Topic: As my old 1SG used to say...

[Red_Green]

I know whats involved in a mod. That is except for the server aspects to it. When you take into account the 6 months to a year spent on a mod, the time spent on credits is very minor. Especially if you add up the combined time that was spent by people that are allowing you to use there work. Which is a privalege that is sometimes taken for granted. I am posting my readme from version 2 just as an example of how I credit. If anyone sees anything missing let me know. I probably got carried away listing indiviual ships, but since the mod had 65-80 ships it was not that much more involved to do. I didn't list names in any specific order. I wish I had time to expand this mod in the future. But it does take a lot of time and I started up my own business (Un-related to models obviously) so I spend more time here already than I really can afford to.


This mod is dedicated to my sister Debbie 1958-1998.

Special thanks to V1ctor1st, Katherine & Nicola Venra over at http://www.stcd.sgnonline.com/
for hosting this mod as well as forum hosting.


Title      : Rise of Kingdoms II
Version         : 2.0 for SFC3 patched to version 531   
Date      : 9/24/04
Mod Author      : red_green


Mod contributors:

Karnak - missions
The Pelican -missions
Queball - ships
The New Guy - science fiction story
SkinMan - ships
Atrahasis - ships
ToastyO - wallpaper
DarkMatrix - SFC porting of ships
Cpt. LC Amaral - ship
Dawn - ship
Mackie - kitbash
Admiral Ljungberg - ship
P81 - ships
Atheorhaven - Textures/ship file conversion
Pataflafla - sFC ship port
Knox1711 - Kitbash
Vichama - conversion of ship to SFC3
NightStorm - SFC3 ship conversion
S31-Data - game testing
S31-Chuck - game testing

More detailed credits listed after Overview. Ship credits also appear
in each model folder as well as in the visual library. The New Guys story appears in
the intro screens to the Lyran Campaign. His story is available in word document in
the same folder as the readme to this mod.



Mod Overview
___________________

   A complete race substitution featuring minor SFB races and pirates.
   This meant not just adding ships to existing races, but entirely
   swapping them out. The Hydrans replace the Klingons. The Lyrans
   are added in with the Romulans. Pirates replace the Borg, while Feds remain
   in their original slot. This was done partly to give SFB races
   the spotlight, but also because it allowed more freedom to change
   weapon arcs, textures, cloak availability and other ship characteristics.
   As well as swapping of music, voices and sounds.

   While not a huge mod. I strifed to make it one of the best SFC3 mods quality wise.
   




Mod Installation
________________


1: Uninstall your current SFC3 version. Remove the Activision folder then reboot the
   computer.

2: Reinstall SFC3. Then install Build 531 Full Patch. This patch is available here.
   http://starfleetcommand3.filefront.com/file.info?ID=29206

3: Extract all 6 parts of the KingdomsII mod to your hard drive. Move these extracted files to your
   Activison folder and allow any files to be over written.
 
4: It is of the utmost importance that you do all 3 steps above before you play the game.
   If you play a game and then add the mod, the new missions won't show up. This is
   because the 1st time the game runs in makes cache files for the missions. Then
   it loads the files directly from these cache files.




Changes made since version 1.1

1) Increased damage of Inversion beams from 11 to 13.

2) Increase damage of myotronic beam from 10 to 12.

3) Increased R-disruptors slightly.

4) Decreased damage of anti-matter mines from 26 to 22.

5) Decreased damage of Ion-Cannon from 19 to 18.

6) Increased warp power of Pirates by 16%. Increased cost as well.

7) Advanced warp engines now cost more to reflect there lower mass and ability to equip
   higher thrusters when they are used.

Energy draw of tachyon beams lowered.

9) Refit alerts elliminated and previouly un-refittable weapons given normal mass figures.
   Note-Light Plasma remains only available to Romulans. Though romulans can now equip any
   Heavy available to the Lyran slot. Removing the light PLasma is ill advised as it is
   modded to act like medium plasma (damage20) to aid Romulan ships that still have
   traditional narrow arcs.

10) Five classes of cloak now available to ships that have a 2nd bridge hardpoint. There
    are now 8 ships available that can equip cloaking devices. None above Cl class.

11) New fonts added throughout the game. There from SFC2. Most of the fonts are Hydran and
    appear thoughout approximately 60% of the game.

12) A science fiction story by The New Guy appears in the 4 introduction screens as the
    Lyran campaign loads. Be sure to read it. This story is in Lyran font.

13) Seventeen new ships added and one retextured ship.

14) Visual Library and Tactical ship displays are all redone to fix over lapping arcs and general disorder. There all organized nice and neat now. 

15) Fixed Dragoon not having light maps assigned.

16) Hydran Eclipse ship is renamed to Ancestor due to a problem that arose when I added the Federation Eclipse.

