By Captain Starkiller for BlackOps Station, 2001-04-18

An original member of the Newships Project

Starkiller
good evening sir
you got a few?
not busy?

Trekke1170
yeah
shoot

Starkiller
excellent

Trekke1170
nope, unless you consider perusing Napster being busy

Starkiller
ok, all official and on the record now...
heheh
as official as is possible with me, anyways...

Trekke1170
lol

Starkiller
How is the Merge with Gamespy going for you and the rest of the Newships crew?

Trekke1170
It's going great. Xtreme Networks wasn't very supportive when I was working at Newships, Jeh was never around to answer emails.

Starkiller
how long had you been with Xtreme Networks?

Trekke1170
The first few weeks I signed up for Gamespy, I had instant help, from every department, from getting the site started with the owner of Strategy Planet to getting accounts for the whole site from different departments of Gamespy

Starkiller
how long had you been with Newships?

Trekke1170
probably a year and a half. Figure Newships opened August 1999.

Starkiller
Is the original Newships crew involved with the New Newships?

Trekke1170
Most of the crew returned in some shape or form, some haven't replied to the email I originally sent out when we came back. From the Original crew, Moonraker, Maestro, Charlie, and KnightHunter are back, and Raven of course Seven will be coming back in December, many will remember her great texture work

Starkiller
Are you planning on recreating the SFC1 Newships Mods for SFC2?

Trekke1170
Eventually, right now we've been just trying to get back into the swing of things. I've been juggling several jobs at once. Now that I have a webmaster, I know the site will be fine and I can concentrate on releases. We figured users could add SFC1 Newships Mods to SFC2 themselves for the most part and would rather us concentrate on some new releases first.

Starkiller
Cool. What kind of new releases?

Trekke1170
Well, I've been working on Ancient Angel's Nephilim ships mostly, also training some of our new less experienced modelers like Chay Mareyn and Brundlefly/Bhush

Starkiller
Very kewl. Chay has some very kewl ideas. I was just looking at some examples today, I believe at Scrapyards...

Trekke1170
yeah. Our webmaster 3dot14 is working on a shipyards for Newships individual releases right now. Wanted to take advantage of the outstanding Gamespy server

Starkiller
You were one of the many people involved with The Docking Ring at SFB2SFC, has that project been cancelled? Will you be continuing that type of user motivated modeling at Newships?

Trekke1170
Well, the Docking Ring kind of fell apart, first Noah left. I myself was bogged down with real life and just lost the motivation to make other people's ships during my free time. Firehawk felt that the Taldren forums provided the SFC Community with a request line, so the Docking Ring basically became obsolete. I might bring a request type thing to Newships, but would have request guidelines.

Starkiller
What brought you into the SFC Community? Was it a love of Star Trek? Modeling?

Trekke1170
Mostly modeling. I was previously working at a site for Simon & Schuster's Starship Creator called Starbase Prometheus, it was pretty well known. When I bought Starship Creator, I thought it would have the ability similar to kit bashing in SFC, where you can mix and match parts.
Then I got SFC and saw Brad's plug in, downloaded a copy of MilkShape trial, and messed around.

Starkiller
Is Starbase Prometheus still up?

Trekke1170
nope, it was shut down after the release of Starship Creator Warp 2, which Simon & Schuster did not support. We had a great relationship with one of the people at Simon and Schuster. With the release of Warp 2, they put up a website of their own for Starship Creator, basically trying to compete with the people they supposedly supported. The site owner wasn't satisfied and moved on to better things

Starkiller
Kewl...speaking of support... what are your feelings about Taldren?

Trekke1170
I feel Taldren supports SFC pretty well, they've gone well beyond what they have to to support the game. I see the new Gamespy merging as a blessing, as all the people complaining about Gamespy not being equal to MPlayer now know what it was like for Taldren to recover after flipside dropped out. Like Taldren, Gamespy has to write new coding to support SFC 2 since MPlayer wrote its own code

Starkiller
(IMO) Gamespy has what it takes, I hope, to really enhance the whole online scene for SFC2. Have you played the Dynaverse yet?
I guess, that is the same as asking, are you OC, MC, or IC?

