Star Trek Armada II: Fleet Operations

Today we'd like to show you some first behind-the-scenes content of Fleet Operations, to learn more about how new features are planned, evaluated and implemented during development.

It were the days of Beta 2, as a new alien race conquered its place in the Fleet Operations universe - the Noxter. Sadly we couldn't really achieve the swarm-like and organic gameplay feeling, that would be fitting for them, as there were far to many limitations. Now, with many new features added and a lot of new development tools at hand, they will finally swarm back at you! Development on the new Noxter has just begun. In the next month I will extend this diary with new facts and features about the Noxter, as they are being implemented.

Today let's talk about concepts. First things first: Gameplay and mechanics. The Noxter are planed to have a very unique style. That already starts with 'vessel' construction: Living beings are not built, they grow up. Something similar will be done for the Noxter. Special organisms, called Breeders, may consume small Noxter eggs - called Seeds - that contain genetic information, the "blue-print" of a new species. Once a Seed has been consumed, a complex metamorphosis is triggered, completely changing the behaviour of the Breeder. It starts to constantly reproduce new Noxter, according to the seed's structure. As such extensive protein synthesis consumes large amounts of energy, a breeder can only survive within the swarm and must be fed, consuming resources.
Those unique concepts of economy give a Noxter player some very special things to take care of. Once a Breeder has absorbed a seed and begins evolving new beings, you have a constant supply of organisms at hand. But once your resources run low, your Breeders may die of hunger! The priority to hold a stable and secure home base - the swarm - is probably much more important for the Noxter, then for any race. That fits to the organic character, as the swarm contains the thing that is most valuable for a Noxter - its mother! To underline that, there are many interesting things planed for the swarm.. but lets talk about that next time.

To finish our first Creeping trip, here are some concept arts for the Noxter. There is basically no Fleet Operations model or gameplay element, that has not been drawn in the first place. Thats a very important step in order to ensure a uniform design through the whole game and to plan your models and textures in later stages. You can also predict performance issues - something that has to be thought of when planning something organic and animated.

(http://www.fleetops.net/images/Gallery/Creeping/thumbs/NoxterBreeder.jpg) (http://www.fleetops.net/images/Gallery/Creeping/NoxterBreeder.jpg) (http://www.fleetops.net/images/Gallery/Creeping/thumbs/NoxterEvolvingBreeder.jpg) (http://www.fleetops.net/images/Gallery/Creeping/NoxterEvolvingBreeder.jpg)
A fresh Noxter Breeder, and a Noxter Breeder evolving a new organism

(http://www.fleetops.net/images/Gallery/Creeping/thumbs/NoxterGuardian.jpg) (http://www.fleetops.net/images/Gallery/Creeping/NoxterGuardian.jpg) (http://www.fleetops.net/images/Gallery/Creeping/thumbs/NoxterOrganism.jpg) (http://www.fleetops.net/images/Gallery/Creeping/NoxterOrganism.jpg)
Some military Noxter species. A Noxter guardian and a large, net-like organism, that may wrap itself around vessels to slowly consume their hulls

Excellent :). It's good to see that work has started on the Noxter. I remember the Beta 2 version so I have high hopes for this one  :woot:

Wow.... I'm impressed. I take it melee combat will still be a part of the noxter?

yay!

so they aren't goona speak english, right? :lol: 
cool concepts btw.

Really nice work Optec :) And I like the idea of a breeder too, sort of a small mother organism hehe. Hopefully you'll able to implement them much better this time around :)

Looking forward to new info  :thumbsup:

Who the hell are the Noxter ??

I have seen most Star Trek shows and never even heard of them. 

Why are unknown random races being added when some main races like the Cardassians and Ferengi are not in the game yet.

Even adding Species 8472 back would be better than adding in unknown races and tbh the Noxter sounds just like species 8472.

So please don't add this race over proper Star Trek races and as for the Iconian's the empire is dead so why are they even considered to be added.

Just add Species 8472, Cardassians and Ferengi and you have a completed star trek game that makes sense.

All the new planned races Ciadan/Iconian/Noxter are pretty random additions that just sound like what the developers want rather than what the people who play the game might want.   There is no way that most of the people who play this game and download it would choose Noxter over Cardassians or Ferengi. 

Quite the attitude you have for a guy who has only been registered on these forums for 2 minutes.
How about you just appreciate they are adding a new race into the game? Even if you do not agree with it, there are better ways to get your point across :)

Oh about Noxter, they are a FO made-up race. They have their story about Fleet Operations and they are trying to make that into a game, that is why they are in - they play an important part in the story.
It is their mod after all, you know  :rolleyes:

And just out of curiosity, how exactly would the Ferengi be a viable race in FO? They have like 1 ship class, and even that one is crappy. Not to mention that they are no where near a position to be able fight off the likes of Borg, Dominion, Klingon...
As I understand it, they will make an appearance as a NP race, and rightly so. As will the Cardassians, who are also not really a superpower anymore, since the Dominion almost wiped them.

I don't see you complaining about the posts saying what a great idea this is.

I don't have an attitude problem just a different opinion which I didn't express in a rude way unless you consider questioning developers ideas rude?

The Ferengi are a major power also and their ships are more than capable of standing up to the Federation as shown in TNG when they could have destroyed the Enterprise D.

As for the Cardassians every race in the quadrant was in a mess after the Dominion war so they were in no worse state than the others.

Hmm, sounds interesting.

My idea:

What bothers me a bit is the "mother". I think the "mother" is at the beginning a princess that will be able to produce only small things. Eggs for "construction" ships that may be changed into a space station.

So you produce an egg out of the princess, and this egg can be converted into a space station. So you need for every "station" an egg. and not like now, one construction ship that can build everything. Every station absorbes a specific amount on ressources right? So when you get out of ressources, the organisms may die out of hunger.

So in order to take advantage of the constant decrease of ressources, you need a constant gain of ressources. Something like a mining station that will cut into a moon and stay there forever while absorbing a constant amount of ressources. So you have no freighters that will deliver the ressources.

In order to build advanced ships, you need to build a 'prince' that will dock on the 'princess'. You can add up to four 'prices' to the princess. If done, it will become a 'mother' that can construct all the ships you need. In order to do 'research' you build up an 'immune system' around your mother that will include stations for adaption (similar to the borg) and defense patterns. These stations are linked by a hive (similar to the borg) but not through physical tunnels.

So what do we have now?
We have a princess that will grow over the time to a mother. It can be 'upgrades' with four 'prince' modules.
This is your starbase, your fleetyard and your science station.
If the mother is destroyed, you will lose everything. If it is intact, you have everything left. So you may only have a single, large station that grows in its might with building out.

Building ships:
The mother can produce at the first only small ships and with the attachment of additional princes even larger ships.

You have the ability to 'develope' your ships over the time from class one to class three for every ship class.
The more you upgrade a class ,the more additional abilities it will gain and the stats will rise.

Every ship will also consume a certain amount of ressources, so your fleet size is limited.

Science:

- You can make the ressource consumption more efficient if your 'immune system' gains the ability of 'advanced metabolism'.
- You can increase the stats of your defense stations and level up your ships when you dicover 'adaptive genetics'. You can directly change the genetics of your ships. This 'Evolution' got more than just one level.
- You can build more ship classes and stations when you discover "organic engeneering"

So the mother can be build out with yards (prince) ,science stations (immune system + brain) defense stations (immune system) and thats it,
The immune system works in this way: Every time, you destroy an enemy ship, your "hive" will learn and after a certain time of destruction, your immune system collected enough informations to do research about it (brain).
After the research is done, you might be able to refit your ships, build new ships and even new stations.

What about other stations?
- At level zero you have also access to build defense stations. These can be refitted after tech up. Remember that you need for every external station an egg, so when you try to build up stations far away from your mother, it will take some time.
- You have a mining station called "metamorphosis" that will convert dilithium and tritanium into things that are able to be used by the metabolism.
Now we have everything we need compared with the other races. But what would be a noxter if he would'nt be a NOXTER?
You can not only build defense patterns and mining stations, you can also build an 'overlord'. That will be some kind of Deep Space station like for the other races. This overlord is a hell of a space station and the "man" of the mother.

He cant produce ships ( he is a man  :rolleyes: ) but got a large amount of offensive and defensive abilities. The overlord can only be build within the "link" range of the mother. But, because the mother loves many giggolos at the same time, you can build more than just one overlord. BUT pay attention. You have a constant decrease of ressources. You might be able to build mor than one overlord, but this also means, you need more moons to supply them.

What do I do when my mining station gets shot down?
Well, put a part of your fleet to sleep or a part of your stations. If you dont need stations like the "research part" of the mother, because everything is already researched, you can put it to sleep. It will consume only 10% of the ressources it will need when it is awake.

You can set your stations to "auto-sleep" so they will wake up if they get warned. The time they need to wake up will depend on the genetics and so on the tech level you have.

So when you overlord will sleep and a borg Cube will show up, it will wake up after for example 10 seconds.

If you have a fleet in the near of your overlord, the overlord will awake when the enemy is near but not within weapon range.

So suprise attacks against Noxter might be mighty but should be well planned.

Ships-level-up:
What do the ships get when they level up?
Well, its the same for us humans. You learn to fight if you fight. You will be able to evade enemy fire better, are able to fire better (longer range, better hit chance, more damage) your body will be hardened and if leveld up regenerate faster.

So similar to the system we have now. Special:
The Noxter dont have something like a 'veteran queue' They may rank up as much they want, BUT the rank up will cost IMMENSE ressources, more than the other races need.

Ships:

Scout:
Fast ship, good sensor range, may be able to cloak itself when in 'sleep' modus but with remaining its sensor range. Got a single weapon with very short range but good damage.

Destroyer:
You have two kinds of destroyer:
- Attack destroyer which is build for combat. Fast, hard to hit, medium weapon range but good punch and regenerative abilities.

- Antibody: Is a kamikaze-like ship similar to the dominion bug in collision modus. But it wont destroy itself when entering an enemy ship, it will go onto the hull, getting into it, slowly killing the crew and take the enemy ship over. You get a HUGE research bonus if you make it that way. Also, the ship you captured is now mixed tech and cant be re-captured.

With this kind of ship, you may easily capture other small and medium sized vessels, but in order to take over large vessels, you may need more than just one Antibody. The Antibody will cut itself through the enemy hull until it is down to 50%. When the hull is down to 50%, the assimilation begins. Now your antibody needs special energy for killing the crew. If it runs out of special energy, it will die before taking over the ship.
As long the hull is'nt under 50%, you can shoot the antibody down from the ships hull.

Cruisers:
The cruiser-vessels are the first vessels equipped with not only beam weapons. They got biochemical torpedos that will try to go through enemy shields, if weak enough. These torpedos are so to say small eggs with a small brain with only one order: Destroy!

The cruisers also are more sophisticated at got more "love" from the mother, so they withstand more damage and deal more damage.

Battlecruiser: This cruiser got two beam weapons and one torpedo launcher. It got NO special abilities. It was build to be a frontline vessel with only this purpose and with no other value.

Thinker: Support-Cruiser: This vessel is an atrillery ship with long range bionic torpedos. It can 'harden' its position by deactivating its propulsion in order to withstand better enemy attacks. Also the offensive value gets slightly increased. When entering this status, this ships needs a little time to change to 'normal mode'

Battleship:
The small brother of the overlord with engines. This ship can fire energyhungry parasites that will drastically drain the energy output of enemy ships so that they lose weapons and propulsion. This ship can also 'hardening' its position and is able to 'eat' enemy ships. Thus, this ship is very slow, you may not be able to get within 'eat-range'.
After an enemy ship is eaten by the Battleship, is counts as assimilated.
It is a dreadnought.

Additional modules:
"Mutant modules"
When you upgrade your tech level you can refit your ships with mutant-modules, if they are able to. They are like borg modules. You can choose between many kinds of modules, but will only be able to add one per techupgrade.

You can also add many many more additions to this race.

Why would'nt it outblanance the game? Because you have a certain amount of ressources you can spend per time. So even when you only build uber-ships, these ships would also consume uber-ressources. So make it like you want, but an empire that can only support 3 ships because they are so mighty, is not a real empire. And when it would get destroyed, you have real problems, because it will take much time to rubuild those ships to their levels.


Avatars:
Avatar #1:
Agressive fighter:
- bonus for offensive and defensive values of your ships
- additional modules
- additional battle-designs for ships

Avatar #2:
Expander:
- reduced costs for ship support
- reduced costs for shipbuilding
- reduced time costs for research

Something like that

DARN IT SHEVA YOU TYPE FAST!!


