Star Trek Armada II: Fleet Operations

Three special vessel types will be featured in Fleet Operations v3. Support ships, fighter carriers and troopships. Special vessel types can be identified by their yellow description text in their tooltip. I want to give you a closer look at them today.


Support Ships
If you have played the Preview Release you should already be familiar with support ships. Unlike ordinary vessels these will start with an initial special ability that doesn't need to be researched. In addition they can gain a Level 2 and Level 3 ability due to their system research.
The special abilities and roles of Support Ships diver greatly from race to race and from ship to ship. Some of them are still the same as in the v3 Preview Release, some have been changed a little, but all in all most special weapons got improved graphics.

(http://www.fleetops.net/images/Gallery/FleetOps3Federation/thumbs/FOScreenShot_080615_153046.png) (http://www.fleetops.net/images/Gallery/FleetOps3Federation/FOScreenShot_080615_153046.png)


Fighter Carriers
Fighters are not often seen in Star Trek shows, so fighter carriers are not meant to play a major role in Fleet Operations, but they are still a valuable asset. In fact there will be only two fighter carriers featured in Fleet Operations v3 which will be the Federation Avalon Class and the Dominion Battle Cruiser.
The Avalon and the Battle Cruiser can launch Fighter squads for a small amount of resources and supply costs. These Fighter squads will then act as seperate units, although you can neither select nor order or attack them. They will patrol between the carriers location at the moment they were launched and the chosen target location, attacking all opponents that come into their range.
Fighters will also not stand still but swarm the target to give you the real space battle feeling!
An interesting fact for building strategies with fighters: Fighters are ignored by hostiles as long as there are other targets around. That means that fighters are a good support for a fleet, but on their own they will suffer from their weak shields and just give you a small fire work made of their explosions.

(http://www.fleetops.net/images/Gallery/FleetOps3Federation/thumbs/FOScreenShot_080615_151451.png) (http://www.fleetops.net/images/Gallery/FleetOps3Federation/FOScreenShot_080615_151451.png)


Troopships
Troopships are as rare as fighter carriers. The Dominion in v3 will get a new vessel, available for all avatars, the War Frigate, and the Klingons may upgrade their Vutpa' Class with the new Call to Arms upgrade, to grant it Troopship status.
Troopships bring back the famous Transporter Assault feature from vanilla Armada 2. In addition they do usually have a larger crew pool and increased fighting strength when boarding themselves or being boarded. Here are some pictures of the War Frigate in action!

(http://www.fleetops.net/images/Gallery/FleetOps3Dominion/thumbs/FOScreenShot_080615_144116.png) (http://www.fleetops.net/images/Gallery/FleetOps3Dominion/FOScreenShot_080615_144116.png)

(http://www.fleetops.net/images/Gallery/FleetOps3Dominion/thumbs/FOScreenShot_080615_144133.png) (http://www.fleetops.net/images/Gallery/FleetOps3Dominion/FOScreenShot_080615_144133.png)

Wow.  :thumbsup: Sooo beautiful; to be honest I didn't even read the text first before clicking on the pictures. So much for going to the FO forums for the articles  ^-^

cool  :woot:

 :woot:

Thanks for the news, guys! You're amazing! Your work is amazing!
Well.. guess, I'm amazed  :woot:

The next version of FO will indeed be significant!

Never really cared for fighter carrier craft in any of the mods I've played, but I'm glad to see troop ships returning. Stealing ships for resources or "cheap" scouts was always a favorite tactic hehehe.

On a side note... seems like there are so many changes between the PR of Fleet Ops and the final proposed release that you may as well call the PR v3.⁰ and call the final version v3.⁵ or 4.⁰?

hehe :D yep we thought about that too. but i think we will stick with the "Pre Release", cause it should clearly identify that it does not meet our personal quality standards in every sector :) v3 will be the first "real" Fleet Operations release :)

Fantastic work!, the new Dominion ship looks great, and I can't wait to test out the new fighter system :)

Keep up the awesome work!

Is the Remore Class still in and unchanged? I love that ship in PR.

Honestly I didnt care much for troopships in stock A2, but I think I can adapt and start using them :)
Support ships are of course a valuble asset in preV3, so I expect them to stay the same in V3.

