Star Trek Online: The Next Generation
By Michael

With the devastating news of Nichelle Nichols today, the tone of this upload has taken an extremely unexpected and sad turn. I’ve been working diligently on it for about a month or two, and had fully planned on releasing it this evening - having only just learned about her passing earlier in the day.

Words cannot express how deeply saddened I am. I can only hope that an earnest, heartfelt project like this one serves to brighten someone’s day.

Indeed, Star Trek itself has taken a somewhat dark turn these days, and the reason I began this project was in an attempt to bring back the feelings of optimism and hope that the shows originally presented. It was always a tremendous source of comfort to me, and my goal is to bring that comfort back in some form.

This is a complete audio conversion meant to give standard (25th century) Federation captains a completely 24th century aesthetic. My goal was to focus primarily on the tone of TNG more than any of the other shows, and bring STO as close to a televised experience as possible. There are a couple of audio tracks from the other shows as well, but the main focus is late 80’s - early 90’s TNG. That means LOTS of Ron Jones synth, taken directly from TNG episodes - especially the earlier seasons.

I didn’t just change the music, either. The standard Federation UI has been almost completely re-recorded with sound effects from the show that are much more familiar. The transporter now uses TNG beam in and beam out audio, instead of the default Voyager theme. And, as talented as the voice actress from Cryptic is (I believe it’s Lani Minella if I’m not mistaken), I wanted very much to return Majel Barrett Roddenberry to the ship’s computer. I’ve done this in several places so far, and plan to add more once I can clean up more usable sound clips from her.

In total, 109 individual sound files have been re-recorded, heavily edited, and fully replaced - all by hand by my extremely amateur self. I own the rights to NONE of these music tracks or audio clips however, no matter how much painstaking editing I’ve done. I’m just a diehard Trek fan who wanted to release some beauty back into the world.

More is planned in the very near future, but for now here is the full list of changes. These cover just about everything for a standard 25c Fed character playthrough - minus the cutscenes, TOS, and Discovery content. (I WILL be adding those over time!) Be advised that other factions will not get to experience many of these changes.

What this collection does NOT contain are tracks from Star Trek movies, games, or other franchises. I was pretty obsessive about keeping it as close television as possible.
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Installation Instructions:

The nice part about Cryptic is that they had the very rare foresight to allow client side mods in the first place. That means whatever you place in this directory will be read from FIRST, and won’t be overwritten by patcher updates. Installation is a simple drag and drop.

1. Download STO TNG.zip and unzip it so that you only have a single folder left that says “sound.”

2. Assuming you installed STO via Steam, simply place the “sound” folder here:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Star Trek Online\Star Trek Online\Live\localdata

Note: Please notice how there are TWO “Star Trek Online” folders within the file tree. This is NOT a typo. It’s imperative that you’re delving into the SECOND STO subfolder, not the first one. (The first one ALSO has a “localdata” folder, adding to the confusion for many folks.) I don’t know if the Arc version of this is handled the same way, but I suspect the directory tree is similar.

You should know right away if everything has been installed correctly, as you'll hear quite a different tune on the login screen. If you hear nothing, be sure to raise the music volume in your options.
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Recommended in-game audio settings:

To get the most out of this package, you may have to play around with the audio options to best suit your hardware setup. For me, I get the best overall quality with these levels:

Overall volume: 100
Fx volume: 15
Music volume 100
Ambient volume 75
Interface volume 100
Voice volume 90
Notification volume 100

And of course, if you’d really like to emulate the true TNG experience, be sure to change your UI color palette to “TNG.”

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Known Issues:

As much as I love Cryptic and their fantastic dedication to Star Trek, their file system is absolutely atrocious. There are a ridiculous amount of inconsistencies in their file naming scheme as well as when and how they're called upon. As a result, the music that plays is often unpredictable. Despite how the files are named, the game largely does not care what you're doing or what race you're fighting. It only cares about whether you're in combat, or out of combat. Everything else is largely randomized.

Additionally, one file stored in one fsb package is often called upon during scenes stored in a completely unrelated package. To put simply, it's a mess. One has to be extremely careful about what you replace - otherwise you get weird tracks popping up in unexpected places.

Right now, there are a couple of glaring issues that I haven't been able to fix, but there are acceptable workarounds for now. (Would love if someone could clue me in on a better solution!)

First is Nukara. The planet music plays fine, but when you enter combat, the combat music plays at the same time as the planet music, and the two overlap each other. I believe the reason for this is because the music that plays on Nukara Prime is recognized as "ambient." So, to resolve this, you could probably set ambient to zero while on Nukara, or set music to zero - depending on which track you would rather here.

Second, whenever the next Starfleet Academy scanning event comes up, the same thing is going to happen. This is largely due to the trick I used to get music to play when you beam down to the Academy grounds. The same solution should work here, the next time there's a scanning event. If the event comes up and the music is getting in the way, just turn either ambient or music down while you're there. During all other times of the year, the Academy will work just fine as intended with the settings I listed with the installation instructions.

This project is very much a work in progress, and more weirdness is bound to crop up. If you've discovered any musical areas that I've missed, or if strange things are playing at strange times, please let me know! And be sure to stay tuned for updates, as I do plan on adding TOS music to those TOS-themed missions and tutorials. Eventually I will also be doing a deep-dive into all cutscenes throughout the game, and doing my darnedest to make them play out like they would in an actual Star Trek TNG episode.

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Final Words:

I would like to give a very special thanks to a couple of mod authors on here who provided me with some badly needed instructions on how to go through with a project of this magnitude. Thank you both to BmcD73 (CaptainWallis FX) and 409cleanstovesevryday who each have their own preferred style for STO audio mods. It was only thanks to them that I learned how to do all of this on my own from scratch!

Below is a complete list of all file changes for those who are curious. I've also meticulously kept notes about which FSB package contained which file, what each package and file was called, and what I replaced them with. I figured this could help anyone who might attempt something similar, as well as show you what I've discovered so far and where.

Don't look at this if you want to keep my audio choices a surprise! I think you'll especially be in for a treat when you beam down to the Academy... ;-)

I've also created my very own custom version of when you level up. As much as I love and miss Leonard Nimoy, there's one other particular actor/character I've ALWAYS wanted to hear in this game...
This change has the additional (bonus?) effect of muting the very loud "chime" sound that you hear when other players and ship pets around you level up. Eliminating it was the only way to get my own mix to sound nice.

Completed files:

Misc

M_P_Transporter_Fed.fsb - TNG transporter (Beam Out and Beam In, file names are reversed)
Music_Login.fsb - TNG Theme
Music_New_Romulus.fsb - The Inner Light
Music_DS9.fsb - DS9 theme (early seasons)
Music_X4.fsb \ DS9_DS9 Ship_loop1 - DS9 ambiant music (Battle Lines intro and Cardassians)
AMB_StarfleetAcademy_Stream.fsb \ StarfleetAcademy_Amb - Faith of the Heart (Full Version)
Music_ST_Fanfare.fsb \ Fanfare_2 - Conclusion - Night Terrors (Pleasant Dreams)
Music_ST_Fanfare.fsb \ ST Space Conclusion - Night Terrors (Pleasant Dreams)
Music_ST_Fanfare.fsb \ STO_Theme_Fanfare - Conclusion - Back in Order
UI_COMRAM.fsb \ Beam_out_Voyager - TNG Beam In
UI_COMRAM.fsb \ STO_Continue - LCARS - confirm
UI_COMRAM.fsb \ STO_Cancel - LCARS - confirm
UI_COMRAM.fsb \ STO_Inventory - LCARS - confirm
UI_COMRAM.fsb \ admiral - blank
UI_COMRAM.fsb \ captain - blank
UI_COMRAM.fsb \ commander_2 - blank
UI_COMRAM.fsb \ congrats - blank
UI_COMRAM.fsb \ lieutenant - blank
UI_COMRAM.fsb \ lieutenant_commander - blank
UI_COMRAM.fsb \ LevelUp - blank
UI_COMRAM.fsb \ LevelUp_Fanfare - Level Up (TNG commercial + Picard grats)
UI_COMRAM.fsb \ STO_ButtonSmall - TNG Touchpanels
UI_COMRAM.fsb \ STO_ChatMsg - combadge (incoming) ((Must check if conflict with door in custscenes.))
UI_COMRAM.fsb \ Fleet_Transfer - fleet transfer (tng voice)
UI_COMRAM.fsb \ Crafting_Collect - replicator
UI_COMRAM.fsb \ Crafting_Start - voice computer library
UI_COMRAM.fsb \ Boatswain Whistle - TNG Boatswain
UI_COMRAM.fsb \ STO_Mailinbox2 - TNG Mailbox
VOICE_Notifications.fsb \ Combat_Space_003_Notif ("fore shields failing") TNG Voice Shields Down
VOICE_Notifications.fsb \ Combat_Space_003_Sugg (longer version) TNG Voice Shields Down
VOICE_Notifications.fsb \ Combat_Space_004_Notif ("rear shields faling") TNG Voice Shields Down
VOICE_Notifications.fsb \ Combat_Space_004_Sugg (longer version) TNG Voice Shields Down
VOICE_Notifications.fsb \ Combat_Space_005_Notif ("right shields faling") TNG Voice Shields Down
VOICE_Notifications.fsb \ Combat_Space_005_Sugg (longer version) TNG Voice Shields Down
VOICE_Notifications.fsb \ Combat_Space_006_Notif ("left shields faling") TNG Voice Shields Down
VOICE_Notifications.fsb \ Combat_Space_006_Sugg (longer version) TNG Voice Shields Down
VOICE_Notifications.fsb \ Combat_Space_007_Notif ("hull < 75%") Hull Breach 1
VOICE_Notifications.fsb \ Combat_Space_007_Sugg (longer version) Hull Breach 1
VOICE_Notifications.fsb \ Combat_Space_008_Notif ("hull < 50%") Hull Breach 2
VOICE_Notifications.fsb \ Combat_Space_008_Sugg (longer version) Hull Breach 2
VOICE_Notifications.fsb \ Combat_Space_009_Notif ("hull < 25%") Hull Breach 3
VOICE_Notifications.fsb \ Combat_Space_009_Sugg (longer version) Hull Breach 3
VOICE_Notifications.fsb \ Combat_Space_001_Notif ("warning: ship is under attack") Tac Alert
VOICE_Notifications.fsb \ Combat_Space_001_Sugg (longer version) Tac Alert
VOICE_Notifications.fsb \ Combat_Space_010_Notif ("ship is under attack. engine disengaged.") Tac Alert2
VOICE_Notifications.fsb \ Combat_Space_010_Sugg (longer version) Tac Alert2
VOICE_Notifications.fsb \ Combat_Space_002_Notif ("target shields have failed") TargetShieldsDown (sfx)
VOICE_Notifications.fsb \ Combat_Space_002_Sugg (longer version) TargetShieldsDown (sfx)

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Exploration

Music_Explore1.fsb - Exploration - Booby Trap (Ancient Warship)
Music_Explore2.fsb - Exploration - Darmok
Music_Explore3.fsb - Exploration - Encounter at Farpoint
Music_Explore4.fsb - Exploration - Family
Music_Explore5.fsb - Exploration - Skin of Evil
Music_Explore6.fsb - Exploration - The Pegasus
Music_Explore7.fsb - Exploration - Hollow Pursuits (pt1)
Music_Explore8.fsb - Exploration - Evolution (Double Star)
Music_Explore9.fsb - Exploration - Where No One Has Gone Before (Talk With Mom)
Music_Sector.fsb - Exploration (Sector Space?) - Where No One Has Gone Before
Music_New_Romulus.fsb \ STO_Romulan Anbient 1 2013 - Exploration - Desert Trek
Music_New_Romulus.fsb \ STO_Romulan Anbient 2 2013 - Suspense - Can't Go Back
Music_Delta_Quadrant.fsb \ STO_Delta_Quadrant_Theme_Extended_Sector (Delta Sector Space?) - VoyagerThemeExtended
Music_Delta_Quadrant.fsb \ STO_Delta_Quadrant_Theme_Extended - Voyager Exploration - Caretaker (Set Course for Home)
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Mission (suspense)