Ok, I love this Idea, So I, will input my own Ideas as well.  What if there was a breeder and the genetic secreter.  It takes time to lay an egg, of which all ships and stations are formed.  You don't control the egg laying process, you only control where it happens, as you just tell the "ship" to stand ground, then move here, and then here, then here, and so on.  So it has a set routine.  The egg laying process is slowed by moving.  After an egg is laid, there are a set of small stations, such as nutrient enrichment embryos, and small defensive organisms(turrets) available, and another set of small ships. E.G. scout ship, destroyer, and breeders.  Next, is the genetic secreter, or your starbase.  this contains all the genetic information for your races ships and station.  When an egg has reached the first level, you tell the egg what to become, and the genetic secreter, secretes a mist or something, much like the borg nanite process.  This mist slowly travels to the place the egg was laid.  Then the Egg starts to continue the process and eventually ends up as your desired selection.  Now, you may also click a continue maturity process button on the egg selection menu, this will let the egg once again grow.  After it has reached stage two, it will stop, and give you another set of selections for stations such as, Knowledge foundations, and mobile secreters.  These should carry a limited amount of the secretion and can only be used for combat ships, making it a small more flexible shipyard.  Last would be the final maturity stage, this is for mixed tech, however this would implemented, and a small knowledge secretion ship.  Now my Idea for a cool way of doing research and special weapons is this: This ship goes to a Knowledge "pod" and extracts the knowledge from it.  now this ship can use that special weapon, or it can be transferred to any ship it wants.  This would make all the Specials inter-changeable.  Lastly there is an obvious problem, which is that all the eggs would be very vulnerable to attack, which gives me this Idea.  They should have the passive ability to defend their self's in this way.  When an enemy ship comes near, the egg secrets an mist that confuses the enemy ship to think, either the egg isn't there, it is a friendly ship, or it merely cannot fire upon it. This would change in this order as the egg matures.  All the noxter ships would have to be very strong considering the time it takes to build them.

Double posting here.  It seems that our Ides are compatible Sheva. I espically support these Ideas.

These races ARE what the devs want...it's their mod, based on a storyline that they've already got. Personally, I'd choose Noxter over both Ferengi and Cardassians as they provide a far more interesting form of gameplay besides another "build a yard, build research stations, build ships" ethos - more variety is more fun in my opinion. Besides that, Star Trek is all about new life forms, heck it says that in the opening credits of two of the shows!

Also, it was never said in any of the shows that Species 8472 behave in a similar way to how the Noxter do...all we've seen of them is that they use bio-engineered ships - it's never explicitly said whether they're the same species as the pilots and whether they're born or constructed.


Anyway, back on topic - looks amazing Optec, I liked playing as Noxter in Beta 2 (heck, still do sometimes :P) and hopefully this will make them even more fun to play!

In fact, The only stations we have seen of species 8472 is a recreation of a starbase station, so who is to say that their stations arn't just like the feds in normal space, and that would be booring.  :yucky:

The noxter have been in fo scene longer than I have been coming to this site, and I have been coming here for several years.  And who knows maybe you will get your way, and 8472, and the cardies, and the ferengi will end up in the game, but IMO, the Noxter present a whole new game play concept,and just for that reason alone they are supported, not to mention how cool they are going to look. :woot:

Did you mean something like a school, where the ships may learn new specialattacks, but some are restricted to a few "ship classes", because they need some special "hardware".

I think there should be a "pusher"/"puller", which pushes/pulls the eggs to their position, because they can't move (like tractor beam, but with direct contact). The eggs should have the posssibility to reflect energy weapons like beams or disrupters and they are so small, so they get seldom hit by torpedos.

I think the Noxter ressources should be harvested by a Noxter, which lives in the moon and on the moons surface, you may hide this harvester inside the moon (implementation as cloaking, but it should be a hiding), but there it isnt able to harvest ressources.


"Evolving" or "Growing" should consume ressources and then later they need fewer. Ships should get experience and dont need ressources, because a veteran soldier need no food for getting experience.

There should be a possibility to heal the Noxter, I think it should be something like a hospital or so, but it needs ressources (replacements, food, bandage...).

How would be a feeding station, where all Noxterships get food and then their food decreases constantly or with special attacks. Feeding a ship will cost ressources and this food may be a substitute for special energy, whick does NOT regenerate but decrease all the time until next feeding. A ship without food will die. So there may be Food transporters which may bring food to ships with deactivated/destroyed propulsion...

This food management would be interesting in combat.


P.S.: I would like to read the story

Well, I supose it could be called a teacher.  It would go to each individual ship and give it the specific knowledge or special you want, or it would go to the main secreter, and make all ships of that class have which ever weapon you wan't.  There would also be a restriction on ship class I guess.

  Maybe then there would a tentacle from the "starbase" that directally adds the genetic information to the egg. instead of a mist.

the breeders die of Hunger when low on resources.

Very nice touch. Makes them a lot like the Jemhadar K-cel discussion and achieves the link in-game to the jems that reflect the storyline changes.

Coolio.  :thumbsup:

**Edit** was the design for the Noxter inspired in some way by Earth 2160's morphidian aliens?

Looks amazing fellas; been waiting for the Noxter's return for a loooong time (given my line of research, that isn't exactly surprising :) )

Very nice sketches as well: got any particular color scheme planned?

Hmm, I kind of like the idea of healing your ships for resources...  B)

i love the completely different style of the noxter and in fact i think the idea of having an space-living organism in game is really creepy. and in fact in my opinion its much more interesting to include a selfmade species instead of getting the canon species to play around with =)

Its a mix between Borg and the others, you can repair and pay or you can wait, what you need and like.

Indeed Blackbird :)

Omg..... crap idea.. i really do not like so called ''living ships''. sure in babylon 5 but not in startrek.

Startrek is a technological story about races having the baddest meanest technology fighting eachother, backstabbing and more.

So now comes a species that practically lives in space and feeds off of supply's ?

No clearly i do not agree with that idea based on the fact that living ships can't shoot or defend themselves that well.

As for the idea implementing a race... yes sure but make it a logical one.

Also i like the idea's developers have come up with a lot but some have to be labeled as bad by the players only way to keep this mod proper and fun and not lame and overcomplicated silly.


As for -=B!G=- the Black Bacon <------- stop ass kissing, enough wankers that kiss ass on other mods and it screwed those over big time.(yes i do think you are a wanker) You go in pussy mode when someone gives a good reason why he wouldn't want it in-game. Actually giving good feedback to devs about bad idea's is damn good reason to review it over, but telling them they are rude because you like asskissing doesn't make the feedback rude.

As for the defense of Optec and other developers they have always been really nice at corresponding back to players that think idea's are bad or could be improved that can stand on their own two feet as they will in this case.


i do not intend to let bad idea's happen on the few games i actually enjoy still playing. I rather try to help improve it.

That is also why i do not like the new race for it being living beings and i never heard of them before.

Star Trek is not about tech, the tech is simply a means to an end. There have been quite a few beings that live in space throughout all of the different series.

and we have seen living ships before, Tin man, Species 8472, ect.

Of course the design of a new race is a controversial topic, but please be polite to each other, even if you disagree with somebody.

The Noxter style has changed depending on the user input in Beta2. They will have organic elements, but there will also be a good part of technology for them. We have spent much time in development making sure the Noxter will fit into the Star Trek universe (thats the core of Fleet Operations). The next The Creeping parts will show you more about them, including their background story and interesting twists on the Beta2 gameplay. Of course - as they are still in development - its your opportunity to influence a complete race in Fleet Operations!

The Noxter will be something special. Not as creepy and organic as the Zerg for example, in order to fit into the Trek universe. They are a sentient and intelligent and will feature many interesting, unique gameplay elements. More about that in the next The Creeping parts.

Could you tell us if were close to what their game play will be like, Or are we completely off?

Please oh great administrator, please? :innocent:

I like many of the ideas posted here. One of the basic element in Beta2 were large amounts of units, thats true to some extent for the new Noxter, too, however they also have access to large, expensive (and technological) units, similar to other races. Not everything about the Noxter is fixed yet, we want to develop them based on the community input.
The Avatars for the Noxter are different mother-entities, so basically different genetic lines or families. I could think of something like mentioned here :thumbsup:

Awsome. :D

i agree with you with some parts.. i too would like to see canon races make it into the game, more then non-canon (cardassians.. oh pleaseee), however, that race concept is really cool and different and it will be intresting to see this work with the known races.. and who say that more canon races won't make it in the long tern? (right?)

Just gonna throw some ideas out there:

Any chance of viral or chemical weapons making an experience (or acid blood)? Taking over enemy vessels also seems quite interesting, as some sort of infection that makes the ship uninhabitable but controls the main computer (the bioneural packs come to mind...) to a certain extent: perhaps decreasing shielding and hull integrity etc, but increasing firepower and granting a damaging self destruct option.  :rolleyes:

Are the Noxter going to be relying on dilithium and tritanium as the other factions? I was thinking that they can use something to two types of compounds: an organic and an inorganic. Inorganic they can gain from dilithium and tritanium moons directly, the organic compounds have to be processed by "digestor creatures" which convert it to the second usable form. So in other words, most of the basic organisms rely on the first type of compound, whereas more technologically advanced Noxter require more digestor creatures to create more organic compounds for their creation.


@ Serpicus: I don't see how the Noxter could be influenced necessarily by the Morphidians, given that the particular game came out in 2005-6... and plus, the idea of an organic space faring faction ain't exactly completely unique....

Can a big noxter unit "eat" derelict ships other species to gain ressources? PLEASE! :=)
Or could they have some radiation that kills the crew of other ships? to make em derelic?

maybe they can use nebulas and planets to gain resources/power/food..

The main thing that I was thinking for the noxter was that the units that use melee for attacking the enemy should have the bonus of attacking the hull directly, since a unit that has to get that close will come under more fire than units that attack from longer range. and will the units utilize all of the resources or will they be converted like bio matter was for species 8472? Will you be able to "build" Some of your stations in a nebulae to take advantage of it's effects? or will you be stuck to the confines of empty space to build? I know I'm asking a lot but I will say that I think this race might be best played by taking advantage of your surroundings, such as hiding in fludic nebulae ( They won't have shields Right? ) and attacking ships passing by and such... and shouldn't you add another nebulae a fludic one for the noxter that they could spawn for their bases.


Or what if you used fludic nebulae like the zerg use creep in starcraft... using the nebulae for a "sturcture" to build off of, now these are just ideas but I would like to see what you think of em'

They look cool!

They look allot like the style from the old modals.

I like them.

Oh look, another fella who has been here for 1 second and knows everything. I dont actually care for the personal insults, but tell me, how was " WTF didnt u include this race instead of this one!!!11" giving good feedback?
Because of his tone, I just replied in the same manner and told him why they included the Noxter instead of the Ferengi or Cardies. If you think Im an ass kisser or wanker or both because of that, good for you then  :thumbsup:

Whatever, though, I really do not have the time or energy to argue with people like you. The facts are: -The team is making the mod for themselves, as they have set up in their head. Consider yourself lucky these forums even exist.
-When someone is giving something to you, it is common curtesy to at least attempt to give your difference of opinion across in a civilized manner. That is just something I was taught during my whole life and think everyone should at least try to act that way.

But anyway mate, enjoy the forums !  :thumbsup:

1. (As a few have already asked for) - Can the Noxter's biggest battleships have the ability to eat enemy destroyers as a free (no special energy) attack? The battleships would have to be relatively slow so that it wouldn't be unfair. Also, the would have to digest the ship after they consume it and could only eat one at a time.

2. How about organic shields? I imagine that they will be mostly hull-based in terms of defense (like the Borg), but it would be awesome if their ships could generate a biological, reactive "bubble" of particles around themselves. The shield would be very, very weak, but would regenerate instantly when the ship was not being actively fired at.

3. Biological / animalistic effects. This is where FleetOps can do something that I don't think I've ever seen in any RTS. Given that they are living organisms, the Noxter's units should react accordingly. Firing rates should increase when the unit gets into "red" for hull damage. Perhaps some pain sounds as well?

Very good points Psi3. I especially like the "red zone" attack  :thumbsup:
I think I have one thing to add. Most fish as you might know generate an electrical field to sense their surroundings (and predators) and some aquatic organisms even have an electrical system to even stun or kill. Might this be included in all Noxter as a form of ECM. So, even though they have weaker hulls and weak shields, torpedoes and other projectile weapons have a rather hard time trying to hit...

Perhaps the some of the attacks could be "electrical" in nature: short circuiting nearby ships or frying their shields in quick order :)

How about a directional (like the Canavaral's probe) electrical or viral pulse wave (about a 120 degree arc) that has the ability to disable subsystems as resisted by the system value (like all such disabling attacks now are, right?).

