STN: The Final Frontier TC - Status

Your questions answered. Vapourware or hope.

Hello fans,

It’s been no less than 364 days since any of you have heard anything from myself or any of the developers of Star Trek Nova: The Final Frontier (STN:TFF). I will give as brief an explanation as I can. But first, for those who don’t know what STN:TFF is, here is the synopsis:

Quote

STN: Final Frontier is a EV-Nova Total Conversion based on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager. You start off in Starfleet Academy and following a number of training exercises, you will be receive your first assignment as an ensign on board a Federation Starship. You will follow the main storylines from the Star Trek series although your 'success' or 'failure' could change the outcome and the future of the Alpha Quadrant as we know it. All the usual Star Trek aliens will be there, including some of your favorites like 'Q', 'Hugh' and 'Lore'. You will face the unstopable Borg, the ruthless Dominion, the nomadic Hirogen Hunters, the underhanded Romulans, the cunning Cardassians, the honor driven Klingons, and maybe even... Species 8472. You may even get the chance to follow storylines of the other major alien races.
The universe awaits you... Good luck and godspeed.

There has been absolutely no progress on STN:TFF in the last year. As I said last year, I have taken on a full-time and ever consuming career of Software Engineer and Cowboy/Skier in my spare time. It is time that I have to admit failure in ever getting this thing out to the general public in a playable form. I would have to say that lack of time and or a good application for developing the ships was the major factor in us not being able to complete the Total Conversion.

JCC (Josh) who was the only other remaining and determined STN:TCC developer went to law school, but continued to work on the storylines in his spare time. It really was his wish and desire to see something finally get published, but that never did happen. This is the curse of unpaid volunteer work, and RealLife taking over.

There are many ships that were completed, and over 90% of the storyline as well as the map was completed. Many graphics such as planets, landings, weapons, sprites were completed, but the ships were no more than 5-10% complete.
Between us, we have a lot of files and resources that are very much usable, I even have a large database of names and e-mail addresses of fans who signed up for the Newsletter hoping for some tidbit of news or information, a plugin or... something from STN:TFF. Unfortunately, we were never able to accommodate these patient folks.

However, there is a chance... if you are a developer or have a desire to see something come of this hard work, a plugin or two... at the very least, there is something that you can do. As I said, we have much of the files needed to make several plugins, and at least a small-ish sized TC (really just missing ships and some weapons before it could be considered medium or large). But before I upload these to my server (I have gigabytes of data), I would like to gauge interest in making something of the data here.
Is anybody still interested in something coming from STN:TFF? Are you will and capable of creating a plugin or two?
If so, please let me know, either here or on the STN:TFF forums.

If you would like to take over at least parts of the project or help create plugins, I would be more than happy to help where I can in getting the resource that you need (that I have access to), as well as providing an avenue for STN:TFF developers to discuss -- we have a private development forum with old posts where you will also find our super secret completed maps (I think we had two). I can also give you access to our mailing list so that you can update all of the users who have been waiting for years for something to come of this. JCC should still be available to contact as well to get the storylines from.

Please let me know.
- David
aka Highway of Life
Former First Officer STN:TFF

EDIT: P.S. If you would like to discuss STN:TFF beyond the forum, you can find me on IRC freenode.net channel: StarTrekGuide

This post has been edited by Highway of Life : 28 January 2009 - 07:05 AM

Perhaps this is an optimistic and unrealistic notion, but I am wondering if this could be rolled into Starfleet Adventures, perhaps? If the two projects could be combined, it would be a monumental undertaking, but one that I would think would be very well worth the effort. It would greatly enhance the SFA universe to continue the timeline with additional information, missions, and graphics, and would offer the chance for the game to change over the game years as does the series. I believe, judging from the SFA site, that there are quite a few ship graphics from the later time period that STNTFF covers. Since you're short graphics, and they're short missions, it seems to me like it might be a good combination.

