Birth of the Federation discussion

[Grimnirsson]

Run in 640 x 480

ugh, and that's not causing eye cancer?   :o

[mirth]

Martok (and anyone else who has experience with BotF), for new players do you recommend playing vanilla BoTF before trying one of the mods?

[Nefaro]

Martok (and anyone else who has experience with BotF), for new players do you recommend playing vanilla BoTF before trying one of the mods?

I think that's the usual M.O. for any game.

[Nefaro]

Run in 640 x 480

ugh, and that's not causing eye cancer?   :o

It gives me cancer just thinking about it.  And 256 colors?  Ouch! 

I wonder if I should try lowering the desktop colors to 16-bit?

[mirth]

Martok (and anyone else who has experience with BotF), for new players do you recommend playing vanilla BoTF before trying one of the mods?

I think that's the usual M.O. for any game.

Sure, but with something that old I'm wondering if there are issues with the base game that would make it preferable to jump right into a mod.

[Martok]

After installing under Win7 on a modern PC I get the errors mentioned above: The menu flickers and flashes dark, doesn't show some gfx, etc. 

This is the only way I could get the game to run without crashes due to video problems:


1. Install BoTF (probably from .iso is your best bet)
2. If you run it the way it is, it will freeze and crash, due to Windows 7 not being able to automatically dumb itself down to those levels
3. Enter compatibility mode... to enter compatibility mode on Windows 7:
3a. Right Click on the icon I am sure you have placed on the desktop, and click "Properties"
3b. Click the "compatibility" tab
3c. check the "run in compatibility mode" check box
3d. set the compatibility for "Windows 98/Windows ME"
3e. in the settings area, turn the following things on:
- Run in 256 colours
- Run in 640 x 480
- Disable Visual Themes
- Disable display scaling on high DPI settings
4. Click "Apply"
5. Run trek.exe (that is the icon you have just edited)

Is this for the Multi-installer?  Or is this for installing directly from the disk? 

Run in 640 x 480

ugh, and that's not causing eye cancer?   :o

It gives me cancer just thinking about it.  And 256 colors?  Ouch! 

I wonder if I should try lowering the desktop colors to 16-bit?

Yeah, that makes me cringe just picturing it.  BOTF already suffers from having its resolution locked at 800 x 600; I can scarcely imagine running it at an even lower resolution. 


I've no idea if that would work, Nefaro (I'm hopelessly clueless when it comes to technical issues like this), but you can certainly give it a try and see if it does the trick. 

Martok (and anyone else who has experience with BotF), for new players do you recommend playing vanilla BoTF before trying one of the mods?

I think that's the usual M.O. for any game.

Sure, but with something that old I'm wondering if there are issues with the base game that would make it preferable to jump right into a mod.

As long as you're playing BOTF off the Multi-installer, mirth -- and not off the disk -- it doesn't really matter.  It's the Multi-installer that includes the most recent patches/updates (which automatically get applied to the mods as well), so the vanilla game will run just as well as any of the mods. 

The mods generally address issues of balance, content, visuals, and (to some extent) mechanics & gameplay.  Some of them do also fix various minor bugs (such as being unable to make diplomatic contact with minor races already membered to another empire), but generally speaking, they don't fundamentally affect actual performance. 

[tgb]

FYI it runs just fine on my Win 8 system.

Quick question on the mods.  Does the Balance of Power mod also include all of the fixes from the Error Correction mod?  If not, which would you recommend?

[mirth]

As long as you're playing BOTF off the Multi-installer, mirth -- and not off the disk -- it doesn't really matter.  It's the Multi-installer that includes the most recent patches/updates (which automatically get applied to the mods as well), so the vanilla game will run just as well as any of the mods. 

The mods generally address issues of balance, content, visuals, and (to some extent) mechanics & gameplay.  Some of them do also fix various minor bugs (such as being unable to make diplomatic contact with minor races already membered to another empire), but generally speaking, they don't fundamentally affect actual performance. 

Thanks, Martok. I installed the Multi-Installer version last night and I added the Balance of Power mod. I'm going to give it a go with that.

[Martok]

FYI it runs just fine on my Win 8 system.