----------------------------------

4. An absolute must (in some capacity): viral / biological weaponry. I disagree that the Noxter should have a technological edge at all. 85,000 other scifi ideas have already done the whole "living ships, but with phasers" idea to death. Make them purely biological. I'd love to have their destroyers have melee range weaponry. How awesome would it be to see one of them bite an enemy ship then reach around with its tail (they have tails) and start stinging the hull?

I also really love the idea of having their torpedoes being alive. The lazy idea is just to have them be "guided" since they are "smart". A cooler one is having them do some sort of special effect, like continuously draining shields / doing hull damage for a few moments after impact.

Exactly what I was thinking before: perhaps the torpedoes could be like a jellyfish's nematocysts, where they shoot out, hit the hull and cause damage over time (ow! That stung!).... but they have a long cool down time to represent losing part of the creature and having to be regenerated. Perhaps some sort of tentacle like weapons, which incapacitate an opponent's ship for a short time would be neat as well. There is just so much biology to draw in, I agree that there really is no need for technological answers (heck, just look within the million insect species and I'm sure you can find enough things to cover at least hundreds of completely different Noxter avatars). Right now I'm thinking of the Bombadier beetles quinone spray: superheats enemy hull and causes the sensors to be blinded. Also causes small amount of direct hull damage.

Soooo many possibilities Dev team  :D

Maybe you should watch some episodes again, starting with TOS and ending with VOY.
But, c'mon, what's up with you, man? Insulting people is no feedback at all  :ermm:

When I first came here, the old days of beta 2, I had the chance to check out the Noxter. Uhm, well, I didn't like them that much but somehow they were cool.
I've learned, in the years I read and posted here, that the Noxter are a race in the story- und timeline the devs made up and since FO is their game that's fine. Still, if I don't like them, I don't have to play them.  :sweatdrop:

But today, with these sketches, I have to admit: They DO look cool and the concept sounds very promising! I guess they're gonna be my new fav race  :thumbsup: I'm really looking forward to them!

The ideas for them which were already posted sound pretty cool, too. I do like them!  :thumbsup:

And if that might be considered as kissing some body parts, let me tell you: The devs don't simply copy, they invent. And that's what good games are about, new and cool stuff to play with. So far the Noxter sound like both, new and cool.

So, can't wait until you guys post the next creep ;)

How about some sort of moon-station (as mentioned earlier) but it has to 'connect' to a nearby absorbtion station in-order to gain the resources. A line of the noxter flesh that stretches out and connects to another station.

This link would be quick to build, but quick to destroy, with a targetable weak-point that could 'sever' the line for a minute or two. However, as the station and absorber gain more resources, they 'evolve' and get stronger. Say 1000 resources collected adds +100% toughness to the stretch, the next mile stone is 5000, +50%. 10000, +25%. 20000, +10%. This could be either automatic or needed to pay for, but it means that you can defend a static thing, instead of having to have ships on freighters all the time.

Out of curiousity - How do the Noxter interact with Nanoprobes?  AKA - Should they surrender their vessels and prepare to be assimiliated, or do we issue a termination of species order and deploy the tactical vessels?   :borg:

Hmm, if all Noxter ships are at short or direct range, they are very weak against artillery. When the defense stations have a very short range, they make no sense at all. But I have an idea:

Defense stations dont fire itself, they are more like the alien light defense station from Command & Conquer, where the stations spit out "buzzers" that attacked enemy ships. These buzzers run to the enemy ship and can crash into it.

The godd point on the idea: It would solve the short range problem.

The bad point: If you have ships with fast firing weapons, these buzzers would get killed before reaching the enemy ship. A small fleet about 2 or 3 ships may be enough to make a whole defense perimeter worthless.

To the defense capabilities:
Well, I like the Idea of a ECM, but phasers will always hit. Pulse weapons are something from small ships like destroyers and torpedos are fatal against hull based ships.

Also, the Noxter is in my eyes a race that will be in advantage (so I feel) in the late game and you will have problems in the early game. Why? Because we talk about Evolution. It makes no sense to make them strong at the beginning and weak in the later games.

And in the later games you have torpedos and pure-beam weapons against you.

The question is: How do we balance it out?
Federation - high defense, bad offense
Romulans - normal defense, normal offense, good system stats
Dominion - Good offense, medium defense, medium system value
Klingon - highest offense, weak defense, normal system value
Borg - highest offense, highest defense, highest system value
Noxter - (I feel like: ) maximum defense, good offense, system value is... unmatched (regeneration and so on...)

What about the borg that try to assimilate Noxter ships? Should they be able to?

Very interesting. Constant unit production is always a fun addition to an RTS, and making it cost money to constantly produce sounds interesting (sounds like the Noxtor gameplay is going to be less 'build as fast as you can support' and more 'get as many breeders as you can, while not getting too many or they'll starve'. Having to worry about not spending too many resources at a time will be interesting, and it sounds like the Noxtor will have to do a lot of mining protection, as a good raid could kill their income and their production facilities.

Will breeders be able to consume new seeds to replace one they've already eaten or is it sort of a permanent upgrade?

That was my Idea for the breeder.  Consrtantally producing eggs that are the foundation of all structures and ships.

But what do you do when you want to stop the breeding, for example, if you have enough ships for an attack and everything else is okay? If you run out of "ressources" this is the end for your campaign. Constant production of eggs will force you to always watch your breeders so that you are not able to do coordinated attacks because you have to focus on your base.

Not good.

once a Breeder has consumed a seed its genetic information morphes, so the process is not reversible and it can no longer consume other seeds. however, a Breeder may halt evolution for a bit (a few ingame minutes probably) without eating something (consuming resources) but basically.. once you have a Breeder you have to take care of it until the bitter end.

Of course we can think of a Breeder being consumed by the swarm again. The Noxter dont favor canibalism, but Breeders are not expected to be sentient or intelligent, so they act more like tools and.. well.. might be consumed if the swarm is running low in food. Basically every Noxter would sacrifice itself to save its mother.

From the current point of development the Noxter will use the same resources as all other races - dilithium and tritanium - but wont use supply at all, as Noxter are supplied by the swarm and dont need spare parts or romulan ale ;) Mining however will be different, as the Noxter use bacteria to synthesize bio-tech metals. That will also define the look of the Noxter. Unlike Beta 2 they will look less dark, with white or silver and semi-transparent parts. Other elements like purple or orange will be there of course, too :)

Yes, that is definitely a problem... any attack on your resources would be end game then (if you are a decent player, usually you are always using your resources to the maximum).  Hopefully there would be a "terminate" breeder option if that were the case. Call it euthanasia  :ermm:

I guess Optec just semi-answered those questions though  :sweatdrop:

awww, just dilithium and tritanium... :(

So, because you use the term seed, does that mean they are plant based, not animal, or orginism based?

I think he meant "seed" as in genetic seed (aka, egg/sperm: seed for genetic life) :)

As defence base could be an organism, that produces constantly "torpedos" until a limit, so you have a fast fire rate at the beginning of a fight and later a decreased rate of fire, because the ammunition has to be "produced", so you have a defence like romulan ships, but greater range (long or arty), same thing for some ships to get long-range support.

If food=special energy is implemented, then a battle consumes more food/second as "normal" operation (e.g. every shot costs some foodpoints).

So, and what do I do with the eggs that will come out when I dont know what to do with them?

For example:
I have my base ready and want to attack an enemy player. Sure, I may suffer losses, but that would'nt be THAT problem, because you always suffer losses in combat. So I attack and in my base there are already defenders. I fly with my fleet to the enemy, try to destroy it or will be defeated.

Now I have my eggs and my defense force left in the basement, so I tell all the eggs: Build yourself to ne next attack wave.

This is not bad, sure. It helps you to engage the enemy at the frontline and on the other hand you will get eggs so that you can build fast a new attack group, if failed. But, what if you win and you have more than just one enemy base? Then your base will flood over with eggs and you dont know what to do with them.

I usally fly with my scouts and one or two destroyers around the univers to spot enemy ships. When I found them, a task force will engage.

And when I dont find one, then... erm... what do I do then?

Well, you may put per auto-control your eggs on the defense station so the eggs may be "thrown" like torpedos on the enemy and will explode by hitting them. But then we may have an unlimited amount of eggs so the problem is not solved. In a "peacful" universe, the Noxter will die out because of the breeders, right?

Well, It you use my Idea, thy just sit there and defend their selves, until they are used, or matured.

I favoured the term "seed", cause Noxter don't use sexual reproduction. Most genetic information contained in seeds is assembled by the Mother (or a similar entity) and not mixed with the genetic information of the Breeder or another Noxter. On the other hand, a Noxter usually is not described by a single set of DNA (like us humans), but different organs of Noxter may have their information coded in different genetic blueprints. Most Noxter are a small bio-system of their own.
So the capsule containing basic proteins and information (basically a virus that triggers the Breeders metamorphosis) fits more to the term seed as know from plants then to an egg, capsule just sounded.. strange somehow.
The Noxter are not plant-based.. Hm.. a bit insectoid perhaps.. or mollusc

Ohhh yes. This is awsome news! I really love the out of the box thinking here. The most appealing thing to me is that they are no ships and stations - they are unique life forms that live in space. This is new, this is unique, it's brilliant. Can't wait to see more! there are so many possibilities. Do you need a biologist with some good ideas?

I cant wait to see what you come up with. I think you guys have a bright future. I love the last few patches.


I see no senesced animation with barry white playing in the background? :lol:

@ Optec

Very interesting concept, but I have some questions for you. How will the noxter and borg match up? The Borg have the ability to assimilate other species, but the noxter will have the ability to consume the hulls of other vessles. I am assuming that the noxter will have some sort of natural immunity to assimilation, or perhaps a resistance built up over time. This would be like species 8472. Am I on the right track?

Additionally, since these are organic creatures, will their ships (organisms) be classified as destroyers or battleships? Will unique weapon abilities such as "double damage to battleships" effect them at all?

Dear creators of the Noxter.... you are my heroes.  :crybaby:

Out of curiousity, for those of us who are new to the game and the Fleetops community, and weren't around for the older versions (Armada 1, Beta 1, Beta 2... :whistling:), could anyone provide a link to a primer on the Fleetops universe...i.e. exactly the background and context the devs intended, how much liberty they intend to take with canon, what the storyline is, etc.

I think if a document of that "vision" is posted somewhere, all the arguing over where to take this mod may stop and the community can unite behind one vision.   :thumbsup:

I'm on the fence about the whole Noxter idea. I don't really care for the adding of a new race for the sake of adding a new race, when an existing one would do (species 8472?)

Personally, I'd much prefer seeing new avatars for the existing races and further balancing changes. I realize this new race is pretty far in the future of the mod, but it's not something I'm terribly excited about.

Hmm. The Mother sends out genetic material that is then grown and birthed by another organism? Sounds more like a Father to me. :lol:

As some one who has played Fleetops for a few years. I still remember the Fleet Ops. 1.0. So this mod has come a long way from its roots.I used to be a avid player of Armada 1 Armada 2  and the mods  from AFC website. However what got me to like this mod over the other mods sites was  that  at  AFC a lot of the mods did not have continuity .One mod  you  downloaded did not like another mod or upgrade on the same site. I still miss the "Demons Tooth" and the "Demon Star" ships for the Borg". But when I found this site and started to use the  mod,I was amazed at the smooth  intergration of new updated material  to patch  the game. I was awed at the  vastly improved gameplay. When I first tried  the Noxter after  I was used to the Species 8472. At first I hated the Noxter. However as  I grew to understand, I realized I had to change my tactics . Because the Noxter were not like any other race .One you can't capture or assimulate their ships. 2) you had to protect the "Mother" if you wanted to move her to a nother spot on the map.How many times have you wanted to move you star base? But,doing so shut down the production of  base beings  to evolve in to you ships . Plus you had the  task of managing three  resourses  Metal /DIlithium and Bio-matter . Many times the "Mining Resourse colllectors" helped disable a fleet. Or playing aginst the swarms of "Hoard? that spit acid on you ship and dissolved it slowly caused me to lose a lot of ships or the minelayers that  laid spacebourne mines "   that seeked out opponent ships as the come near to the mines.The Noxter I feel adds a great deal to the gameplay of FO. I eagerily await their return. Some of my best matches were Myself  aginst the AI as  Noxter.To those who are computer savy  just download the Old F.O.  game and play  with the Noxter. Then  you might understand a little better why  the mod needs the Noxter.

I can't say I am too fond of a new non cannon race... I am sure there is still cannon content that can be added still...

That said, The work that has been done by the Fleet Ops teams has been great and I have no doubt they will continue there high standards of excellence in modding and bring us even more fleet ops for ages to come.

