Part 4: Terraformin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo

While the terraforming goes well on Tohvun or Tenpin or whatever it’s called, the NX-01 Seadragon continues its clockwise path around its outer range.

We come across the star system that the Department of Galactic Naming calls Hurada. Note to assistant: mandatory drug tests for the Department of Galactic Naming. What they’re coming up with sounds like what my bowels did last night after that plate of ripe Ga’hk.

Hurada looks like a decent enough system, with an Oceanic planet that has a food bonus. That’ll be on the list of future colonies, to be sure; at least for now it falls behind Sarona.

Finally, those slackers on the first Colony Ship finish the work of terraforming the planets of the Tohvun system. I might have been off by a few pop points, but this system can handle 270. Since every 10 pop points equals one slot in the production queue, that’s 27 potential workers for the Federation’s glory. Not too bad. Could be better, but definitely could be worse. And if I were playing the vanilla version of Birth of the Federation, it likely WOULD be a lot worse.

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Part 3: Oopsies all around

Wait…hello, nurse!

I’m using HyperSnap, and for some reason, the suns aren’t appearing in the screenshots. Nor are the dilithium displays. So, I’ve downloaded Fraps to capture these things, so let’s see if it’s done right.

Looks like it.

So, the Seadragon moves into the Sarona star system and finds not only lots of big planets with energy and food bonuses…but dilithium as well! This is huge news, because dilithium is what makes starships move, and starships moving means the Federation becoming big and powerful, which means we’re safer when we run into ali-err, I mean, IF we run into aliens, of course. Continue reading →

Part 2: Terraformin’

Fortunately there are no alien life forms in the Tohvun system. While this is a sad little system with tiny little planets (two Barren, one Desert, one Jungle, and one Arctic), the Jungle planet has a food bonus for its fertile soil, and the Desert planet has some great angles or something to it so it catches lots of rays for solar energy absorption. Or something. It’s pretty scientific, you probably wouldn’t even understand.

Those brave colonists immediately began to terraform the planets in the Tohvun system. Meanwhile, I took a look at how things were here in the Sol system. That’s where Earth is, don’cha know.

We’ve managed to terraform Mars, but not Venus, Mercury, or Pluto. Right now we have room for about another 80 population, but if we terraformed those three planets we’d have a shot at really growing our britches off.

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Part 0: Introduction

I was very impressed by Martok’s Birth of the Federation AAR (“Ex Astris, Scientia”: a Birth of the Federation AAR). So much so that I decided to do my own.

While he did the Balance of Power mod, which I’m honestly not familiar with as I’ve not played it extensively, I am doing the “All the Ages” mod, which more closely resembles the ‘true’ Star Trek experience, from the NX-01 Enterprise to the Nemesis-era Enterprise-E.

I will play the Federation in this one. I never liked playing the others as much, even though I’ve done all of them. I’d like to think that the Federation’s rosy, hippy-fueled outlook of exploring for its own sake is the best reason to undertake a journey to the stars, rather than exploiting resources or trade routes (the Ferengi), or being a conquering neandrathal (everyone else, pretty much). You could certainly play the Federation as a conquering force, but their population of weed-smoking liberals will not tolerate that for more than a planet or two before they go into some serious levels of rebellion. Continue reading →