NG|mods

I just wanted to inform you guys, that we are working on a new update for Trek Battles 3 that’s going to contain the Destiny addon, as well as other content we have been working on recently. So stay tuned and check our site as well as Filefront in the next days.

Download the Addon here.

Destiny Expansion Splash Screen

The new Destiny Expansion for Trek Battles 3 includes 7 all new missions for the campaign and will complete the Destiny story arc. Moreover it includes the “Director’s Cut” of the first 7 missions, improving script and map quality. It is going to available soon on Legacy Files.

I just wanted to let you guys know that the first Patch for Trek Battles 3 will be released today. It will fix several minor bug, as well as the problem with the Terrans in the TNG era. So keep checking out the Blog and LegacyFiles within the next hours.

As we already promised some time ago, we have a New Year’s present for you: The Hirogen Hunter we know from Voyager. The mod will require version 1.1 of Trek Battles 3 so make sure to download the latest patch when the Hunter is available. The model has been created by shadow and the textures by JLS from Bridge Commander, so you may consider this some kind of joint venture.

Hirogen Hunter

Hirogen ships make use of various technologies including torpedo launchers, shield emitters and sensors. (VOY: “Flesh and Blood“) Hirogen vessels are also equipped with a subnucleonic beam that can perform rapid scans of other vessels and can severely disable another ship, disrupting its propulsion and its navigational sensors. Once a target ship is disabled, the Hirogen can use their tractor beam technology to tractor in their prey. Their ships also have monotanium armor plating. This plating offers extra protection and it has the added effect of scattering targeting beams. (VOY: “Hunters“) Hirogen vessels are also able to mask their engines by operating in stealth mode when they wish to track a vessel without alerting it to their presence. (VOY: “Flesh and Blood“) The command center of the Hirogen vessel has a large metallic sphere with deep intersecting grooves. Manipulating the rods set into the unit can alter the vessel’s speed and attitude. Information about incoming fire, the stability of the Hirogen ship’s hull armor and navigational sensors are also relayed through this station.

- quoted from Memory-Alpha

This is the Filefront review for Trek Battles 3:

Ladies and Gentlemen may I present NG’s latest creation Trek Battles 3!
What more could the Legacy community ask for this Christmas? This is New Gens biggest ever release showcasing some of the finest workmanship from some of Legacy’s finest workmen!
The Gigabyte size mod contains enormous vessels including the Excalibur Class and Kelvin Class, and miniature shuttles like the Delta Flier. There’s also an abundance of additional ships for all the races. The Cardassians are able to enjoy new ships across ther Era’s. The Dominion now enjoy space beyond the war. The sheer amount of content in the form of ships is enough to keep one entertained for days.
In addition of ships, there are maps. The space that NG|mods has constructed is vast and beautiful. The wide array of maps expands from clear space, to asteroid filled expanses. Each map, and each mission has its own realistic setting and characteristics allowing exploration and tense battling.
The content comes down to opinion. People will appreciate all the ships, or the concept of recreating missions in a shuttle. Some may not like some of them, or how they appear. Though I’ll leave the opinion making down to all of you!

Merry Christmas to All
Acidfluxxbass

You can download the mod here.

I just wanted to let you know that we are creating the installer file for the final version of  Trek Battles 3 right now and then it will be uploaded to Legacy Files. I would like to use this opportunity to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. The download link will of course be posted here as soon as it is available.

We are happy to announce that we finally have a release date: It will be released exactly two years after its predecessor, Trek Battles 2, on December 25th this year. There has also been and interview with Amagosa, the Legacy Files Siteadmin, yesterday. You can get it here.

Screenshot of the TB3 sol directory

Yesterday I as a little bit bored. Actually I was that bored that I decided to do what I should have done already months ago, but I never had the motivation to do it: I sorted out the maps in Trek Battles 3 and decided in every single case (140+) whether we want to keep it or not. And then I renamed all of these maps to the standard Legacy naming: Deathmatch maps are preceded by dm, coop-wave maps by mp, etc. So I opened every of these maps and saved them – 140 times. I think this should be world record in map editing…at least for Legacy. Everybody who thinks he has edited more than 140+ maps within 3 hours may post a comment below. I also attached a screenshot of the first maps in Trek Battles. You will notice that we already included the winner’s maps of the contest: Star Station India, the Drakas System, the Bronch Expanse and the Crytax system.

Original Mesh

As Trek Battles 3 will contain a lot of new ships of unprecedented quality many people ask what we are going to do to optimize the game for performance as well as for quality. Here is one little trick we use to avoid (or at least reduce) ingame lag: We optimize damage meshes. As this might be a little bit difficult to imagine for people who do not mod Legacy themselves, I have a short (visual) example here for you.

Optimized Mesh

Legacy uses damage meshes, these meshes appear when a ship gets damaged and there is a hole in its hull. Usually these meshes are duplicates from the original mesh with the little difference that a texture has been applied that simulates damage. This is also the way Bethesda, or actually MadDoc, did it. This means that you always have twice as many polygons as usually (without the damage mesh). And with detailed models the poly count also grows. To avoid lag during gameplay we decided to create an extra damage mesh for the higher poly ships. Some of these are tiptop’s TMP ships. On left side we have a picture of the original mesh and here on the right side is the optimized mesh. The polygon count of the Saratoga’s damage mesh has been reduced about 90%. So the overall polygon count can be reduced to almost 50% percent of its original value. Right now we are replacing the damage meshes of our TMP era ships for the Federation and the Terrans. Fortunately we can use most of the damage meshes tiptop created for his TLE era ships.