 So bring it on if you must, I know it will be good :)

@sideeffect.   its the modders perogative to add whatever they want to add.  i was relieved when the dominion was added as the last race instead of the noxter since i have no interest in the noxter whatsoever, however they are making the mod so they can do whatever the hell they want.

i personally will just keep playing the normal races like normal but many people would like to see something new and different.

hell......if it were up to me i would have star wars units added as some sort of interuniversal war of some kind,  and the federations biggest secret weapon would be tribbles.  but thats just me.

keep up the good work im having lots of fun again now that they fixed the save game explosion thing in teh latest patch.

hint hint hint.........tribbles would make awesome secret weapons

The noxter battleunits ("ships") will be classified as usual (great battleships...) to compare with other ships and make the special effects of torpedo-miss-rate... (It is only my suggestion!)

Assimilation in this way is impossible, because the auto-assimilator beams enemy crewmen on itself and assimilates them and the holding-beam beams crewmen on the other ship, but you cant beam into a life-form (no space to beam) and you cant beam enemy crewmen, when there arent any.

The melee attacks of the Noxter ignore shields, so the Borg have the advantage, that there hull is stronger than the hull of other races, so the shield-ignoring ability is nearly useless (like devastating attack against Borg).


As I suggested before the Noxter should have "torpedos" with a fire-rate like the romulans, with a high rate at beginning of fight and later a decreased rate, because of the production and storage of "torpedos". (persuiting Torpedos)
They have no beam- and disruptorweapons, but electric shocks (~short, disabling any subsystem, hits the shield, not directly the hull), acid trops (spit by the Noxter, maybe medium/short, damage over time, may miss).

Is it possible to implement, that the Noxter may throw asteroids, if they are near to a gropu of asteroids? (some "ship classes" only)

"Is it possible to implement, that the Noxter may throw asteroids, if they are near to a gropu of asteroids? (some "ship classes" only)"
genius idea! :thumbsup:

Throwing asteroids... now this race is in the stone-age.

If an ability depends on map ressources instead of moons, than you will always put your ship to this point. And other players try to avaoid this places, so you simply get nothing out of it when you learned the tactic once.

HAHA this is a realistic threat to a possible future starship but not to a startrekish ship. These can hold off H-Bombs without feeling ticked. ST-shields are in the Peta-Watts regime, so that asteroids would need to have 75% of light speed to cause serious damage ... though the shields may hold off any smaller asteroids, the ship should be repelled heavily, as the only force against that are the impulse engines ... additionally ramming works in FO, so everything about that is inconsistant in FO.  :P

Unfortunatly it is just a question of style if such a weapon becomes enabled or not.

btw, anyone remeber the fluid space from voyager? maybe they can come from that univurse and bring reinforcement from there..

Fluidic space was 8472 territory...

indeed, however, that "Fluidic space" is a whole other univurse, and maybe the noxter live there too with 8472 and it support only space based bengis.. hell, maybe they know each other, do you have proof? (god.. i must find job..)

The Noxter are from the same universe as the Cardassians and Dominion etc. The only proof we have is what the Devs tell us. Also, 8472 wasn't "space based": they were humanoid with organic spacecraft, whereas the Noxter are the spacecraft :)

cool, That clears things up quit a bit.

The Noxter reminds me of the Zerg (Starcraft) in many respects, I believe they will be a great addition and most likely an addictive race  :thumbsup:

Hm, i guess there will be no noxter mixed tech then ? too bad  :crybaby:

There could be a mixed-tech vessel. There arent many crewmen in a (e.g.) federation ship, but one single organism, which lives in symbiosis with the ship.

Seriously no startrek fan or whoever that follows it a bit will take any made up race over a startrek race... that would just make no sense.

If they want to add an organic species add Species 8472 as they actually are included in startrek.

Adding in non-existing races only makes it a non-startrek game... if the developers want this they should leave startrek and make a new mod on another game or even better try and make a game they want.

Also stop the asskissing at the ending of your postings.... seriously...


wtf are you thinking ? putting someone off to look good in the eyes of the developers because you think they are supreme beings ? (maybe they are the noxters themselves ?)

stop the asskissing please.... this is startrek....


Just because Optec and DOCa Cola are developing it doesn't mean they can just make whatever they want. They can try and force it but they will lose the mod to inactivity as many of the mods have done.

Also it wouldn't be ''pure startrek'' it would be a made up story that wouldn't make much sense.


If these noxters are going to end up in this mod at least give the option to set Normal Story and Fleetops Story which just enable the custom race's as i like all the other aspects of the game.

I consider myself a big fan of star trek, but they fucked some things up... Their last big hit were the borg, all other big franchises overtook them in many many categories. Still loving it, but, they also saw some mistakes - or would you create a film, that changes the history of your whole universe many years after thre first?

ah... forgot to mention it: Discussion about Star Trek itself sucks on this place. Yust wanted to say if the new race is implemented well and gives fo another charming touch, I welcome it.

Hm, i don't see where there is pure Star Trek in Fleet Operations, as every race has many of our own designs.
But of course, nobody is forced to play as or against the Noxter, you can still have your heroic Dominion War battles ^-^ I don't see a problem here

oh and, please, stay polite and don't insult others

Dude, you are brave but wrong. I'm fine with your opinion as such but not with the content. Just to say that the dev team indeed can make whatever they want they have shown that their work is not comparable to the mods that have failed to satisfy the needs of the masses. As such this total conversion is a success story from the very beginnings until today and it will be in future time. Not because they put races, ships and lots of other stuff into the game. It's simply because they put quality into it. Such a good quality that even print magazines have written articles about it. I'm not arrogant when saying that, it's just a simple fact that whatever they did, it was done at a very professional level and with a huge portion of thought, continuity and patience what most other modder teams lacked.

So if it comes to deside whether they put in a race, known or unknown in the Star Trek universe,  this is completely up to them and if they decided to put in Bully's "Star Ship Surprise" they could. But they are not dumb. They create what they feel is right and, damn, this is the reason why they are so successfull. They give a shit on the religious Star Trek whiners that complain about every single nit pit that has never seen the light of the camera.
Ever thought if exactly this is the right thing? You sound like there's a person or organisation somewhere that has the single right to say whether this is Star Trek or not. I tell you it's the right of those who work out concepts in the spirit of Gene's idea and then work it out like it was in their imagination. So please don't limit our own creativity and trust in the sens for a Trek feeling the devs have. They really do. Let them create something which make the Trek universe even more appealing than it is anyways.
Just because Paramount own the commercial rights doesn't mean they own the idea. What a releaf.

Seriously, If you guys don't like it, don't play it, Don't post about it, and keep any rude remarks to your self.  You only make a fool of your self when your criticism isn't constructive.  It only tears down the the hard work of the Admins, and you ruin it for everyone else.

Any way, Personally, I can't wate for the next up date.  Keep up the hardwork team, and don't let these guys remarks effect you. :thumbsup:

Hear hear, Adm. Zaxxon  :thumbsup:

some star trek fans are so guard of canon.. hi look at the good side, at least we are not star wars fans:lol:

Okay. I am a younger fan of star trek. Many people here grew up on TNG and TOS. I grew up on DS9 and Voyager and more recently Enterprise, and you know what? The ST franchise needs NEW stuff. You don't like it, Mikel? Tough! No-body particularly gives a crap one way or the other, because with the skills of this dev team will make sure it works out.

If you think I am ass-kissing, go and choke on alien wang. Noxter alien wang, that is.

Do you realise how patient the developers are being with you? They could kick and ban you for this flame war, because you are arguing with their plans for the future of FO. You are insulting the very core of this mod, the devs. I will swear, I would ban you 10x over for stirring all this shit up.

Star Trek was made in Gene Roddenberry's imagination. It's episodes and films all have a different effect on everyone and Star Trek is different in everyone's mind. I LOVE the obscure races of Star Trek, because that is what the core of Star Trek is: Exploration and Interaction with however millions of alien races there are, be them insectoid, organic, cybernetic, primate, arborial, avian, or aquatic. And be it War, peace, subjugation, oppression, occupation, integration, negotiation, combat or diplomacy. You, my freind, must learn to evolve.

So in conclusion, if I hear one more degoratory comment, one more skit, one more letter out of line and I'll be starting a poll to get you banned. I reckon it would not be long before you were banned.

[/rage]

Doca, Optec, Fleet Ops Staff. Ignore all the comments of the dimwit who has made these remarks. Hell, even ignore people's comments to them. Prune all the posts that have no relevance to this thread.

Everyone else, quit the derail please or I shall warm the chilly air around you with some red-hot curses.

Apologies for anyone offended by this post.

-Delta

 :whistling:

Posting ones opinion about a topic, or critics is always welcome. For in-depth discussions however, it would be best to open up a new topic. Question can be answered much better there and open points can be discussed. The important thing is to keep everything on a polite level. Of course we are all humans and not droids (got ya Data!) but lets try to keep this post clean of insults or rude language :)

I created a new topic (with poll): Star Trek Armada II: Fleet Operations - Noxter-Discussion (http://www.fleetops.net/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,3/topic,5613.0/) where you are able to discuss about the including of the Noxter. In this thread is the question, how the Noxter should be created and which abilities should they have.

in the intrest of getting this conversation back on the noxter. What if some of the noxters weapons targeted the crew of opposing starships instead of the hull or shields. With the exception of borg their are few weapons that target crew.

or maybe ones that cause sub-systems specific damage but relatively little hull damage. Imagine the derelicts from a full scale encounter :D

Perhaps a "sting" ability which reduces the crew by a percent each time (think introducing an extremely nasty toxin). Would go along with the biological attack ideas being posted. Metals might be hard to attack for the Noxter (disregarding crunching/smashing capabilities), perhaps acids slowly eat away at the hull and expose it to the vacuum of space... or toxins/biochemical agents are injected into the ship to kill the crew quickly.

Muahahah, Ships with a bite.  Venom that takes over the ship's crew.  "You will be re-engineered at a Bio-molecular level" Muahahah!

I think that being organic, they could 'infect' life-support systems with a special ability?

Inserting a toxic gas or a virus... like a bee or wasp.

Or they send small organism like our killer-cells into ships to kill the crewmen and grow (bio-mass to eat  :lol: )

Don't feed the troll...  :borg:

----

A cloaking device was already mentioned. What I'd like to see is a special ability based on biological cloaking. The ships wouldn't be perfectly invisible but they would be very hard to detect. Tachyon detection wouldn't work, because it's not a normale cloak.
Let's say you've got a Noxter using its bio-cloak, you wouldn't see it until you are closer than short range to it.
This bio-cloak would be perfect for an ambush and maybe it would only work if the Noxter doesn't move.

Very neat cloaking idea Old Man (hmmm... can't call you TOM, can't say Adama cuz he might wake up and come back to the forums... :P). Would certainly go well with the Devs idea to implement a new cloak and detect system in FO :)

Epically if they use the same systems as Voyager did. :lol:

Yeah, like a chamelion, they need some time to adapt to their surrendings, but then are hard to detect, I like it. Mayby Noxter are harder to detect, because they dont send radio waves etc?

A Noxter "ship" may be possible to deploy a part of it to attract enemy attention and fire to flee (like a lizard)

The Noxterbase could be ONE Station, as a central station the mother/queen... and then you build expansions like brain, breeder... (implementing like A2 research stations, you get additional modules...) and these expansions have different possibilities (brain-research, multiple brains means shorter time for one research or multiple researches simultaniosly)...

Stealth

Working off these ideas; I'd like to see a kind of camouflage so instead of physically cloaking, they could simply "blend in" with their surroundings at the click of a button. So if they are in open space, they look like open space but with a very mild distortion to indicate their presence to a trained eye. If they enter a nebula they look like the nebula but with a similar distortion effect. There would be no tachion scan as such but you'd have to physically look for them on the screen. (Lictor anyone?)

They could have a near perfect camouflage effect when they are still which gets progressively worse as they start to move quicker (you could perhaps have three settings for speed). This would give the Noxter player the choice of being nearly undetectable but with little or no movement ability right up to practically lit up like a Christmas tree with the ability to move quickly from A to B. Stealth could be inversely proportional to speed.


Offensive ability

I also like the idea of toxic gasses. Perhaps these could kill the crew off quickly and very slowly damage the ship as the toxins eat away at certain materials inside, until the ship in question eventually suffers a warp core breech. This would give rise to game play that includes salvaging derelicts while the warp core breech idea would solve the natural performance issues by periodically removing some of the derelicts from play.

The Noxter could harvest the derelicts as if they were resources to feed to whatever (however, they would not be able to use the derelicts in combat because that would be a bit weird), while all non-Noxter races would have a window of opportunity to salvage ships for their own fleet.