17) Fixed no ambient engine sound for pirate slot by added new sound.

18) All ships now are equipped with tractor III instead of tractor IV.

19) All ships now come with a weapon loaded on every available arc. This helps make the AI harder. Many ships now come with higher thrusters, warp, impulse armor and shields.

20) A couple ships now have 13 weapon arcs instead of 14. Found out the maximum displayed on screen in red or yellow is 13.

21) Edited some beauty shots for the Hydrans. Got rid of some grey splothes in them.

22) Pirates now have photon torpedos available to them.

23) Energy draw of Lyran disruptors increased slightly. Energy draw of pirate cutting beams altered as well.

24) Increased shield strength and armor for defense platforms.

25) Turn rates increased by roughly 50% for frigates, 30% for destroyers and 10% for remaining classes.

26) Pirate cutting beams incresed slightly. In most cases by 1.

27) Pirate shields 1-3 increased slightly

28) Hydran fighters now come with forward and aft shields.

29) Improved light maps for Hydrans

30) Improved damage maps for Lyrans.

31) A few more Karnak missions added since version. 

32) Most bitmaps are converted to 8 bit to make play on the server smoother.
    Damage maps and lightmaps resized to 256 by 256 for the same reasons.
    This also allowed me to add missions that use more ships, such as
    Karnak's Fleet Action. Which is 6 vs 7 for 13 total ships in the mission!
    The main maps remain at 512.

33) Changed number of officers available for review fron 6, back to 8.

34) Hydran fighter and Pirate shuttle changed to lower polyigon versions.

35) All ships now come with 50% more marines.

36) Two missions by the Pelican have been added. Emergency and Survey.


Mission Credits
_______________

These 12 missions below are by el-Karnak. 

"Kar_ConvoyRaid.scr"
"Kar_HomelandDefence.scr"
"Kar_DeepSpace.scr"
"Kar_HoldtheLine.scr"
"Kar_Skirmish.scr"
"Kar_SquadronAction.scr"
"Kar_JointOps.scr"
"Kar_CombinedArms.scr"
"Kar_EnemySweep.scr"
"Kar_ConvoyEscort.scr"
"Kar_FleetAction.scr"
"Kar_CounterPunch.scr"

The 2 missions below are by Pelican.

"Meta_Emergency.scr"
"Meta_Survey.scr"






Story writing Credits
_____________________

Lyran/Romulan Peace treaty story by The New Guy.

Hydran Mission Intro by red_green.

Story Board Credits
___________________

Each board in the visual library has the credits listed at bottom. Credits include SFC1
and SFC2 for art and background information. One of the backgrounds used is by ToastyO.

Music/Voice Credits
___________________

Music and voices were added to replace the stock ones for the Romulan, Klingon and Borg slots.
These all came from SFC1 and SFC2.

Ship Credits
____________


Ships by Queball
________________

Nihydron
Zahl
Victory
Kazon raider


Ships by Atrahasis
__________________

Talarian (renamed to Banar for purposes of this mod)
Tamarian



Ships ported to SFC by DarkMatrix
_________________________________

Delta Flyer originally from EliteForcesII
Dark Vor'cha from EliteForces
Dominion battlecruiser from Armada
Griffin from Armada
Kazon raider
NiHydran
Victory
Zahl
Raptor (renamed to Tarus for purposes of this mod)



Ship ported by Pataflafla
_________________________

Valdore


Ships by SkinMan
________________

Fed Brel
Eclipse
Hydran Brel
Steam Runner
Kvort-Cha (renamed Thunderduck for purposes of this mod)
Romulan BOP
Defiant Shuttle



Ships by P81/Mackie/Atheorhaven
______________________________

Belmont



Ship by Admiral Ljungberg/P81/Knox1711
_____________________________

Melbourne


Ship by Cpt. LC Amaral
______________________

Raptor (renamed to Tarus for purposes of this mod)


Ship by Dawn
____________

Valdore



Ships by P81
____________

Dauntless (converted to SFC3 by Vichama)
Norway (converted to SFC3 by NightStorm)
Intrepid
Akira
Centaur
Defiant
Excelsior
Galaxy
Nebula




Ships by red_green
__________________
(note ships with * denote ships that I wish to remain exclusive to this mod, please do
not include them in any future mods.)

Ancestor
Citadel*
Defender
Dragoon
Drandath*
Hydran Base*
Hunter*
Inexorable
Jungle Mother*
Kantag
Lancer
Lyran Base*
Mutom*
Necromancer*
Omen
Persuasion
Protector
Prowess*
Raven*
Rumbler*
Serpenticon*
Sling*
Smilodon*
Soultaker*
Starclaw*
Stinger
Talisman*
Tracker*
Zadika*



Ships edited by red_green
_________________________
(These are either kitbashes or retextures of stock models.)