Glad to hear it, tgb!  I won't pretend I have a clue as to why the game runs fine on Win7/8 for some folks and not for others, but regardless I'm very pleased it's working well for you. 

Quick question on the mods.  Does the Balance of Power mod also include all of the fixes from the Error Correction mod? 

It includes a lot of the various fixes, but not all of them, no.  Quite a few of the fixes were discovered after BOP stopped getting updated, which was a couple years ago.  (We're afraid the mod's creator, Gowron, may have passed away -- he'd been ill for some time -- but no one's been able to confirm this.) 

If not, which would you recommend?

Well UDM3, AAM, and the Galaxies mod probably include the most number of fixes (other than the EC mod), as they're the ones that have been most recently updated.  However, none of them include all the fixes discovered thus far -- not even the Error Correction mod, although it's only missing a few of them. 


Happily, however, there is another option:  One of the modders has created a tool called BOTF Patcher, which allows you to apply just about any & all existing fixes to whatever mod you're playing.  If there's a patch incompatible with a certain mod (which incidentally, probably means the mod already incorporates said patch), it'll appear as red, so you don't have to worry about it messing up your game. 

It's a very handy and fairly easy-to-use tool -- at least, I'm assuming it's easy to use, since *I* was able to figure out how to use it (and I'm honestly as dumb as can be when it comes to this sort of thing :P ) -- and I can't recommend it enough.  I used the Patcher for the BOP mod, and it worked like a charm. 

As long as you're playing BOTF off the Multi-installer, mirth -- and not off the disk -- it doesn't really matter.  It's the Multi-installer that includes the most recent patches/updates (which automatically get applied to the mods as well), so the vanilla game will run just as well as any of the mods. 

The mods generally address issues of balance, content, visuals, and (to some extent) mechanics & gameplay.  Some of them do also fix various minor bugs (such as being unable to make diplomatic contact with minor races already membered to another empire), but generally speaking, they don't fundamentally affect actual performance. 

Thanks, Martok. I installed the Multi-Installer version last night and I added the Balance of Power mod. I'm going to give it a go with that.

Aweseome, man.  I hope you enjoy it! 

[solops]

Is there any way to mod out the Borg only and still play with the other random events?

Also, I am playing with the multi-mod version. This is fast becoming one of my favorite games and it is much, much better than MOO2. All these years and all that developers have given us in new offerings is slicker graphics and better UI....disappointing.

[Martok]

Is there any way to mod out the Borg only and still play with the other random events?

There is, although I'm not sure if I remember exactly how to do it.  I know it's actually a pretty simple fix, though. 

I think you go into the stbof.ini file and edit BORG=ON to BORG=OFF (make sure the file still shows RANDOM EVENTS=ON).  It's something like that, anyway; I may be forgetting a step or two. 

Also, I am playing with the multi-mod version. This is fast becoming one of my favorite games and it is much, much better than MOO2. All these years and all that developers have given us in new offerings is slicker graphics and better UI....disappointing.

Cool!  Glad you're enjoying it solops.  :D 

[Martok]

Incidentally, I've (finally!) started my AAR for BOTF.  Link

I'm not really writing it as a "how to" guide or anything (especially not the first chapter) -- I usually write more story-based AARs -- but newbies to the game might get a little better feel as to how Birth of the Federation plays. 

[LongBlade]

Fun. I need to sit down and read that.

[Martok]

I hope you enjoy it! 

The next chapter will deal with more of the "meat-and-potatoes" of gameplay:  I'll be including a fair number of screenies that show what I put in build queues early on, which tech field(s) I research first, where I establish my first colony, etc. 

[BanzaiCat]

I hate to ask a stupid question, but this IS the Internet, and Martok, I think your BotF AAR thread has been hijacked enough. :)

I've gone to the website Mirth specified back in the AAR (http://www.armadafleetcommand.com/botf/), and the site has a tutorial for installing the "Multi main installer." However, clicking that link ("BOTF_1.0.2_English_German_e.exe") takes me to a page that says "You are trying to access a restricted area."

It seems like this should be a pretty simple procedure, but there's so many files and things listed there I wouldn't know where to begin, especially when the page doesn't work. At least, not for me.