[note] OC, MC, and IC are references to Taldren's beta testers... the inner circle, middle circle, and outer circle. [/note]

Trekke1170
I'm in OC, but not very active since I have 56k

Starkiller
Does the 56k keep you from playing the SFC2 Multiplayer?

Trekke1170
no, its just that there have been a lot of beta patches that are around 15mb or more. The patches the community downloads, we download like 3 times via several release versions. By the time I download this patch and reinstall SFC, there are no bugs to report, so their is no point in testing, and I really haven't had the time

Starkiller
understandable. How has the communication between the beta testers and Taldren been? Smooth?

Trekke1170
There have been a few rough times, but they have improved on it since then, they've given us our own guy from Taldren, TheBeast, he monitors the server and keeps us advised and then TalonClaw keeps us informed on the IC

Starkiller
So, how long have you been modeling then? Was the Starship Creator your first 3d modeling endeavor?

Trekke1170
well, it wasn't a 3d modeling program, it was basically select from 5 nacelles, 5 saucers, and 5 secondary hulls, and that was your ship.
My first modeling endeavor was in September 1999 when I joined Newships.
It really wasn't a cannon model, just a kitbash, I would say it was probably a 4 nacelled Miranda class (it was) never released I can't remember my first released model. Probably somewhere on Moon's site

Starkiller
What is the project you are most proud of?

Trekke1170
That's a hard question. Probably my Defiant and my Prometheus. Even though the Defiant model wasn't mine, I was proud that i was able to convert a model that was some 30,000 polygons to a mere 2000. Everyone wanted a Defiant and we had only had DIX's old kitbash, then I came out with mine and it is still one of the more popular ones today

Starkiller
very kewl.
How do you feel about the new SFC community? Do you see a lot more innovation coming from the community?

Trekke1170
I see a lot of things, good and bad. Good is how the community is growing and becoming more of a helping community. Its bad how there is a lot of site competition right now, a lot of egos that get out of hand and a lot of tempers with short fuses. I've been known to go off a few times myself, but I usually go off when its justifiable.

Starkiller
I was just starting down that road... do you see Modeling as competition... ?

Trekke1170
I don't think it should be, as you know, I haven't released anything myself in a while, I've been helping people like Wicked and the new modelers at my site. But I see too much of the same or similar model being released at the same time and a flame war ensuing. Its one of the reasons I'm not to comfortable with the sudden 'corporization' of the community, it just promotes competition

Starkiller
What does Trekke do when not modeling and managing Newships?

Trekke1170
When I'm not modeling and managing Newships? I'm probably writing lyrics or playing my guitar, or hanging out with friends at the mall.

Starkiller
do you have any music published? (A note... amazing how many creative persons there are that model and do music...)

Trekke1170
nope, not yet, I just got started into guitar this year. Took guitar class this year starting in September, got my electric guitar for Christmas and have been playing ever since.

Starkiller
sweet... favorite band?

Trekke1170
There also seems to be a lot of modelers listening to alternative and rock music. I know Wicked like Metallica and Creed, Lord Bile mentioned the same in his interview.

Right now, probably Linkin Park and Cold, but Korn and Smashing Pumpkins brought me into the whole rock and alternative genre

Starkiller
what kind of computer are u you using?

Trekke1170
LOL, bad question, hehe, don't get jealous now!

Pentium 200 MMX
64mb
20gig hd
ATI Xpert 128 w/16mb
48x CD-ROM
Trekke1170 says:
8x4x32 burner

not top of the line, but it runs
getting a new computer next year.

Starkiller
ack... does that burn coal or what?
j/k

Trekke1170
lol

Trekke1170
yeah, thinking of over clocking my video card till it burns out to get another one

Starkiller
what other PC games do you play?

Trekke1170
well, I just got done playing Oni, that was fun. Um, Elite Force has caught my interest, and Deus Ex and Alice. Those are the most recent, don't spend much money on games lately.

Starkiller
will Newships break into mods for other games? Like Elite Forces?
Oni rocked, at first, but... anyways... love Elite Forces.

Trekke1170
We plan to later, Our first game to break into will be Klingon Academy, since we have all of Moon's Mods after all. heh, good old Moon!

Starkiller
Did you play Klingon Academy?
if so... what did you think of it in comparison to SFC?