Man, I wish I could have commented sooner! Any way, I like the ideas for the new race. Though I'd like to make a suggestion, since bio ships use different resources, I'd like to suggest their resoruce config.

Bio-matter (or Bionetic Base): The main mass for all bio vessels, resource cost on vessels of this race would be fairly high. I'd suggest that they convert standard resource into this substance.

Biosteel: This is a biological version of tritanium, a high density alloid that has an extremely high complexity. This is used for special armor on specific vessels. When equipped to a bio-vessel it makes it close to invulnerable to torpedoes. This also on a negitive effect makes build times much slower.

Neucleonic Ion: This is a unique resource, used by vessels that use large amounts of energy that the common type of bio-cores cannot supply enough of. Neucleonic Ions are basically super-cores that provide tremendous energy for Bio-sheilds and Weapons as well as special weapons. The only negative side effect is that it makes the ship drastically slow due to its grand mass. And it also causes larger explosions that can devestate any ship within  a close range when the vessel is destroyed.

Resource conversion ratios are up to the devs. But I think this can really make bio construction much like reality.  :D

Hmm. An organic race of aliens very similar to Species 8472 but sort of better. COOL! Total Awesomness!

I like the Idea of several types of attack . Attack #(1)  takes organic matter(crew) and replicates  its self like a  weed seed  or fungus spores  (airborne  and contact toxins). Infecting of the ships  causes crew casulties over time. Attack#(2) Think of it  Hordes of   tribble like critters.They could physcally consume(organic matter)  every thing on ship and reproduce  radidly with a good food supply . When the food is gone the "tribbles "will die off and the ship becomes a deralict. a   side effect could be Equipment  failure  as the tribbles Damage the equipment.(like  the damage fire ants do to electrical equipment)  Attact#(3)  attack where the  Noxter being physcally consumes the ship.  As a bonus the metals could be converted  in to a "goo " that the  Noxter use for Resourse Points. Like the "biomatter" of the old Noxter.Attack #(4)  the ship is engulfed and the ship  is crushed and consume a ship  like the Space ameboa  from the TOS series tried to do. 

 :thumbsup: I like it.

So now what about shields?  Maybe their hull absorbs energy based weapons fire to a point?

Defensive ability - An alternative to "shields"

I would make it so that the Noxter organic ships just have skin and no shields (albeit, energy absorbant skin). Since they live in space, then their skin is obviously resistant to the rigors of outer space (extreme cold, extreme heat, various kinds and intensities of radiation etc) so resistance to phaser fire is not totally unreasonable. :)

Alternatively, they could possess telekinetic/telepathic/telesales/telewhatever abilities that allow them to simply dissipate weapons fire with their focused thoughts. As they defend against larger and larger fleets, it becomes more difficult to nullify (or to simply reduce the effectiveness of) so many sources of weapons fire but as the Noxter fleet size increases, their ability to pool their thoughts allows them to take on more enemies at a time. This idea of defending with their thoughts could be expanded to offensive strategies too.

Hmm could a metamorphesis system be in place for the attacking organisms? Say when it gets to 1 gold bar it mutates into a bigger tougher creature and when it gets to 2 gold bars you could use "dominance points" (same system as veteran just a different name) to mutate it again into a bigger, much stronger creature?

Growth and Contraction

That would make quite a cool ranking system for them. Perhaps when attacking the enemy each of the entities "harvests" the crew during the attack and then eats them to grow bigger. This growth could be reflected with greater mass, new abilities and obviously a sharper tooth for taking on bigger ships. "veterans" could be like graduated royalty among the hive. The best of the best rising to be the most influential starship crew eaters among the Noxter.

This could give the Noxter a reputation for consumption of everything in their path, rather than simply mindless destruction. You could be really cheaky and make it so that organisms can also unrank and become smaller and less powerful if they don't eat regularly. This could give rise to a new station organism (restricted to one unit) that can temporarily act as a feeder to hungry entities (kind of like rations) while you search for new sources of food (new enemies). It could also prove to be an interesting game play dynamic that forces the Noxter player to push on to preserve their prosperity.

Also, imagine those Noxter vs Noxter matches. It'd be like a swarming tug of war!

The Ferengi are obnoxious. They were designed as villains, but the audience never took them seriously, so, the producers of TNG and later DS9 demoted them from "bad guys" to comic relief.

As for the Cardassians, their home planet was destroyed. Personally, I think they could have rebuilt, or at least amassed a new battle fleet in secret. But that brings us to the main point:

This is Fleet Operations. It follows the Fleet Operations storyline. This mod can be as canon or as non-canon as it wants to be. The staff could say, "Yep, we like Star Trek, and this is a Star Trek mod, but 'Enterprise' and Nemesis don't exist in our storyline because we didn't care for them," and that would be a valid decision. The staff could say, "Yep, we like Star Trek, and this is a Star Trek mod, but we're setting it in an alternate universe in which the Dominion War and the events of 'Deep Space Nine' never happened," and that would be a valid decision. The staff could say, "Yep, we like Star Trek, and this is a Star Trek mod, but we think it all could have been done a lot differently, and this is our reimagining of the universe," and that would be a valid decision. In fact, the staff could make a mod completely unrelated to Star Trek, and that would be a valid decision.

Have you played Fleet Ops? It's a good mod. It's a lot of fun, and it's very intelligent, especially considering how old the game engine is. The staff have really done good things with it. So, why don't you stop complaining and keep an open mind? Maybe you'll get your Cardassians someday, and maybe you won't. If you don't like it, no one is making you play it.

So the Noxter are alchemists? :lol:  

So I think their ships should be like this.

Civilian Noxter can "evolve" to preform the tasks of:  Mining, building, breeding, repairing.

Assuming Noxter military ships are evolved from eggs, not yards:  All classes of military ships, depending on the maturity of seed/ egg

Scientist, Noxter would be the most evolved eggs/seed:  Would form Ships that transfer, or teach other noxter how to use special melee attacks, or other attacks.

Then of course there are stations, that are built by ships, or grown from a different type of non sentient, or less evolved seed.

Awesome. Can this be implemented?

I hear ya. :)

I was just asking about the design. cos the breeder design looked a bit like the base turret design in 2160. but may be coincidence.

Hope to see them in action soon... albeit that a strange new race detracts from the STU feel and kinda makes me feel like im in a kitbash of sorts....

but ill imagine them as mutated 8472 and move along. :)

No response to this?? Does anyone have the history/timeline of fleetops? It would be cool to see where it is going.

Well, you already give food to your ships when they constantly consume your second ressource (whatever it is called).

So a unrank wont make much sense.
Also, not all Noxter ships should be able to eat enemy ships.

I suggested that a destroyer class could do that (and only that, without having any weapons) and the battleship class.

When the battleship is eating an enemy ship, this ship must be slower than this ship, so it wont reach many ships if they are intact. So you need engine-deactivating weapons in order to do that. Or we leave this thing out for the battleship and let only the small destroyers do that.
Then the battleship need another "thing" that it could do, because the "eat" modus on slow ships is not very efficient.
So maybe this ship gets something like a "virus" attack, that are similar to the borg nanites but will affect enemy systems or a super-armor or... I dont know. We already had soooo many ideas for all the ships.

Shield breaking torpedos, assimilation beams, system deactivating weapons, a artificial nebular and so on...

For the Noxter we need abilities that are NEW and not only "nice to have".

We have already a full fledged balancing system with the constant drain of supplies and "hunger" so we can add whatever we want, because the drain will be affected through that.

The timeline is in scattered bits ... using the search feature helps a lot :)

For starters we know that FO is set about 10-20 years after the Dominion War.

Personally, I think that all Noxter ships should be melee orientated. I've always been wary of biological races in the past because they end up using things like "phasers" and such like. I vote that all Noxter be equiped with varying sizes of mouth and can perhaps "spit" torpedoes at their next meal to knock them out :)

In terms of the second resource being used as a food source. I've no problem with that but I don't think that every Noxter vessel should magically receive it's sustenance through open space. They should periodically (perhaps not too often) return to a feeding station for a good well filling meal to get their food or eat crew in the field for smaller boosts :)

By combining the two ideas, I think that the unrank idea is does make sense because at the end of the day, food is there to keep them fighting. If they're hungry then it should be reflected by reduced combat ability.

In addition, let's say they were magically receiving a constant stream of food directly from your resource pool. That would mean every ship would be creating a constant effect drain on your resources. Eventually, you'd reach your limit and then what? You can't build new stations or ships because your feeding your whole fleet 100% of the time and once their voracious appetite exceeds your ability to collect resources then you'll run out of resource altogether and presumably they'd all die of starvation. The enemy could win by setting all their ships to Green Alert and simply running like hell, without ever firing a shot. :lol:

I think the second resource could feed them through the use of a special station (backup food supply), as I mentioned, but their primary source of food should be the enemies your fighting. For me, the whole point of food would be to fuel to push towards victory, not to turtle up next to a Noxter Supermarket. :)



I had a brainwave as I read this :). I still think that all Noxter entities should have a primary attack focuses on melee and eating. However, like you say, bigger entities should be slower. That would make it tough for it to catch quick ships like Rheins and Sabers, so this is where the smaller entities come in use. An "engine-deactivating weapon" sounds like a piece of technology placed on any regular humanoid ship and I don't think that would befit a Noxter entity but I do think that smaller Noxter ships can latch onto enemy ships and attempt to pin them down.

The Noxter player could use small, fast entities to catch and pin those pesky enemy destroyers while the big lumbering entities, slowly make their way over to gobble them up/shoot spacegoo at them in some fancy crew killing fashion. The bigger entities wouldn't need a special trump card as long as you use them in tandem with their smaller counterparts.

I think that mid sized entities should perhaps be a bit more aggressive and focused on destruction as opposed to consumption but they should also still have the ability to consume, even if it is at a reduced level.



I think that abilities that focus on biological processes should be the key focus of the Noxter since they are actual living organisms. "technological abilities" should be steered away from and I think a flotilla of unique abilities will be devised as a result :)

I do strongly think that in terms of "food", the Noxter ships need to be able to feed themselves through the course of battle. A constant effect drain on the players resources that gets bigger as they expand their fleet could likely end up in a total economy crash, crippled by that increasing drain. Since one of the focuses of the Noxter is through swarming then this would only make it worse. In any case, palming off hunger to a constant effect, automatic process, would be a significant loss of game play opportunity :)



EDIT - hmm

I am wondering whether it's possible to create a natural balancing element by adding in a form of AI for your entities that governs how they act towards eachother. So, let's say certain entities might not actually like to work with certain others. Example: If I was the Noxter equivalent of a "battleship" then I'd be pretty territorial when it came to interacting with "other" Noxter battleships. I'd probably want to kill it... On the other hand I wouldn't care about the smaller entities because they are no threat to me. You could have the same for other types of entities. Each one could have behavioural aspects that influence how you construct you fleet, lest they start squabbling with eachother!

Just a thought for the FO team :thumbsup: (I'd imagine this would be next to impossible to achieve with the A2 engine but then again the FO team has achieved the "impossible" by the standards of 7 years ago)

I love aliens like this. Put up another sneak peek ASAP! ALso, you cans ee a bunch of Noxter vessels under your avatar thingy.

How about some sort of "Adrenalin Rush" for some Noxter that lets them briefly shrug off attacks, move faster, and do more damage? The duration could increase with each rank up.

how about acid balls -not torps. varying sizes of phlegm wads so to speak.
Also in place of phasers we can have a form of venom spray - a spray of venom along the lines of a disruptor blast

For the color of the acid spit i would recommend green - but a slime green.
For the color of the venom spray i would recommend bluish green, with more emphasis on blue.

The noxter can use nebulae, tri moons, and dilithium moons to get resources. But all harvested from these sources will be converted into a base resource for a resource pool or bolus.

The noxter will then have to have specifically adapted units that will convert the base resource/Bolus to the varied resource requirements - I view this as analogous to the way any organism's digestive system breaks down the consumed raw material into the necessary proteins, carbs etc.

Therefore I would envision it as follows: The noxter mother unit can breed specific organisms that act as the harvester and mining facility. The raw resource collected therefrom pools steadily into the raw resource pool.
This is the feeding aspect and we can label the units feeders.
Feeders should also be able to "upgrade" or evolve to consume enemy ships first sapping the shields and then feeding on the hulls to strip the hulk for some resources that go into the pool.

This pool can then be processed by the mother for starters.
The mother can utilize or synthesize the pool to create sub-units which will be seeders or evolvers.
The evolvers will be able to evolve into larger stations that go towards further synthesizing the pool into the other core resources - which IMO would be:
Nucleic Enzymes
Electrolytes
and
Slag (which would be the left over processed metal/carapacey extract) which will go towards the species' hull/carapace.

