News

Intro

News are listed at Main Page at News Area

News from the project itself please see Forum. Check also progress on bitbucket.org, especially Bloodwurm's bitbucket.org and be sure BotF2 Team is working on BotF2 even you don't see something :-)

News

2014-03-07

• new Update-Download via http://botf2.square7.ch/homepage/ , containing
  • Code: 2014-02-28 "1st BasicAI"
  • Data: 2014-03-07: new TechObjectDatabase.xml included and error corrected HomeSystems.xml
  • Stuff: /Backgrounds provided

2014-03-06

• Kenneth provided new HomeSystems.xml and TechObjectDatabase.xml

2014-01-31

Source here and (internal) here

Code changes:
- Bug fix for shipyards not building
- small performance change to colony generated credits
- #26 Orbital Battery tech reqs
- #296 Planetary shield recharge rate, now increases with energy level
- #293 [Combat] planetary shield hits: invading units were not firing in the following rounds
Data changes:
- shipyard stats
- base growth rates
- ship ranges
- a few more things

2014-01-28

Source here and (internal) here

- #291: noncombat ships wouldn`t retreat even if requested by user
- #248: Hostile Outpost vs Noncombat Ship: Stations were not considered when determining if combat had to occur
- #289: Orbital Batteries always active in combat
- #283: [MP] Orbital Battery crash
- OrbitalBatteries stopped being active after loading a save game (even if the proper count showed active in the Structure tab of the colony)(they wouldn`t appear in a  system assault).
- Distress signal from stranded ships can now only be seen by owner
- Disabled agent spawning until work on them can resume
- #222 [MP] Cleared FoW reveals fleets. Also, now selecting an unexplored and unscanned sector will no longer show ships in the task force list (on the left of the screen)
- from Iceman: fix for missing description for quasar/nebulae description as well as their missing interference data.
- from Iceman: now colonies will start with a minimum of 2 food PF and 1 less industry PF.
- Add a max built output to shipyards so that ratio related shipyards are viable and don't get out of hand.
- Empire Management: Negative Treasury (when idle a colony will now generate extra credits, if negative treasury: colonies and shipyards stop building, ships stop regenerating their hull damage and will even take some damage every turn)

2014-01-15

Source here and (internal) here

New test build available at BitBucket! A bunch of importante fixes:
- No more F12 cheat in MP play
- Make sure that minors are being spawned evenly in the 4 quadrants
- Shipyard`s output can now be a ratio of Population or Industry
- Agents not appearing in the asset screen (refresh issue)
- #286: Starting Conditions: Can now specify <Ship Count="3"> to indicate the number of ships to spawn (3 being an example obviously)
- #292: [Combat] system assault : Only one torpedoe was ever fired
- #294: [Combat] ship to ship : Only one torpedoe was ever fired
- #293: [Combat] planetary shield hits: Even if shields would absorb the full blast, pop was still reduced by 1
- #257: [SP] no damage in combat: There was only one round of combat where only engagine fleets would fire, round was thus completed only when one side was completely destroyed. This was an SP bug but could affect MP also.

2013.12.23

• Fixes at Combats

(Iceman wrote: taken from http://www.armadafleetcommand.com/onscreen/botf/viewtopic.php?p=40807#p40807)

• define starting conditions in HomeSystems.xml
• crashes with stations seem to have been solved
• The output of Raw Materials and Deuterium has been made data-driven, in Tables\UniverseTables.txt
• the amount of minors was made to be a %, with a definable limit, in Tables\UniverseTables.txt
• MusicPacks.xml now allows you to set a playlist of themes to be played continuously, either sequencially or randomly. You can also define different themes for different empires.
• added a new starmap background, to avoid confusion with stars. It's much cleaner now.
• also added more Agents for the Federation, and there's a few more in the works (mostly DS9 and VOY).
• lots of other fixes, stat tweaks, changes.