Trekke1170
I've played the demo, never bought it though
I think it had its merits, better than Starfleet Academy, Kinsu effect is better then our current break models, but just wasn't appealing, especially the AI's obsession with ramming

Starkiller
hehehe...
Gorn programmers

Trekke1170
and I felt too much like Riker from Insurrection when playing

Starkiller
Hahahhaha... yeah, that was an interesting scene...
What is your favorite era?

Trekke1170
Probably TNG, that's what I grew up on.
I was born in 1983, when the TOS came out, I don't remember any of it except the Enterprise toy I had when I was real little I basically got into Star Trek and Star Wars because I got all my brothers toys

Starkiller
heheh, are you the youngest then?

Trekke1170
yeah, I'm the youngest

Starkiller
how many kids?

Trekke1170
4
2 twin brothers and a sister

Starkiller
Ahh... What is your favorite race?

Trekke1170
Federation, sucker for the good guys

Starkiller
Hehhe

Trekke1170
second would be the Hydran. Like the sleek ship designs

Starkiller
Favorite Enemy?

Trekke1170
umm, hmm, not sure. Klingons. LOL

Starkiller
Of course...
Have you been into the Fan Fiction Forums?

Trekke1170
A few times, not in a long time though. Good stuff in there

Starkiller
very kewl...
Big fan of that section, very little 'flaming'
So are you a SFB'er at all?

Trekke1170
heh
nope, never played SFB, wasn't around

Starkiller
Kewl, with that in mind, how do you feel about the 'stock and unmodified' balance of SFC2?

Trekke1170
I feel SFC 2 is somewhat balanced, the only balancing problems I have are probably due to my lack of skills with that race, like when I fly the ISC.

Starkiller
Have you seen Crymson's new ISC ships?

Trekke1170
yeah, they are pretty cool, finally someone did the ISC, think he should texture those SFB ISC meshes floating around

Starkiller
yeah... good call...
Where do you see SFC2 going in the next few months? Is Newships committed to being around for awhile?

Trekke1170
SFC2 will expand more into Multiplayer mods I think, once Dynaverse comes out. Newships is committed to being around for a while and hope we can be an influence in the SFC community once again, being that we were the first modding site. Along with us, SFB 2 SFC is one of the first sites. I remember when it was just us, then SFU came along and hosted all the sites

Starkiller
the good old days
yeah
Newships was one of the first sites I ever saw. When I worked at SFB2SFC it was always a goal to get the Newships models added into the Shipyards... ack... so many of them

Trekke1170
lol
yeah

Starkiller
Still have them
ah well... dsl rules... 56k modem droolz
Can you divulge any info about SFC2:The Orion Pirates?

Starkiller
Like...
is it true that user created models will be featured?

Trekke1170
Well, I don't know much, but rumor has it that two modelers in the community have been contracted by Taldren. No names or details

Starkiller
kewl
Have you tried any of the user-created scripts and will Newships be heading down the API/FMSE road?

Trekke1170
Well, me and Maestro are working on the API, but like I said, I'm juggling several different projects, LOL, Raven said I was CEO material because of the way I juggle everything, but yeah. Just the SFC 2 API turned out to be more of a disappointment then a help, if was more difficult to understand. Think Chris Lewis' (RIP) tutorials helped many people with the SFC 1 API

Starkiller
Ah-hah! You are working on an API project? Along what lines?

Trekke1170
Just learning, making some Newships scripts
Well, I got to go, want to finish this another time?

Atticbat says:
Unless there is something else you would like to add... I am real happy with it!

Trekke1170
Well, I'd just like to comment on Reign's mention of the Alliance between Newships and Omega Sector, it has been confirmed and we have formed an alliance. We hope to bring some collaboration projects to the community that will blow them away. And I would also like to thank the community for the support of Newships through our time of 'hibernation'.

Starkiller
Very sweet. Thank you VERY MUCH man

Trekke1170
Alright, its been an honor, now I got to get some sleep.

Starkiller
take care...

Trekke1170
Keep up the good work with Black Ops, goodnight, or evening your time

Be sure to visit Newships and the Newships-Omega Alliance

(Interview conducted over MSN)