Of these nucleic enxymes and slag go towards building. Electrolytes go towards sustaining the fleet and building seeds. If the electrolytes are zeroed out, then no seeds are built and the breeders die.
Ships that are alive also need electrolytes and can obtain them by either feeding on enemy ship special energy or draining from the pool.
In order to feed from an enemy ship the noxter will need to have the enemy's shields lowered. for borg ships the noxter can feed directly.
Feeding will be done by extending the grappling tendril onto the ship. However it will stop firing and carapace resistance will drop to 50% original strenght - meaning feed at ur own risk on a live and not disabled enemy.

The evolvers can also develop Specialization Factories. The factories will allow specific noxter classes to develop certain specialized weaponry - such as neurotoxic gas, which can penetrate ship shields and kill crew.
Or Grappling tendrils which can grip ships and drag them to a specific location even when their engines are on ie ship not crewless and not disabled (all noxter should have a grappling tendril that is used for feeding as well as tractoring).
Or Subspace frequency shrieks which jam enemy sensors for a period of time.
etc

Additionally, evolvers will be able to evolve into an Immunity Complex.
This complex will be able to be fed enemy ships that are grabbed by the tendrils or that have been decrewed by neurotoxic gas and then dragged to the complex etc.
This factory when fed a ship will increase immunity to all noxter ships for that race's attacks by a certian amount. The increase is proportional to the size and type of enemy ship that has been fed - so a Sov will increase immunity by 3% whille a sabre by say .25%
The amount of adaptation will be infinite based on how many ships are fed - this leaves it to the noxter player's acumen to actually capture ships.

Noxter spaceships themselves should be able to immunize to enemy fire from a particular race. This will be limited to say 20% of base value. The increased immunity will be as is in normal living things related to damage endured and survived - "That which does not kill us makes us stronger".

Seeders will synthesize seeds using the pool and the synthesized resources.

All living Noxter will need to either draw on electrolyte reserves to survive or feed on enemy ship special energy. Noxter ships that are alive should need to feed in order to recharge special energy, not otherwise. Special energy is used when they use their special weapons.

This is what I can contribute atm for the Noxter.

Phoenix, I love the first part of your idea, but concerning the portion after the Edit, remember that the Noxter are a swarm with a hive mind of sorts (or so the FO team has indicated), so, internal squabbling and territorial behavior probably wouldn't exist unless they served a purpose within the swarm.

Thoughts on the Noxter Supermarket ( :lol: ): could be limited to one or two stations (maybe an additional one provided by a certain avatar), each of which could only nourish a certain number of units (maybe even just one) at a time. This could function like a repair/recrew facility, as the sustenance bar on the Noxter unit ran down (a possible way to code this by semi-stock A2 rules could be using crew, with a constant crew "trickle rate" and consumption functioning like the Auto-Assimilator bore, effectively taking crew from an enemy ship to replenish the supply, with the ship "dying" once it ran down to zero and became derelict; I don't know if some Fleet Ops magic couldn't code it a better way  :thumbsup: ). Because of their limited number and limited ability to provide sustenance to hungry Noxter units, these stations would be used mainly by base defenders or in times of desperation when prey is scarce (thinking this might happen a bit when playing against a particularly crafty Romulan or Klingon opponent).

As for melee/ranged attack, IIRC, one of the main Noxter weapons in Beta 2 was an acid-spewing attack. Personally, I felt that this was an interesting idea limited by A2's weapon dynamics (a problem that the mod has since addressed, as alluded to in the news post) and rendered a bit irritating by the "chittery" sound effects used (maybe they would have worked better with a more realistic-looking weapon?). I definitely think that Noxter gameplay should focus on close-quarters engagements, but something has to be done to balance that, since as I've found in my personal build, weapons range can be pretty critical and if your fleet gets hammered by a ship out of range that it can't catch up to, disable, or inhibit somehow, you can have a veritable Q-ship and it won't matter if it doesn't get to fire a shot.

The way I balanced this in my build, BTW, was by using a modified Klingon Death Chant to target nearby enemies and halve their fire rates, buying my short-ranged Klingon main battleships some time to close and bring their impressive disruptor arrays to bear. Something like that could work for the Noxter as well.

 :lol: ---> nucleic enzymes :P
Sorry just had to nitpick  :D

Interesting ideas though, although I find the "green" acid to be a bit cliche: I mean most of the really strong acids are clear (or slightly yellowish etc).... Why not a different color all together like dark purple or orange... or diffuse-looking coloration... dunno  :D

It's ok :D

I was just looking around and picked it from here :P.
Directed evolution of nucleic acid enzymes. [Annu Rev Biochem. 2004] - PubMed Result
       (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15189159)
Maybe protoplasm would sound better though -- :)

yellow as a color for the acid spit would be better for sure. We already have green with the rommies and a yellowish green with the klings, light purple is already dominion and dark purple would fade in against most black backdrops. So your idea of Yellow - bright yellow or an orangey yellow like the great eye from LOTR would be a better color for sure :).

Just out of curiosity and interest, I have a few questions relating to the intelligence behind the Noxter:
What drives the Noxter (if anything other than the base drives of eating and reproducing)?
Are individual organisms capable of independent thought, or are they controlled by a single 'higher power' (like the Borg hive-mind or the Zerg overmind)?
How intelligent would the organisms (or 'overmind') be? Are they in the least bit sentient?  Can they think rationally or simply driven by instinct?  Can they see a difference between right and wrong and if so, do they care?  Would they blindly go to their deaths, even against clearly overwhelming numbers and firepower, or would they retreat and preserve themselves?  How do they perceive the universe around them (Sight, Smell, Taste, Touch, Telepathy)? How do they communicate with each other (verbal, visual, chemical and smell, telepathic)?  Are they able to in any way communicate with other races?  Is it possible to tame them?  Are they capable of doing their times tables?  Do they have an appreciation of Art in any of its forms? Do they have a sense of Humor?  Do they feel compassion, regret, anger etc?
Generally those sorts of questions are of interest to me at the moment.

As long as we're running with the idea of acids, maybe Noxter units could be propelled by superbase-superacid reactions similar to the matter-antimatter reactions that power most conventional ships.  B)

Those are interesting questions. The average Noxter is indeed sentient and intelligent, but those capabilities vary highly from species to species. Perhaps we have to define the term "Noxter" here a bit closer, as the swarm does not consist of just one species. I think you could see "Noxter" as the name of a space-based ecosystem, or a special kind of evolution of life. All Noxter share the basic way of encoding genetic information (they don't have a DNA like we do) and they roughly consist of the same proteins and their bodies work similar.. But well, thats also true for humans and dogs.
The most capable Noxter - mental wise - is the Mother. She is not only capable to forge genetic seeds, she also acts as some kind of communications hub. The Mother emits hormones into the swarm.Nebula that serve as a base for chemical communication between he Noxter. Besides that they don't have a known language, and yet nobody was able to communicate with a Noxter, although the Federation tried for quite some time.
Noxter are not controlled by an "Overmind" or super entity, as - in theory - every Noxter can decide itself if it wants to execute the chemical information package it received, their intellectual capabilities are similar to us humans, but they have a very different view of the universe, physics, technology and goals for life in general, so usually there are no conflicts. But well, who knows what the future brings, with so many strange, metal ships flying around! B)

Very cool, and very interesting...thanks Optec  :D

What about my idea (Pg 7 regarding resources)? To me I think it is logical that a bionetic species would use biological resources. Man, I wish people could at least tell me how good or how bad game play would be if that idea were implimented. In fact, I'd like to put an extension to it if you don't mind.

---

The Noxter are a biological species using Bio-netic base (Biomatter), Bio-steel, and the Neucleonic Ion cores. Due to the fact none of these are able to be purely mined, I propose the following. There is the thing that evolves into stations, it will evolve into a station that converts mined resource into biomatter. The mining units might hold a fairly large cargo such as 300 dil and 200 tri. The purpose in this is because biomatter conversion is not a 1:1 ratio. The ratio can be determined by the Devs. Now, to get the other resources there are two stations that can also be built. A bio-steel generator can be constructed where a freighter would deliver tritanium to the station to be converted, since bio-steel is high density and complex, I'm thinking of a ratio like 20 tri makes 1 bio-steel, plus if possible one biomatter unit would be used for every new biosteel unit. For the cores, it requires something similar to the borg's incubation matrix. But since these things are complex and high in mass, and due to generation costs. It would generate one Ion core every 11 minutes, to buy a core would cost 1200 Biomatter and 750 bio-steel or something like that.

---

I believe this would help make the minor details more realistic, personally I think the slow production of them Ion cores will balance out since units using such things would be half-way to a stand-alone vessel or flagship.

Optec, Doca, before you just say no. At least try to preceive how this can balance out the game play a bit. You could have powerful ships, slow core income, and slow construction wich can really make sure the race is not over-powered. And, to me it would make the race act more like a bio race if it uses bio resources.  :thumbsup:

I would be surprised if there isn't a Federation/Noxter alliance somewhere in the storyline...Starfleet could probably ally with anyone.

I think your "neucleonic ion core" idea sounds much too technological (and altogether way too similar to the Borg) for the Noxter, Gamer  :sweatdrop:

The other resources sound like you are just changing the way the the moons are harvested... not actually changing how the resource is utilized... Just my two cents though :P

I think the plan for the Noxter is to have lots of weak runty ships, and also some big powerful ships too--remember the ant swarm idea, Gamer :)

Edit: grr... spelling mistakes

just out of curiosity will the version with the noxter be v4.0?

I think V4 will have Ciadan or Iconian; as far as I remember v3 will have Noxter eventually... but I guess it's best to hear Optec or Doca confirm it (though they will most likely say... soon :) )

Sounds very interesting, I am eager to try them out.
Keep up the good work  :thumbsup:

its not like it really matters its just a number. i was just wondering.

Very interesting! This reminds me of the book "The Swarm" from Schätzing which is outstanding. There the organisms are linked by a gelish substance that forces them to act for a higher beeing that has lived in the deep see for millions of years. For humans it's toxic also.
anyways, this is different to the Noxters as you say they don't have a queen or forcing being that control the will of the different species.
So, when you say that the mother give order through hormones this reminds me of the physiology of plants with the slight difference of that plants don't think. There the mechanisms of phyto hormones are linked together and form some sort of a cycle of order. Hormone A is produced in every bud. The top bud hormone A decrease/nullify the effect of the Homone A which is produced in lower buds so they stay dormant. The top bud starts growing.
On the other side Hormone B is produced in the roots and itself influences Homeone A there's no uncontrolled growing (the plant would grown to death).
there are thousands of hormones which enhance or decrease the effect of other hormones. Light, cold, darkness etc. also influence production or dismantlin of hormones.
There's a very constant equilibrium in the whole system of hormone interaction. Until today by far not all chamical substances that are classified as phyto hormones are found.
It's controlling system is working in it self which to me is an outstanding thing. There's no force or mind that is driving it. It just is, interacting with the environment it lives in. And still, there is evidence of communication between plants though phyto hormones. Fungi, called mycorrhiza are able to link the rooting system together of hundreds of square kilometers of forest with just ONE fungus. Chemical substances are transported through the hyphes of this fungus and cause a reaction in the foreign tree.
I could imagine somthing similar for the Noxter.

I'd like to argue that it seems more similar to bacterial cultures. The plant afterall is still one organism (you don't need a mind/nervous system to drive a process--the cells are eukaryotic and thus share a common genetic sequence. Our conscious minds aren't the controlling factor of our biology either afterall... and most organisms on this planet lack a nervous system alltogether and still rule us all)  :)

Many bacteria "communicate" with each other via chemical signaling and can change how each grows individually and as a related group by taking up these chemicals or not (in stress environments they will take them up more readily) and actively exchange genetic material and produce secretions that kill off other bacteria--all individually, yet with some view towards preserving fellow bacteria (for instance, if food stressed, all the bacteria in range of "food stress signals" will stop dividing and go into a sort of diapause until more food is available--> although they compete with eachother, most act in concert to prevent disasters)

Both have good points, but Optec said in his post that Noxter are not 1 particular specias but more of an ecosystem. Working in harmony to repel any threats and solve all problems - too bad for those who enter their ecosystem then lol

But if Id have to make a connection to an earth animal species it would be either the ants or bees, they communicate via hormones too and are a bit smarter than bacteria :P Though they are still only 1 species.