Music_Mission1.fsb - Suspense - All Good Things pt1
Music_Mission2.fsb - Suspense - All Good Things pt2
Music_Mission3.fsb - Suspense - The Defector (The Stand-off)
Music_Mission4.fsb - Suspense - Yesterday's Enterprise
Music_Mission5.fsb - Suspense - Unification - In Case You Forgot
Music_Mission6.fsb - Suspense - Unification pt1
Music_Mission7.fsb - Suspense - Unification pt2
Music_Devidian_Ambient.fsb - Creepy - Night Terrors (The Morgue)
Music_Devidian_Ambient2.fsb - Creepy - Night Terrors (Feeling Fear)
Music_Tholian.fsb - Tholian_Ambient01 - Nukara - We'll Always Have Paris (New Coordinates)
Music_Tholian.fsb - Tholian_Combat01 - Nukara Combat - We'll Always Have Paris (Countdown)
Music_CRDBattle4.fsb (Why the hell is a mission track in this??) - Suspense - Night Terrors (Vessel of Death)

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Combat

Music_Devidian_Combat - Creepy Combat - Datalore (Knockout)
Music_BorgBattle1.fsb - Combat - The Best of Both Worlds (pt4)
Music_BorgBattle2.fsb - Combat - The Best of Both Worlds (pt5)
Music_BorgBattle3.fsb - Combat - Q Who (The Nursery)
Music_RomulanBattle1.fsb - Combat - All Good Things pt3
Music_RomulanBattle2.fsb - Combat - Booby Trap (Steer Clear)
Music_RomulanBattle3.fsb - Combat - Conundrum (pt1)
Music_RomulanBattle4.fsb - Combat - Night Terrors (Circles)
Music_New_Romulus.fsb \ STO_Romulan Battle 1 2013 - Combat - 11001001 (Auto-Destruct)
Music_New_Romulus.fsb \ STO_Romulan Battle 2 2013 - Combat - 11001001 (Stealing the Enterprise)
Music_New_Romulus.fsb \ STO_Romulan Battle 3 2013 - Combat - Shades of Gray (Final Intensities)
Music_New_Romulus.fsb \ STO_Romulan Battle 4 2013 - Combat - Booby Trap (Human Factor)
Music_GenericBattle1.fsb - Combat - The Battle (Destroy the Sphere)
Music_GenericBattle2.fsb - Combat - Brothers (Cascade Sequence)
Music_GenericBattle3.fsb - Combat - The Nth Degree (Probe Threat)
Music_GenericBattle4.fsb - Combat - Q Who (Attacked)
Music_GenericBattle5.fsb - Combat - Q Who (Out of Your League)
Music_GenericBattle6.fsb - Combat - The Emissary (Exercise Program)
Music_GenericBattle7.fsb - Combat - Tin Man (Romulans)
Music_GenericBattle8.fsb - Combat - The Naked Now (Exploding Star)
Music_Gorn1.fsb - Combat - The Battle (Past Relived)
Music_Gorn2.fsb - Combat - The Battle (No Response)
Music_KlingonBattle1.fsb - Combat - Heart of Glory (Klingon Sting)
Music_KlingonBattle2.fsb - Combat - Heart of Glory (Let's Make a Phaser)
Music_KlingonBattle3.fsb - Combat - Heart of Glory (Making Demands)
Music_KlingonBattle4.fsb - Combat - Heart of Glory (Moment of Decision)
Music_KlingonBattle5.fsb - Combat - Where Silence Has Lease (Exercise)
Music_KlingonBattle6.fsb - Combat - Where Silence Has Lease (Fake Attack)
Music_KlingonBattle7.fsb - Combat - A Matter of Honor (Riker Takes Command)
Music_CRDBattle1.fsb - DS9(CRD)Combat - Sacrifice of Angels
Music_CRDBattle2.fsb - DS9(CRD) Combat - The Changing Face of Evil (Defiant Ending)
Music_CRDBattle3.fsb - DS9(CRD) Combat - The Emissary (The Sisko Kid)
Music_Delta_Quadrant.fsb \ STO_Delta_Quadrant_Combat_1_Extended - Voyager Combat - Caretaker (Prologue)
Music_Delta_Quadrant.fsb \ STO_Delta_Quadrant_Combat_2_Extended - Voyager Combat - Scorpion (pt1)
Music_Delta_Quadrant.fsb \ STO_Delta_Quadrant_Combat_3_Extended - Voyager Combat - Scorpion (pt2)