(taken fom https://bitbucket.org/mstrobel/BotF2/pull-request/24/some-fixes/diff)

• fix for PercentCredits being applied at the same time then morale adjustments
• changed background image of the Galaxy screen, made it use Starmap.png
• Fix for incorrect parsing of FadeTime in music packs. Improper values led to crashing the game.
• Recall agent crash game
• fixed #228: From Iceman : Transports retreating after assault
• From Iceman : Fixed small bug where buildings being hit by bombardment where also being affected by ground bonuses (like bunker).
• fixed #172: From Iceman : Getting Defeat message when standing down from an assault.
• Starting Conditions: Changed xml tag from Outpost to SpaceStation to stay in sync with tech objects
• Starting Conditions: Have buildings and shipyards start activated (if enough energy provided)
• SimpleMusicPack sequential vs random feature
• When retiring from a game, Menu screen music will be restarted
• Just so many other fixes...

2013.10.13 (not released, see also 2013-12-23)

• Changed GalaxyScreen to Starmap.png [SO NOW STARMAP.PNG IS MANDATORY ELSE THE GAME WILL CRASH]
• Starting Conditions: Changed xml tag from Outpost to SpaceStation to stay in sync with tech objects
• SimpleMusicPack sequential vs random (use like so: <SimpleMusicPack Selection="Sequential"> )

Some more release notes:

• Fix for incorrect parsing of FadeTime in music packs. Improper values led to crashing the game. Now supports "2,0" and "2.0" for instance.
• fix for Recall agent crash game
• Transports retreating after assault
• Fixed small bug where buildings being hit by bombardment where also being affected by ground bonuses (like bunker).
• Getting Defeat message when standing down from an assault.
• Starting Conditions: Have buildings and shipyards start activated (if enough energy provided)
• When retiring from a game, Menu screen music will be restarted

2013.07.07

(from http://botf2.star-trek-games.com/viewtopic.php?p=73950#p73950)

New release available at BitBucket, with a bunch of fixes and improvements.

Most importante changes:

Fixes:

• system and planetary bonuses creation
• industry output
• food output
• research output
• build time refresh
• growth rate bonuses
• shipbuilding bonuses
• ship construction completion display
• numerous UI issues

Balance:

• dilithium cost of ships
• Orbital Battery stats
• Production Facility output and cost
• research field costs
• ship stats in general

Old news

Backgrounds for UIs

(taken from botf2.com)

The professional artist we know as Slim has created layouts and color comps for ten backgrounds to be used on Diplomatic and Espionage window backdrops for the game. That is each of the two for all five major races. Our model team is busy building these as renders of 3D models. When this work is done the team will begin the touchy issue of rebuilding the shiplist with a more appropriate and cannon look.

---

Taken from the Homepage http://www.startrekBotF2.com/news.html here are some old news listed (for backup issues, too):

2009.05.17 - After Easter Release

Mike Strobel, Project Lead of Star Trek BotF2 recently released a new pre release build of Star Trek BotF2. Alot of updates and changes have been applies to this new addition. Listed below are the updates:

Added

• You can choose your starting tech level (1, 3, 5, 7, or 9).
• You can now resume saved multiplayer games.
• Several new buildings to the game database.
• New images (Ships, buildings, etc)
• New music (Main menu...)
• 30+ new minor race ships to the game database. These won't be viewable until the AI and the combat system are implemented however. Check out This Thread if you want to see images of all of the minor race and Empire ships. 170+ more minor race ships will be added to the database in future updates.
• Added a rudimentary random events system (Only one random event is currently implemented, more will be coming in future and hopefully so will a random events editor)
• New menu options.
• Menus can now be animated. The option is turned off by default as this is still a new function and we don't know what sort of hardware demands it requires. Enable the "Enable dialog animations" and the "Enable screen transitions" options to turn these on.