Though I must say, communication via hormones seems like a very inefficient way for species that are as smart as humans. There is no room for quick adaptation or specific commands in there and I think, if someone from trek starship wanted to, it would be pretty easy to block the hormones thus making the whole Noxter hiarchy useless. Not to mention that hormones actually need to travel to every organism, which means that there is quite big a lag between orders and the execution of them (khmmm, to think about it, how cool would it be to have everything you do lag behind depending on how far away the controled organism is from the mother :D)

Whatever though, I must say I love the idea of Noxter and organic space species in general. How would StarCraft feel without Zerg or Warhammer 40k without Tyranids? I think they will add that rushing ant factor into the game. I just hope the engine will allow the team to implement them better than they were in Beta2.

Yes, hormones would be fine within an individual.. but between individuals in space? Very odd indeed... *cue Star Trek technobabble* :P . No idea how that would be implemented honestly, but then again a lot of stuff in Star Trek is pretty far fetched--but still darn interesting and fun...

Gotta love the Tyranids (mm, Carnifex running deranged through the streets  :whistling:)

Carnies are OP!!!!111!!!  :rolleyes: :D

 :lol:

So is a mass of 1010203128240 Hormagaunts :P

Prove it. :P

Well the Space Marines and Eldar are pretty much helpless against either of those 2 things, so thats proof :D

(Today the beta of the next patch come out, yuppy yay :D)



Enough off topic.

So, yeah, bugs... in.... space.... :O

Aaaah get 'em off me! :2guns:

Did I mention I was spaced out?  :rolleyes:

The Noxter may be able to exchange information with gestics and with patterns of their skin, as a short-range communication, so they send electro-magnetic waves too, but use another spectrum as our normal radio.

For greater distances they use small messengers, which may move with warp speed, instead of "subspace communication".

I would think Noxters would benefit greatly from allied "vessels" in the vicinity. The "area"-bonus mentionend nearly everywhere else could be explained by the advantages of improved cohesion for the ecosystem ... like a permanent firing support-weapon which is emitted by a "destroyer"-class organism which improves a slight "beam/whatever"-type damage from other nearby creatures (due to hormone/something influence) "battleship"-creatures would emit a skinhardening pheronomen/whatever which in turn increases defensive value. "mothers" would emit a slight increase in Ofensive/Defensive/System value (maybe instead of a weapons array?) which would simulate something like "ALERT ALERT! OUR MOTHER IS UNDER ATTACK", "breeders" producing faster when in mothers vicinity, "scouts" increase the range of all weapons?

To extend that a bit further... perhaps having weaker turrets with an "aura effect" to give defending Noxter vessels more offense and defense (they know the environment better or something like that) would be fitting.

LET THEM HAVE SEX!!!!  :woot:

 :lol:

Although that would greatly boost system value I'm sure, I thought the Noxter were sexless Jan  :whistling:

"Tactical! Aim at the big creatures front ... slimy evil mouth things! We have do stop its hormones making these Stranglers go berzerk!" - Captain

"A Klingon' cooks dream: gagh all over the place" - First Officer

"Oh God! It is enormous! Its tentacles are three times the length of our nacells" "Oh yes, and its little fellows over there aren't in for a tea party" - First Officer after reaching Veteran-Status

"It bleeds. That means, we can kill it." - A Klingon officer

"Dammit! This amorphous,green blob causes those Stranglers to explode! Three decks have just been corroded by their acid." - Chief Engineer

"Hey, look at it this way: At least NOW you can choose between being assimilated or genetically resequenced. Its all about keeping the spirit up" - A ships councellor

"Blasphemous Abomination! Take out this mockery of a founder!" "Victory is life!" Vortha and Jem'Hadar

"Let me have one for my studieeeess ..." - Romulan scientist in a cloaked and hence shildless ship

"Species 9183. Biological. Technoligically inferior. Prior assimilation attempts unsuccessful. Threat assessment: Massive. Initiate Retreat." - 5 of 15

Muahahah! Castrate the enemy, Neuter them ALL!!! :lol:

There's a lot of great ideas in this thread about what the noxter could be like.  I'm excited that they're being added, I think this will be a great addition to FO and I can't wait to see this installment! :thumbsup:

Here are some of my ideas for them.  First, I've always wanted a cruiser that could catch destroyers.  I was thinking that one of the cruiser type noxter could have an ability called "adrenaline rush".  It would increase the movement speed considerably, perhaps even scout speed for a short time, so that it could get within melee distance.  I could see a mutalisk-like noxter flapping its wings faster and quickly overtaking ships (obviously wing flapping doesn't do a lot in space, but it would look cool. :sweatdrop:).  It would use special energy at a constant rate until it was turned off.  Or it could be similar to the susa, where the noxter gets the enhanced speed for a time, then it wears off and goes slower than before to "catch its breath".

I'd also like to see it's mining done by having an organism stretch itself over a moon, so that the moon is covered in something web-like, that throbs and pulses with life, instead of any kind of mining station that's just nearby.

I guess I'm going to have to pull out the the ST:  New Frontier book, "Dark Allies", which has the black mass, a swarm of space creatures that eat planets, kind of like cosmic locusts.  Could have some useful things in there that could be implemented. :shifty:

i really hope that  the noxter get interesting, and i have a few ideas about their weapons:

i think too that it sucks if anyone makes an alien race and the just puts phasers on them.
but only meele weapons wouldn't help on a big slow battleship, so my idea is that the weapons of a battle ships are like automated carriers.
they send out a swarm of little creeps, with the size of these little ships that come out when building. they would try to come trough the shields, and then brake up the hull to eat the crew or to destroy the ship.their downside is that they're attackable, that means as long as they try to break the shields they don't only lose life over time because of the shields, they can also be attacked by the enemy, which decimates them even more.
only if they make it trough the shield they can't be attacked anymore, but they still lose life constantly(not that you just send them on a borg cube and they destroy it no matter what^^).they're main goal isn't to destroy the ship, but to reate a derelict. i think the noxter are an efficient race. they should use the enemy to feed themselves.
after the crew is killed there are two possibilities: if the enemy ship is smaller than yours you can eat it to get stronger, but it needs time. the other possibility is to wait for the "janitors". they are kind anti-ferengi, which is built in a scrapyard and flies off to get derelicts. when it comes there(they go automatically) it bites into it and tosses it to the nearest miner that you posses. there they trow it into the mouth of the resource miner hingy, which is wrapped on the moon, so you get resources back.

so in the end they try to avoiud mindless destruction, they try to use their recources best.

additionally, a special attack: Eggsack

the ship fires an armored eggsack wwich breaks thru the shield and pops on the hull. little creeps come out and attack the ships 5 sec. long. they do a bit of hull damage and every second is a chance tht a subsystem gets damaged or even is destroyed.

so,, thats all, what do you think?

EDIT:polished up a bit(not so good in english language) :sweatdrop:

It seems you should lay aside your mysterious "garden" and venture forth into the joy and excitement, that is known as mating.

 

errr how did we get on to warhammer 40k ???

anyway nice intresting ideas wot sort of range attacks are we gonna expect (shooting acid, beam weapons, spores, shooting spikes) and will all (or at least most) have some sort of melee attack

that idea about enclosing enemy vessels is intresting indeed i guess it would work simular to the 8472 resource extraction ability

I like the "eggsack" idea.

And the idea for the gathererorganism as well. It would make more sense to have a huge blob-like ship, which sends out small groups of these gatherers to derelict vessels in the proximity. Perhaps by adding a "traffic" model and giving it a weak damaging aura? I would not like my Anti-Ferengie rushing in into the midst of the battle for some AI-related reason.

Another idea would be something like "vampiric" tentacles: when attacking the hull, each attack kills a certain amount of crew immediately. The Organism would regenerate Hitpoints in proportion to the crew killed.

I also agree on the idea of rendering ranged units as some sort of  "carrier"

Hmm, very nice ideas  :thumbsup:

Yeessss.   Definitally swarm based.  their main attack should release small "bugs" that act like SG drones.

He, he, I like your ideas. Although, Romulan ships no longer lose their shields through cloaking, because they have generators to prevent the power surges. So, funny any way.   

Really??? some 1 could think that "Star Trek" was real and not a pice of "Sci-fi"!! y cant u add some thing to star trek? since Star Trek IS NOT REAL you can add what ever you want to it....

why would it not be "pure star trek"? it would be a made up story? and the rest of the Star Trek universe are not made up storys??

I joined up to this mod years ago, i just dont post alot, but i do come here every day to take a look and i think the FO team are doing a geat job, thank you lots :)


Please just stop flaming people and get a real life, if you really dont like the idea, feel free to make your own MOD and we will come and start slaging your ideas off, thank you!

Adding non-Trek ships won't be much of a problem, some could work. For example, Star Trek, Star Wars & Battlestar Galactica are set in different locations/Galaxies and may even happen in the same Universe (ignoring the dead Earth at the end of new Galactica.)

how about adding a "fun" faction which will have ships from scifi series like battlestar (!), Babylon 5, andromeda and... star wars (yeak)

don't forget firefly, or Space: above and beyond

How about a whole race that uses nothing but fighters and carrier from other universes.

We could have Starfurys swarming about! :woot:

*Sigh* Another one eh?
If you don't like it fine: state your reasons and let people discuss. If you can't be polite about it however, you don't belong here  >:( . Great way to make an impression Punisher. Your first post, and I can already see that you have no respect for Fleet Ops and the Devs. I never saw you complaining about the Noxter in Beta2, so why the fuss now? It might do you some good to read back on the forums a bit (or even this thread) to understand some things before you go shooting your mouth off at the people who make this mod from their own free time.

i was reading your post while listening to (emenem's) stan and wow man.. fit great.

 :lol: Well, I haven't gotten a new gun, if you are worried ;)
*please know what skit I'm talking about*  :sweatdrop:

I had an idea of sorts: They do not have avatars. Instead, they have "MOther" and "Father" beings that must be within proximity to shipyards for them to be able to produce ships. (And I hope that my ideas in the Offical Noxter Thread are implemented in some way, too!)

Nephalim was to some degree right concerning the humanoidness of species in the Star Trek Universe. One of the advantages of being humanoid is that you are prone of being protagonist in novell of some kind of earthling, since earthlings are so mich occupied with themselves ... . Even though the Cardassians made quite a development, they are still a minor race since they've been "wiped"

I do not think that FO should aim towards the same goals which were dictated by limited budget and the human/social cognition.

My personal wish: Noxter shouldn't have faces/heads ...

They won't have faces or heads: they are the ships ;)

maybe eyes though. :lol: :o

You dont understand and I admit that the previos messege was... offensive and also star terk is just a sci-fi its up to your imagination what are you want to add. but listen. Im drawing in my free time Im some kind of a stupid artist :D but if I draw a shit those who look at it will tell me "sorry guy that shit" no matter I sarcafieced my free time. Im not tellig the noxter is inacceptible but before that they should finish the Star Trek part of the game and for example Cardassian was are more Trek-like than the noxxxter. And my own suggestion that its just too 8472-like .AND i respect the devs but not the game I jusp play it when am bored.

Well, I think I see the main problem here: The Noxter are in some ways set en par with 8472 and because 8472 was in the Star Trek episodes, many ideas from the 8472 race come into with the noxter.

I did not read the Noxter essay (is there a link?)
But it is, like I read a more swarm-like species.
Also, I like to see that this species is way different from the way we actual play. AND we must balance it out so that this race is playable.

When we put all the edges together, we have this:
The engine it telling us, that we need Moons, Starbases and production yards. So the only way to alter the gameplay here, is that we combine starbases, yards and ressource centers in a way, we did'nt had until now.


So, lets go on in a logical way - what MUST be and what can we do to change the behavior?
The starbase is the mother. The question is, if we can have more than just one starbase, like other races can build. If not, the ships must be stronger in order to balance this fact out.
The Noxter need a constant amount of supply. And we have moons that change the dilithium/raw materials into "eat items" for the race. So when a rassource station gets destroyed, the Noxter may die.
This should be outbalanced with... well, it is a huge disadvantage. Maybe the ressource station is as mighty as a starbase or a perimeter?

Defense platforms:
These little helpers do a great job in order to defend you position and ensure that you can launch an offensive attack without thinking of your base too much. The problem is:
The Noxter do not really provide a real defense platform. They have their mother and the ships. So what do we do? We throw unborn eggs like torpedos against the enemy. I want to see that on the human side.
Pregnant mothers who shoot out the embryo in order to kill "the bas guys". No way!

I think, we can have this:
Central station, upgradable. This is "the mother" and the mother can grow to a station that is unheard in power. It will even surpass Deep Space Stations. But the mother is hungry. You have to fill in ressources. And *this* is a huge disadvantage. While you can sit and build for someone like the Federation, the Noxter cant sit and build, because they consume while sitting.