Hydran retex of stock Bop.
Cobra
Exorcist
Pirate Base
Phantasm
Piranha
Quip
Stalker
Wolverine
Zephyr



Texture Credits
______________

Disruptors, cutting beams, tactical display, tractors, mines, the sun, tactical overlay and
planet atmospheres all are Taldren textures edited by red_green.



Font Credits
____________
All new fonts used in this mod are fron SFC/OP




****Please notify my of any errors in crediting. I made an effort to get them as accurate
as possible. In certain cases where no readme was available with the ship, I created a
new one.*********************************



Known Issues
____________

1: Only single player conquest mode is playable. The storyline is not playable
   because it uses Klingon/Romulan ships that are now unavailable.

2: Picards voice overs will not be available. The number of sound files would make the mod gigantic.

3: The story boards in the visually library are not ships. They are Asteroid bases.
   They cost the same as the regular ones and are equipped the same.

4: This mod was built on my 800MZ Athalon computer. This mod needs a computer equivalent
   to that or higher for best performance. The models I make are limited to 1 or 2 bitmaps
   to reduce the burden put on the graphics card. All ships and missions have been tested
   on this machine.

5: Certain points in specific missions, may have a bit of lag as new ships are being created.
   One example is in Convoy Escort. After several minutes you recieve reinforcements. On my
   machine I experience a 1 to 2 second lag period while the ships upload. The mission is
   too much fun to leave out and some of you will have better machines than me, so I
   included it.

6: In the Lyran/Romulan race slot. Only Romulans come equipped with plasma. Once removed it can't
   be refitted with plasma again. This is to prevent the Lyrans from equipping it in order
   to make these two races unique. The Lyrans have wider arcs to compensate for lack of plasma. 





Copyright and Distribution Permissions
--------------------------------------
THIS MODEL(S) IS NOT MADE, DISTRIBUTED, OR SUPPORTED BY ACTIVISION OR INTERPLAY.
TM & (C) INTERPLAY & PARAMOUNT PICTURES.

Copyright notices:

Star Trek, Star Fleet Command, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: The Next Generation,
Star Trek: Voyager (and the various logo devices used in them) are copyright Paramount Pictures,
as are the characters, related images, and sound from the productions.


This mod is intended for non-profit personal use only.

Read me author: red_green aka ship_rods
                 

[S31-Riptide]

Could you write mine up... you do it much better then me! lol  But I must say that you are the only modder that I know that gets that indepth.  I do have the flip side of the coin to the following statement... be it a devils advocates roll here....

Especially if you add up the combined time that was spent by people that are allowing you to use there work. Which is a privalege that is sometimes taken for granted.

Well seeing I'm on both sides of the fence here...  Would it not be a privalege for someones models to be in one of the great Mods?  Modders patients with Modelers is always taken for granted?  Now I'm not going to name any names but I have heard in the past statements from modders, Old school Modders things like...  That God D$*# premaddana, where does he get off changing his mind after a release about model use!  or   I emailed the SOB 5 times and he never replied, until I used the model... then he replied from the very same email address I'd been sending them too! 

I must say your above statement could be, as I did at first, seems a little snooty and looking down the nose. 

In SFC3, long ago the standards for credits was set, plain and simple, unless otherwise agreed upon, just keeping the read me file inplace was all that was needed.  Now there seems to be a newer crowd moving in and some have forgotten the old school agreements, on both sides.   I can tell you one thing... if I get too much grief from a model maker after an agreement of use has been made... I will make it all too publicly known that the person in question is untrustworthy and that there word mean nothing.  There are too many outlets for freedom of speech, and that is all the gamer needs to hear before there oppinion is swayed.  This is not in any way a threat, but a policy of mine ever since I had a modeler "forget" that permission was granted, causing my mod to be pulled down for a site, before I was even contacted. 

It is simple and the following statement sums it all up.

The best compliment a Modeler can get is for a Modder using his models in a mod.
The best compliment a Modder can get is for a Modeler to alow use of a model.

This is a fine ballance, that I feel modelers are trying to tip.  The scale was even, now it is heavy on the model side. Your work is no more, nor, more less important than a Modders... simular hours goes into both.  Modelers just want there name in lights, where modders just want people to have fun, for the most part... don't even try to argue this last point as this whole thread leads to this conclusion.  Now there are exceptions to this rule as there are to every rule.

Now if I've pissed anyone off for speaking my mind... so be it, it needs to be said. 
Nothing personal to anyone person.

One last quote before I'm through (because I had a ransid night at work lastnight lol)

Raven Night (CEO Nightsoft)

Guys, we are modding a game that does not belong to us, using a trademark that does not belong to us based on a storyline that does not belong to us. We are ALL borrowing someone elses ideas. We might want to remember that the next time our egos speak before our brains do.