Updated

• The Cardassian shiplist, their ship stats, and their ship upgrade/obsoletion paths are now fully complete.
• The Federation shiplist, their ship stats, and their ship upgrade/obsoletion paths are now about 50% complete.
• Many of the buildings have updated stats, naming conventions and upgrade/obsoletion paths. These changes should also make it easier for people to make mods in future.
• The credits list now credits several more people for their generous help with the game, including AndrewJT, .Iceman, Jamie11, SJ2290, Valcoren, and Zulnak.
• Major behind-the scenes programming updates. These updates make the game more stable, and will make it easier for Mike to make future updates and additions for the game.

Removed

• The glitchy Cardassian UI (UI ill be replaced in a future update, for the time being they will use the Federation one like the other Empires currently do)
• The annoying turn processing beep.

Bug Fixes

• Map objects should no longer glitch. Instead of using animated gif images, the game now generates animated images itself. This unfortunately means that stars look dull and bland in the system screen, but the system will be tweaked to improve it in future.
• The random freeze bug has been fixed
• The crash when attempting to create a new map after retiring from a game has been fixed.
• Population blocks in the system build screen should now work and display correctly.
• Sliders should now work correctly in the Intel screen.
• The random sound glitch during turn processing should no longer occur.
• Menu selections should no longer appear behind the menu screen.

Known Problems

• The editor no longer works.
• Preparing to downloading the update takes an unusually long time.
• Morale-improving orders (Martial Law, State Tribunal etc) can only be used once per system.
• You can only build two Orbital Batteries per system - one of your own, and one of the default, minor-race design.
• The redeploy screen does not update or close during turn processing. You must manually close and reopen it to update it.

2008.12.25

Merry Christmas

The Staff at Star Trek BotF2 has prepared a - A Christmas Gift - for all Trek fans. The update contains the following upgrades:

- New minor races. Some existing minor races have been removed or replaced by the new minor races. (We needed more info before we could implement the new minor races. The ones that have been removed were originally put in as "filler" races)

- All minor races now have home systems correctly set. An old bug that Mike has now fixed prevented some minor races having predefined planets in their homesystem. Gas Giant and Crystalline type planets are now slightly more common in minor race systems.

- All minor races systems are now inhabited by the correct race. An old bug meant many of the minor races had human populations set.

- New buildings added to the game. Some existing buildings have been removed, renamed, or have new build costs or bonuses. All empires now have their own unique facilities. All minor races now default to building Federation facilities to reduce game loading times and memory requirements.

- All buildings now have correct build costs and energy requirements set. Previously many of the buildings had no costs set.

- All buildings now have correct upgrade and obsoletion paths set. Previously some of the facilities had weird path set that resulted in problems such as food facilities upgrading into factories, that then obsoleted all your energy structures so you would have to build and upgrade them from scratch.

- New building, minor race, minor race emblems, and ship images. Some of the existing images have also been manually cleaned up to remove issues with transparencies.

- New unique planet textures added or existing textures replaced. These include Andoria, Ferenginar, Mars, T'Khul, and Uranus.

- New or updated game text added. This includes building descriptions, first contact messages, etc.

2008.11.28

A New Update has been released. The update allows the player to play one of the following races:

- United Federation of Planets

- Klingon Empire

- Romulan Empire

- Cardassian Union

- The Dominion

The update can be obtained by downloading Star Trek BotF2 through our downloads section or if you already have Star Trek BotF2 installed on your PC... click update in the ingame menu. The update will download directly into the game.

2008.05.30

A First Look At The Combat Engine for Star Trek: BotF2. Four Videos are available for you to see what the future will hold.

2008.02.04

Mike Strobel, Lead Designer & Project Lead of Star Trek: BotF2 has released a number of screenshots for you. So take a few minutes and get some eye candy!

Click Here to See the latest Screenshots

2008.01.14

Thats right ... Mike Strobel has given us another great update to BotF2. This version has corrected more of the bugs, as well as provided a editor.

So go ahead and download it today! - Click here to download

2008.01.14

Take a look at the work were doing with BotF2.

Matress of Evil, a contributor to Star Trek BotF2 has provided us with a update.