Im looking forward to Fleet carriers. The Avalons' old fighter system was flawed and it seems that maybe the new one will be better. I can maybe forsee some problems with it tho. What if your playing on some huge map and you release a lot of fighters somewhere in the middle of nowhere and then move your fleet back to your base. Will that mean that the fighters will just move the whole maps distance over and over again untill they get destroyed? I think that would be a waste and Id hate to see that happen.
I think a better solution would be that the fighters would circle around the fleet carrier and attack any vessle that comes close to it (regardless of the carriers target). But of course that prolly isnt possible with A2 engine ^^

Yep the Remore is in and not changed except some visuals for her special abilities and some balancing adjustments made to all vessels :)

wow amazing modles as well I still cant beleave you made thoes for a game that is 7 years that is just amazing good job guys :D

Black Baron, Assault Ships are good even in the stock. It can be fun to take an entire armada then use it against the enemy without losing any of your ships. Assault Ships would also be better for Borg than Dominion, I'd expect them to board more often.

Any chance for a combat tug support ship? :crybaby: 

I didnt say they were not good, I just said I didnt use them all that often :) I didnt play stock A2 all that much either lol it always came down to battleship rush so it got boring real soon.
While I agree that the Borg do like boarding ships, they can basically do it from any ship. Their crew count is big enough so I dont think they really need a dedicated marine ship :) I think the Dominion will do fine with it :P

This isn't Star Fleet Battles mate... :thumbsup:

And then of course Tractor Beams are just so much quicker.

Can I order my puny little wasp to fly back to their hive?

you know when fighters attack will they do as they did before where the circle the target but facing in the same direction or are they going to face the target when firing. because the in the pre-version it looks like that cardassian thing from the origianl armada 2 :lol:

They fly real attack maneuvers and you cant directly command them :) they will patrol their given path :)

YES! Troopships are back! Construction ships are  safe from me no longer... *evil cackle* I love the design of the warfrigate! :thumbsup:

Just for the record, am i right in thinking that the Borg will have no troopships, or will there be an option for it for relevant ships (like the assimilator with its auto-assim?).

Fighter's sound interesting too, i'm sure alot of people will enjoy using those. I'll just set a mutli-targeting sphere on them of course :lol:, but still, cool...

so once I started them I can't say:: "Come back yer bloody git?" o0;

sorry it just that the old version that you had for fighters was crap lol. they launched from the carrier then swarmed the target facing the same direction, meaning well you know what i mean. so does that mean the fighters will fly by turn around and fire from there front weapons arcs or just do as they did before like that cardassians ships special weapon thing lol, thats what i thought the old fighter system you had looked like, sorry if makes little sense i am not very good at explaining things

from what i can make out whem they attack they'll manuver a bit like workbees (swarming moving around but face to shoot)

you guys should set it up so that when you tell the carrier to attack something all the fighters go after it as well

nope they do not fly like workbees. they actually fly circles or greater curves and move-and-shoot at the opponents they pass by. they do never stand still.

good good i loved the attack fighters in DS9 and just dont want it to be the same as the pre- version fighter attack or that crappy stock A2 speacial weapon that the cardys use or what the worker bees did.

i sapose you could do a couple of pics to show this or a quick vid :thumbsup:

cool, there ar great :)
not more image's?  :D? :innocent:? :blush:

What do the Federation and Dominion fighters look like?

loox like the releas is getting pretty close! iv been anticipatng this 4 aaages cant wait! :woot:
u gys r so awsum  :D

Is it possible to have the Point Defence target fighters and workerbees. It always bugged me that fighters, worker bees and stations under construction couldn't be attacked.

I think in vanilla A2, ships couldn't target fighters/worker bees because they weren't technically ships, were they? Weren't they just kinda of....an animation? or something like that?

An animation? But the Drones and Workerbees both have an SOD. Or did you mean a Background Object (like the Suns and Blackholes).

If I recall, they behave as weapons, rather than ships.  In theory, they could be made valid targets.

the v3 fighters are vessels even though you can not select or command them. they are attacked and affected by all weapons just like normal starships would. the PR fighters can not be targetted

i have just read all the news posts and MY GOD I AM IMPRESSED! The team have done some bloody great work and i can't wait for the release!  :thumbsup:

Well done Flops you never cease to amaze.

*cough* screenshots *cough*

 :whistling: