Ferengi Deathstar
by Twitch- twitch90280@yahoo.com
7-4-04

With all the small-scale ships in A2 I thought it was a good idea to make something large for
each race. This is a more advanced mod in that some file editing is needed. To include the
needed files is pointless since most folks have other stuff in these files that they've modded
already. They can be edited as below using Notepad or Wordpad.

I have already done Deathstars for the 6 standard races plus the Dominion. Since I'm having fun
with the Ferengi add-on race I decided to make a Deathstar for them too.

The Deathstars have Borg battleship physics and can attack planets. Being that a sphere is the
perfect shape for space- always having the same frontal area no matter which way it faces- I
chose it keeping in mind the old Star Wars concept. Planetoid-sized ships are easy to find in
the game and don't get lost in the clutter.

Being "shipyard//constructionrig" class they will not accept repair commands and will usually
become uncontrollable going in circles until given a new command. In the previous version you
had to beam aboard more crew. In this version I made them "facilities" so they can simply recrew
like stations with a button when used by the player. If the AI takes one over they attempt to
tell it to repair and it will usually just go in circles but will still defend itself.
Unfortunately the AI is not smart enough to simply recrew. The ability to construct a repair ship
helps things but repair ships can't remove mines.

The Deathstar keeps the ships it builds close via the alwaysrecomputerallypoint command
instead of them returning to base.

The Ferengi Deathstar has weapons and a build list keeping with the Ferengi Expansion mod by
Cmndr_Parker and SoulForge. The Deathstar's build list has a repair vessel, assault ship,
battleship, construction ship, scout and cruiser. The AI will build the battleship mostly.

Technically you need the Ferengi Expansion mod for the Ferengi Deathstar to work. If you
edit the odf with standard in-game weapons and other build items you can use the sod and tga
and have the thing built by any race. I'm including the weapons+ one special weapon- so go
from there. I put in a couple of fairly strong phasers from the game that I imagine the Ferengi
would have purchased on the black market in some sneaky deal.

Here's what the files are. Odfs to odf/ships, weapons-phaser-photon-pulse, special weapons,
sod to /sod, tga to textures/rgb.

ODF/ships
frplan.odf

ODF/special weapons
gdampfield.odf
dampfield.odf

ODF/weapons/photons
ztphot.odf
ztphotono.odf
frbatt2phot.odf
frbatt2photo.odf

ODF/weapons/pulse
zbpulse.odf
zbpulseo.odf

SOD
frplan.sod

TEXTURES/RGB
frdeath.tga - 512 x 256 size

Bitmaps/admiralslog/shipimages
frplan.bmp

To make it build you'll have to add it to the Dom yard2 build list as the next build item with
the next sequential number.

The ship's build button is that of the Borg Sphere. To make the build button work open
gui_global.spr in the Sprites folder and edit with Notepad or Wordpad at trhe end of the Ferengi
section.

@reference=64
@tmaterial=default

b_frplan gbbcruise1 0 0 64 64

For the wireframe to show the Borg Sphere as the Deathstar's you must edit the giu_global.spr
files in the Sprites folder. Below is an example to use the sphere wireframe for the Domstar.
Just put it at the end of the Ferengi ships.

frplanw1 borgwireframe01 0 96 48 48
frplanw2 borgwireframe01 48 96 48 48
frplanw3 borgwireframe01 96 96 48 48
frplanw4 borgwireframe01 144 96 48 48
frplanw5 borgwireframe01 192 96 48 48

Open your tech1.tt and any other .tt files like earlytech.tt and so on and add the ship at the
end of the race's ships:

zrepair.odf 2 zbase.odf zupgrade.odf
frplan.odf 2 zyard.odf zyard2.odf


If you want the AI to build the ship you must edit the 5 .AIP files like:
Ferengi_build_list.aip, Ferengi_defensive_list.aip, Ferengi_endgame_list.aip,
Ferengi_instant_action_build_list.aip & Ferengi_offensive_list.aip.

// Phase IV. Advanced Research
//

"zconst", 1,0, -1, 0, // construction ship
"zresear2", 1,0, -1, 4, // advanced research station
"zcruise2", 2,0, -1, -4, // Chuqbeh (Artillery)
"zspecial", 1,0, -1, 0, // Feklhr
"zturret2", 3,1, -1, 0, // torpedo turret
"zbattle2", 3,0, -1, 0, // Qehral
"zturret2", 3,2, -1, 0, // torpedo turret
"zpod6", 1,0, -1, 0, // Death Chant
"zassault", 3,0, -1, 0, // Qehral
"zturret2", 3,0, -1, 0, // torpedo turret
"ztrading", 1,3, 3, 0, // another trading station
"zcargo", 3,0, 6, 0, // and some cargo ships
"frplan", 1,0, -1, 0, // Deathstar (Battleship)

Be sure to back up any files you edit 1st!! Remove the above files to delete the mod.
Make any changes you want and use them in any way you want- I don't care about credit- just
have fun!