobe Photoshop. However, they cannot be used because they go in that file. Personally, I do not think Taldren is going to open that file anytime soon because SFC still makes money. When SFC makes no money anymore a long time from now, perhaps...a big perhaps.

[3dot14]

Quote:
The biggest problem is the Character Selection Screen. There is no user access to the sprites.q3 file to get a hold of the art assets for this game to mod. If we had that file user-accessible; then, we could add profile pictures for the new races and change the layout of the buttons and the interface for the game. Then, all we would need to go is alter some gf settings and walla, new races. I made some neat race-specfic interfaces using Adobe Photoshop. However, they cannot be used because they go in that file. Personally, I do not think Taldren is going to open that file anytime soon because SFC still makes money. When SFC makes no money anymore a long time from now, perhaps...a big perhaps.  

Agreed. the most unmoddable part is the sprites.q3. and that is essential to any large scale race additions.

(being able to add/tweak weapon behaviors is the other essential yet unmoddable part)

Frankly I don't think you should count on the "references" too much. SFC2 had refgrences to Tholian and Andromedans too. and none of them have materialized.
 

[Aenigma]

Could someone from Taldren answer the question?  

[FEDX-Laad]

whats even more intersting is the fact there is oganic weapon damage in the assets/texture section. and yes there is alot of references to species 8472 and cardasians and it would appear they were slatted to be added and tauldren found the ran out of time and delete or didn't finish adding all of those 2 races to the game. It is impossible to play as those two races for the ship models do not exist for them.

[Stormbringer]

Of course models exist for them. I've seen them at several SFC model sites. What if all you need to do is add the models and tinker with the maps (+scripts)?

[Captain KoraH]

Ok, here is a list of all the problems I know about with regard to adding a playable seperate race to SFC3:

1. You cannot add any new entries to the XXXitem.gf files in the "CommonSettings" folder.
     a. No "Dominion Shield X" for example.
     b. No Dominion Warp V" for another example.

2. You cannot add any new weapons to the game.
     a. All your Dominion ships will have Romulan disruptors... because you can't make entries for "Domionion Phased
         Polaron Beam" or any other new weapon.

Without this functionality, talk of adding races is pointless. I have concluded that it is impossible without support from Taldren to add seperate playable races to SFC3.


Taldren: Would anyone care to answer this for us? Even a simple and polite "No way." would be better than silence.


Captain KoraH

[rdwhitley]

Hello Taldren? I would like to see this happen. What would it take for Taldren to open up the parts of the game that we need access to? I would like to add the Gorn as a playable race. I am writting an adventure I would like to use in sfc3 and need the Gorn to be playable.