I would absolutely cry to see this turn vaporware, truth be told. If I had the graphical skills to complete it, I would offer to finish it myself. As an avid Trek fan, I've been looking forward to this since it was first announced. I'm sorry to hear you guys are throwing in the towel, but I know how Real Life™ can suck up time. All the best to you!

That would be up to Pace... admittedly, it’s been a while since I’ve spoken with Pace, so I don’t know if he would be interested or not, but again, if there is interest, I will host all these files on the server open to everyone for download. Someone with any knowledge of creating plugins for EV Nova would be able to take much of our existing graphics and create some pretty sweet plugins.

I felt the same way with regard to it going vapourware, I was determined for a long time to not let it be vapourware, but there came a time where I had to face the reality that it was not going to get finished with myself in charge of making the ships. That is why I posted this topic, however. My hope is that many people will be able to take our work and create something out of it for the EVN community.

This post has been edited by Highway of Life : 28 January 2009 - 04:11 PM

Naturally, I'll attempt to crank out some plugins and hopefully create some sort of teaser.

I’ve posted our resources here: http://startrekguide...opic.php?t=9346 -- due to the shear quantity and size of the data and the bandwidth it would cost me if the files were open to the general public, only registered users may view that forum and download files from it.
Thanks for understanding. Please keep me updated on any progress made with STN:TFF, I would really love to see any Star Trek work you create for EV-Nova.

Hrm, interesting… As a non-Trekkie, I would have no idea as to whether this could be useful for SFA. After all, what we're missing the most are storyline missions.
In any event, I've downloaded it all. Very nice looking graphics you've got there, and I'm amazed you put that explosion in so many formats!
I'm starting to wonder whether I shouldn't try to include some of the bööms & such in ARPIA2

Sorry to hear about it dying, David. RealLife gets to everyone in the end. Congratulations on making it this far!

This post has been edited by Pace : 02 February 2009 - 05:28 AM

Thanks Peter,

I’d feel better if it actually made it further, i.e. more teasers and plugins, but oh well.
I know Josh has all the missions, and there are a ton of them, but I need to get in touch with him.

Missions is what we have the most of, I think.

Our planet graphics are awesome, if I may say so.

Unfortunately, I am partly to blame. JCC had tasked me with writing 100+ spob descs, and possibly more once they finished up the gamma quadrant. I was really looking forward to the final product, and was honored to be assisting with the project at all. However my life has been somewhat crazy these past couple years, and after a drive crash I could no longer find the time to finish.

I still have much hope for this idea, not to mention that of my own situation stabilizing to the degree where I could make a meaningful contribution at some point. Please keep me apprised of any attempted progress.

Hi, i'm Matress_of_evil of the Birth of the Federation 2 (BOTF2) project. Like yourselves, we are a fan-based community that are trying to make a game using resources produced or acquired by community members. I'll admit that I haven't actually heard of your project before now though; one of our spies found you by the power of the almighty Google.

Our project is actually helping to produce several games; our collaboration is sharing all of the ship models, images, music, voice acting, whatever, so that development of all can be given a boost. The main games that we are producing files for though are Star Trek: Supremacy, and Birth of the Empires. (Which will have a Trek mod to avoid some of the legal issues as we don't have the licence to produce Trek games) Both of these games are based on the 1999 Microprose game, Star Trek the Next Generation: Birth of the Federation, which is a turn-based 4X game, although sadly due to the untimely death of Microprose, was seriously flawed, buggy, and incomplete. Our project aims to produce a modern take on what BOTF could and should have been.

Our forums are a part of Startrek-games.com; a website devoted to Star Trek Fan games, and isn't to be confused with Star-Trek-Games.com, although we are on extremely friendly terms with Chessmess. (The owner of Star-trek-games.com) Our forums are available Here if you wish to check them out.