- The amount of content in the game has been increased dramatically since my last news item. I have personally added around 120 minor races and their special structures. (These can only be built in their system if you get them to be a member of your Empire, eg. if the Bajorans join you you can build the Bajoran Jalanda forum on Bajor which gives a +1 morale Empire-wide bonus)

- I have added all of the Empire-specific special structures, although I have not yet completed their industrial costs etc. We have recycled many of the images from BOTF for the time being, but Zeleni has made a load of images that will be able to use instead. Unfortunately he is on the road and unable to send them to us until after Christmas.

- I am going to start adding in 125 minor race ships to the game once my building updates are complete. (Yes, there really are going to be that many)

- Cdrwolfe has added in all the Empire's ship designs to the game.

- Cdrwolfe has added in all of the production facilities to the game. (Food, Industry, Energy, Intel, Research, Personnel)

- Kenneth_of_Borg is continuing to compile all of the models that we need for the designs that are in the game. Kenneth_of_Borg, Jigalypuff, Skeeter, Zeleni, Fireball, Trashman, and Strings have all made model contributions, and the list of models is growing exponentially. We're hoping to get the entire model list complete by December 2008, which seems like a long time, but we really are dealing with hundreds of models - many times more than was in BOTF. The current focus is simply making the models, whilst texturing them will come later. Strings is making tutorials and coming up with a unified system of texturing to streamline the texturing efforts in the future. The textures will eventually include Diffuse maps, Bump maps, Specular maps, and Glow maps for EVERY model, so they're going to look fantastic. An example of Strings' work can be found Here.

- Strings is looking into possibly developing the 3D combat system himself for BotF2. This will free up a LOT of time for Mstrobel to continue working on all the other programming aspects of the game, and if things go to plan, the combat system will also be compatible with BotE! The two games are being written in different languages though, so there is a strong possibility that this will not be possible.

- Mike Strobel has made minor updates to diplomacy. No further diplomacy updates are yet possible as other changes need to be implemented first.

- Mike Strobel has replaced the editor with a fancier one that has more options. Due to this update, the game and the fancy editor require now .Net 3.5 installed, as opposed to .Net 2.5 when I last sent you an update. The game also requires some updated server files, but thanks to some testing on my part the necessary files are now included in the BotF2 download so the server program itself does not need to be installed.

- Mike Strobel is currently working on optimizing the game. We have unfortunately found performance is varying wildly - with some people's computers - such as mine - taking 5 seconds to process a turn, and other computers - that are actually more powerful - taking over 2 minutes to process a single turn. He has found a number of programming bottlenecks and is working to fix those. This bottleneck update will be part of the next update, which should be coming in the next few weeks or even days. With a bit of luck it will mean maps that are larger than tiny will be playable! (The game runs so slowly at larger map sizes that even though they are implemented and playable you won't be able to play them at any decent speed )

- Mike Strobel is starting to work on implementing an AI system so you can actually play a game against the other races. This will be one of the biggest updates he has made so far to the game, and won't be complete for several months.

2008.01.10

In December, Star Trek BotF2 creator, project lead, & genius Mike Strobel was interviewed on Hailing Frequency - Star Trek's Gaming own Podcast. Its a excellent interview and insight of what's to come. Download it now and discover the future.

Hailing Frequency Interview Episode 41

ALSO check out the first interview Mike had with Hailing Frequency.

Hailing Frequency Interview Episode 35

2008.01.08

Mike Strobel, Creator & Project Lead of Star Trek BotF2, has published the latest updated Pre-Alpha version. The updated version contains bug fixes, and it also greatly stabilizes the game. You can find the latest version in our downloads section.

Were very appreciative of Mike's hard work - Be sure to stop by the BOTF 2 forums and give him a thanks.

Birth of the Federation 2 Forums

2008.01.03

Think you got what it takes to make the sequel to the best Star Trek game...Birth of the Federation. Then you can contribute to the project. Any and all assistance is appreciated and credited.

To find out information and how to participate - Click Here

---

taken from botf2.com/BotF2/devblog

2007.05.10

see here