AMEN RAVEN!!!!

<S>

[Red_Green]

Riptide , this is the second time you have quoted me as either being a snob or snooty. I don't recall ever seeing a modder getting any grief from a moddeler. I was referring to a mod with no credits to anyone being listed. I do not see how that is a compliment to anyone. How can it be if no one playing the mod knows who contributed to it?

As far as that statement about we are all modding a game that belongs to someone else. Well I mysewlf have stopped modding for the game. Period, because I gave it some thought and we all have been disrespecting the authours and creators od ST and Stargate. So I guess we are all snobs then according to your terms.

[Red_Green]

I must say your above statement could be, as I did at first, seems a little snooty and looking down the nose. 

 
Nothing personal to anyone person.

One last quote before I'm through (because I had a ransid night at work lastnight lol)

You know if you didn't mean anything personally, you wouldn't be singling me out on more than 1 occasion and using emotive language. It seams as though your are going out of your way to make this a modder vs modeler issue. As you can see I have done both as well. Isn;t it fuuny that in the last 2 weeks a total of 4 modelers no longer post there models for public use. You keep saying stuff line modlers want thier name in lights and have ego problems. This only puts fuel on the fire. I believe there is a general lack of respect. You seem to feel as you stated several times that once a model is released it is freeware and anyone can do whatever they want with it. I do not agree, If the model has a readme, by downloading that model, the person using it is agreeing to use the model as intened by the author of that model. Models used without permission is just unethical. I can see that you just do not get that.

[Red_Green]

Someone with this type of an attitude and general disrespecy for work done by modelers has no business being a dyna Admin!!

[exadvent]

To get back to Bonk's idea of hidden marks if administrators knew how to check for these marks before a submitted mod was uploaded their existence would not have to be general public knowledge.  People who found out and would ask to be able to mark their models are people who IMHO would respect other modellers rights.  People who submitted models whose credits did not agree with the marks would be exposed and would not be able to make any excuse.

However as I have never been an administrator, I certainly have no right to suggest that they take on an additional time consuming task.

[S31-Riptide]

I must say your above statement could be, as I did at first, seems a little snooty and looking down the nose.

Reread please, seems at first, not is...


And I take it that you skipped over this statement

I do have the flip side of the coin to the following statement... be it a devils advocates roll here....

As far as that statement about we are all modding a game that belongs to someone else.

That was a Quote from Raven not me...

You seem to feel as you stated several times that once a model is released it is freeware and anyone can do whatever they want with it.

the above is true with mods... no legal recourse. Same with models in a .mod format. no new news here.

As to what mod you recently downloaded that left all credits out, I would really like to know the name of the mod.  Peer presher from all sides works.

Someone with this type of an attitude and general disrespecy for work done by modelers has no business being a dyna Admin!!

Now if I'm not mistaken, this is a person attack on my integridy? I have earn much respect in the SFC3 community and have proven myself honorable.  First I thought this was a General Debate... but now I see this thread other wise...


I'm just offering up the flip side of the coin... sorry Rod if you don't like the devils advocate opinion.  And no I was not singling anyone out, you just happened to give one side of the debate, if it where written by others, then I would have used them by example.

I have always had great respect for the greatest modelers right down the the new guy trying his hardest.

This was only a Gentlemens Debate... don't make anything

[Star Dragon]

Model_Peon,

   May I use your post as a template for my mod credits? (the relevant data would be diff of course, but the general  layout the same)

   Of course you would be credited (I am NOT trying to be funny, I'm serious!)    I've seen video credits befiore, and am toying with an idea of taking it a step further as to how elaborate to make them...
 


   I may not have the right to an opinion here about his subject, but as a converter (only!) I damn near worship many of the users on this and other Trek boards for their selfless and tireless devotion to all gaming (no matter if it is SFC3, KA, A2, BC, BOTF, or others...)..

   They have a talent I lack (trust me I proved it), and that talent is taking what is in people's heads and turning it into physical form so we all can enjoy, "Blowing the Pogies outta them!" - dont ask me who said that, somebody did...

   Is it so unreasonable for Modling people to understand that the untalented masses want to use their hard work.  ALSO... Is it so unreasonable for the masses to undestand that these Modler's want the credit they DESERVE???

   This to me is a no-brainer...  Don't punish the general public for the transgressions (intentional) of the few. instead of keeping "incidents" in the dark, shine the light of truth on them and watch the roaches scurry to the dark corners. THAT's how you stop them. To do anyting more is taking too much of your personal time, energy and stress. Allowing them to kill your enjoyment of modding & gaming is simply unacceptable.


That's my .02