Both Supremacy and Birth of the Empires (BotE) have freely-downloadable demos available on our site, although they are in different stages of development. Supremacy has only been in development for a year or two, whilst BotE has been in development for around four years. BotE is therefore further ahead in development than Supremacy, although I personally feel Supremacy has a much nicer interface and overall feel. Anyways, if you want to check out the games, you can get Supremacy From Here and BotE From Here. Supremacy requires the installation of the .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 and the BotE download link requires that you register and/or sign into the site before it will work.

So, after that introduction, i'll get to the reason for my posting on here. Like yourselves, we are in need of artwork, ship models, and everything else that a game usually needs. We noticed from your post that you are in need of ship models; we actually have quite a lot of ship models, and are constantly improving them and acquiring more. Our shiplist eventually aims to have a total of several hundred models, although some of the models will be the same designs just with different hull textures. We even have our very own Combat System to use the in, although it is still far from complete and is currently designed as a stand-alone program rather than something built into the game(s). Likr the BotE download link, you will need to sign up to and/or sign in to the site before you can download the file.

We store our files - including ship models - on a Sharepoint Site. Check out the Shared Documents and Image Library links on the left of that page; let us know if you would like to use anything. In exchange, perhaps you would permit us to have a look at your own files to see if there is anything that might be of use to our own project?

Since Startrek-games.com is aimed at fan games, you might also want to set up a forum or even a subdomain with us. We've got plenty of bandwidth, and in fact we already support other Trek projects, including Star Trek Legacy: The Aftermath mod, which has now officially moved to our forums. We also have links with Enterprise: Temporal Cold War, Star Trek: Excalibur, and Star Trek: Universe, so you definitely won't be alone if you decide to join our community.

I look forward to your reply, and perhaps we will see you on there some time soon.

This post has been edited by Matress_of_evil : 25 February 2009 - 05:59 AM

What a generous offer! I vote for subdomain + forums.

Here is an update on what is going on with STN:TFF right now...

Hank the Cowdog is creating some plugins for STN:TFF, he's a really good story writer, but is now rendiner ships, something I never had time to do... if we're lucky, we might see something. I’m converting Ship models from 3Ds Max to Strata 3D so that he can render the sprites.

The Romulan Warbird (Dderidex class) came out FANTASTIC, it looks freakin' awesome, but Hank the Cowdog wants to do mostly starfleet ships at the moment, he is starting with the smaller ships (such as the Antilles class - Maquis ship - which was seen in the Pilot episode of Star Trek Voyager) to get the hang of Strata 3D and what angles for cameras and lights, plus animations, banking, engine glows, light glows, weapon glows he needs before moving on to the larger ships.

So far, he has the following ships finished or in-progress:
Delta Flyer
Intrepid class
Galaxy class
Borg cube
Cardassian Galor Class Battleship
Miranda Class
Excelsior class
Sovereign class
Saber class
Type-9 Shuttle
Danube Runabout
Klingon K'Vort class Bird of Prey
Klingon B'Rel class Bird of Prey
Nebula class
Defiant class
Species 8472 Bio ship
U.S.S. Dauntless - which I think will be the Dauntless class of ship.

You've probably seen the Galaxy, Galor, Borg Cube, Voyager and Delta Flyer in some of the screenshots before. But I can't wait until you see the Dderidex and Antilles, which both look very good.

A couple ships might need to be re-rendered (Nathan Koga rendered the Galaxy and a few others with an odd animation spin)

QUOTE (Highway of Life @ Jan 28 2009, 07:51 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

However, there is a chance... if you are a developer or have a desire to see something come of this hard work, a plugin or two... at the very least, there is something that you can do. As I said, we have much of the files needed to make several plugins, and at least a small-ish sized TC (really just missing ships and some weapons before it could be considered medium or large). But before I upload these to my server (I have gigabytes of data), I would like to gauge interest in making something of the data here.
Is anybody still interested in something coming from STN:TFF? Are you will and capable of creating a plugin or two?
If so, please let me know, either here or on the STN:TFF forums.
aka Highway of Life
Former First Officer STN:TFF

I'm definitely interested in seeing it come to fruition, but right now I'm focused on EVN:UGF. I'm rooting for you, though.