And because the consume is a balancing factor, a ship that will survive for lets say 10 minutes will depleed ressources another one can build for a dreadnought. A Noxter scout ship can use up the ressources a tactical cube might need, if it is waiting long enough.

So how can we outbalance this? My suggestion is: They consume ressources, so they grow in might. Every ship gets "born" as a little child and will grow over the time to a full fledged battleship. You can also upgrade this ship in "incubations" chambers when the mother developes new genetic-materials. Through adaptive methamorphosis, it is possible to upgrade a ship.

Example:

Dev	growth I	g II	g III
Destroyer I
Destroyer II
Destroyer III

In this table you might insert all offensive, defensive and system values and can add for example sepcial abilities. The more the class (Destroyer) is upgradet, you get more abilities, and the more the growth rate is increased, the more mighty gets the ship.

The same can be done with "bases".

Defense perimeters are... unkown in my eyes. I have no idea, how to combine them with the Noxter philosophy.

I also think, that the Noxter ships are all more or less short ranged attack vessels that need either to be very near to fire or "get on the ships hull" to break through it.

I think the deadliest ability of the Noxter should be, that they can similar to the borg assimilate enemy ships. They crush through the hull, kill the crew, learn "how to use the ship" (this will take a time) and after a while, the enemy ship is yours + mixed tech. This is the outbalance for the thing, that you dont really have mixed tech yards or something like that. The ship gets a "Noxter bonus" and counts as mixed tech.

Noxter ships need in order to get near an enemy vessel strong propulsion and a good defense. But with that, we already have 3 races with large defense patterns:
Federation, Borg, Noxter
Medium defense pattern: Romulan and dominion
Weak defense pattern: Klingons

The reduced offensive ability will be outbalanced with the ultra short range of Noxter weapons.

The system value should be really high. The Noxter only have a very weak shield but this shield will regenerate very fast. They go more on regenerative armor.

Great advantage of Noxter ships: There is no system you can attack. No sensor blackout, no weapon deactivation etc. So a great part of the enemy special-attacks will simply do nothing on Noxter ships. This is outbalanced with the large Tech-Tree the Noxter have.

Two cent from me for you o_O

Quite an ingenious idea to have the Noxter grow into battleships over time Sheva, that could be very cool :).

Here's a rough summary of the Noxter's story. Forum search will give you a lot more information...  :sweatdrop:

Star Trek Armada II: Fleet Operations - Noxter an 8472 clone? (http://www.fleetops.net/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,3/topic,4363.msg72976/#msg72976)

@ Punisher:
Ok, gotcha--more or less. However, I have a few points to bring up
The Cardassians are entering as a main NPC for the moment (and eventually they will be in as a full race long in the future), but they do not play into the FO storyline because the Dominion wiped them out as a major power. Star Trek aside, this is an RTS, and to have another faction that plays pretty similarly to the Romulans, Federation, Klingons is not really ideal in my own opinion. I'd much rather have a completely unique faction (the Noxter are not at all like 8472: you should really look at some of the threads about them). Furthermore, this mod is based of the Devs RPG, and so that's why the Noxter and eventually the Ciadan and Iconians will be introduced into play. You said yourself that it is up to your imagination. Well why can't the Devs finally make a faction that IS up to their imagination? You paint what you want, you don't have to do what others says--but you can take comments and suggestions. That is what we--the fans--are doing. We give suggestions and criticism, but hte Devs have the gneeral ideas of what they want and the abilities to implement all of these things.

I also like the idea of ships that grow up to be battleships :D. Perhaps the battleships could be their "veterans"; the ones that sing stories of when they were in the war back in the day.

As for the Noxter's existence, I think it's well within the FO Team's right to add their own race to what is essentially their own game now. I think FO has advanced far enough for it to be classed as a separate entity and entirely new game in it's own right. The justification is reinforced by the fact that FO is set sometime after the latest cannon period. It's not unreasonable to assume that a few new races have been discovered since the end of cannon.

If there are people that want to add Cardassians and other ST races before the Noxter then they should learn to add those races themselves or accept what they already have. There is in fact a Cardassian full race mod in development right now there's no need to whine about it :).

I assume that would mean the ships we kill would be there children, Killing children is not to fun to me especially on a mass basses.

Interesting idea tho

I think the FO team said the creatures would be a-sexual not needing of a partner.

Killing anything is killing children ewm. You are a child, as is everyone on this forum. Fair enough, all killing is immoral, but everything in FO is a child, so why are you playing that? The noxter are not really any different.

true I guess the mother and father elicited a image of babies flying throw space with the federation blowing them up.

Meh, did you have any concerns killing species 8472 in stock? They had a mother, they even had embryos that evolved.

At the end of the day it is a video game, about a universe which portrays humans in a very positive light. I doubt the federation would kill any offspring that it didn't need to.
Just imagine your game is actually a canon episode and somehow think of a rationale for your captains blowing people up. That's what I do.

meh... think of it as cockroaches or bees or whatever.. maybe zerg... whatever fits your liking

You know I think thaat it would just be awesome that instesd of researching things that  they would evolve, sort of like the veteran system, but all units would gain the same ammount of "adaptation", and possiibly it could be included for the borg as well.


how i think it should work, your avatar would gain xp from the ships he or she commands, and the more xp you have the more damage restance you gain

My question is... what about the mixed tech?  :blink:

I doubt Noxter mixd tech would even be possible...

Bio-neural for all races? Advanced killing/assimilation techniques for borg? Improved bio-gel packs for feds?

FOR the Noxter, bionic shielding? Cloak? Advanced / evolved variations of noxter 'ships'?

I'll take a stab here and say that for the Noxter, their mixed tech might give them enhanced bonus for killing various ships and crew (for certain classes perhaps). Thus maybe new passive abilities or active ones that allow them to take out engines or life support immediately... something of that nature as they learn how to combat their enemy. Since they can't actually "capture" ships per se, and neither can their ships be captured, I bet that they'd infest their opponent's construction ships some how to take control of them. Perhaps some sort of special pathogen.

For the other factions, I'm not sure what consistutes a Noxter "construction ship" (is it a Breeder? or a Mother?), but you'd have to "pacify" the creature first. After that... not sure what sort of mixed tech you could get. Maybe neurolytic pathogens, special biotoxins, enhanced armor (due to the special compounds used in secreting Noxter "hulls". It all depends on how the Devs decide to make the weapons of these Noxter.

I would like to see some kind of bee-hive station as a defense turret, which has a damaging/negative aura for enemy ships and healing/beneficial aura for noxter ships (like restoring health or just special energy) BUT with some kind of experience system, showing the growing of the central cocoon, since it is fed by its surrounding organisms from material cut out from enemy's ships.

So perhaps its first ranks only extend the range of the area attack (short/medium/long), the officer ranks would then enable the beneficial aura (since it requires a certain mass to sustain itself before supporting friendly ships)

i think it were cool when they "eat" tha enimie ships or threw biomass like torpedos

Is there any empty slots open for ideas... such as ships... weapons... and such. If so... here is my ideas.

Acid Assaulter (A special type of ship):
This vessel's weapon is that it 'sprays' corrosive acid on the enemy hulls literally melting their hulls away. :thumbsup:

Psychic Interceptor:
This vessel attacks other ships mainly through their crews (especially Borg). It uses the crew of the vessel to sabotage their own ship and kill other crew members. :shifty:

Barricader (A defensive/support vessel):
This vessel is capable of generating small armed drones. These stationary drones can only be moved by towing. These drones come in three types: Photonic drone, Shockwave Drone, and Dampening drone. The Photonic Drone fires small torpedoes at enemies and has a system that uses micro-beams to destroy enemy torpedoes. Shockwave drones emmit shockwaves with various effects to enemy ships all causing damage in some way. Dampening drones fire weapons that have a 50% chance of disabling a system, all of its weapons have slow rates.

Good Ideas.  Use are instead of is more often, but good ideas still. :thumbsup:

Do you think you could reactivate the not-infinite Moons feature in 3.09?

Maybe as your own personal mod, but Doca has already expressed a strong dislike of this idea (some years back).

aye, no finte moons in Fleet Operations :D

Though I like the infinite moons a lot, I just thought it couldn't be so much work to reintroduce them into FO. I wanted to build a map which relies on finite moons as a tactical challenge. I totally agree it must not be standard, but it would be a cool feature tough. And I can't imagine it's that complex to code ...?

Don't get your hopes up, FO relies on noob moons.

Just to mention someting ... the acids effectiveness is determined by the energetical gap between the inter-tritanium bond and the one with the acid. So even if we find an acid that allows such a reaction i doubt that the energy-value of 1kg acid makes up the same damage as 1gramm of antimatter ... thus i ask myself for what one should utilitize such things. Additionally the acid could not pass shields.

I really like the other two ideas!  :thumbsup:

To give the games resources more reason to race for them, i would rather incorporate crates than finite moons.

Glad you can do
  new breeds of fleet operation  :borg:

Some input:

Scout:
The scout ship is similar to other species when the stats are compared. This ship is small, fast and got a large sensor range. A special ability is, when it will stay on its position, it can activate its carmouflage. The ships will adapt to the space around it, snychronize and can stay there.
The defense ability for this ship is good for a scout and the offensive capability is limited on direct hit. The weapon range is so to say zero, but the attack itself makes any other scout frightening.

Destroyer: (I make it short and simply compare)
Defense ability between romulans and federation, short weapon range, fast, good offensive value.
Special ability: "Predators hunt" - if many destroyers are coming together, a real adreanaline shock will go through them, when they encounter enemy ships. They hunt them until death, without the ability to stop them. They are in rage, they will stay in rage, until the enemy is destroyed.

Greatly increased offensive and defensive values with additional speed bonus. Disadvantage: You are not able to control that ships any longer, until the hunt is over.

Cruiser:
Cruisers are better suited for general attack and defense purposes because they last longer and have more batte-abilities. To give this fact a tribute, here begins the real advantage of the "nature". These ships/lifeforms can charge bioelectrical energy and push it out in order to throw it to the enemy. The more experience these vessels get, the more effective will the attack be. They fire faster, do more damage and through a concentrating process like a kind of "meditation" they can focus on the beam and increase its range. (veteran ability, one of many I hope)
Also these cruisers are able to expand their offensive capabilities. Like a human got two arms, these vessels can control on later abilities two weapons. You can choose between a second beam weapon or a torpedo like weapon. The torpedo like weapon is like... magic. The energy is also concentrated but wont fire throufgh a burst, it will be compressed, stabilized, facussed and then when the kill instinct reaches its maximum, the eyes go wide open, a loud "roooaaaar" comes out and the pulsar is being thrown to the enemy.

Like the borg, the Noxter "feel" the enemy around, so they might even be able to adapt to enemy shields in order to do more damage aginst them or even surpass them.

Battleships:
These are the larger ships, but NOT the dreadnoughts. The last evolution step before the dreadnought itself. These ships can alone defend and attack themselves against entire fleets. These ships can also utulize a "dock", so that you might be able to set destroyer class vessels on its shoulders. The advantage: You can set the destroyers into rage, but they sit fixed on the battlecruisers shoulders. So the battlecruiser not only does a work for himself, he can combine and the result is much more than the sum of its parts.
You may also try to combine the battlecruiser with two medium sized cruisers. The result is a behemoth like ship that is very slow but is able to do a great job against larger enemy vessels, for example borg cubes. If all these 3 ships combine AND if all these 3 ships are on veteran, you can "melt" them together. This will cost you a special amount of ressources, but the result is a kind of raging-battlestation.

Dreadnought:
The dreadnought begins, where the raging-battlestation ends. You can set 3 ships on it.

If you build everything out, take only the best ships of your fleet, put them into the dreadnought, combine them and let it run... this ship is able to fight en par with a borg command cube.

Disadvantage:
You see, these ships can get VERY powerful, BUT, in order to make them so, they need to level up. So a good tactic against Noxter is to simply NOT fight against them. Then they dont level up and stay weak. And *when* you fight them, make sure they wont escape.

So the Noxter are weak in early game, but en par with the borg in the late game.

Stations: You can transform a scout ship into a sensor platform. Just park it, activate the carmouflage and then activate the metamorphosis. Until the metamorphosis is complete, this vessel is a sitting duck.

This sensor station itself is carmouflaged, so nice spionage playtoy.

Defense stations: You can make similar things to your defense stations.
You can change destroyers up to battlecruisers into stations. Alert: After you have melted ships together, is option is not longer avaible for these ships.

So with destroyers, you get a light-to medium defense station, that is cheap but got a good punch. You can even activate the adreanaline-modus, but this will cost you more ressources per time. You might even let it stay in adrenaline-modus forever, but think about it:
Take a cruiser and make it to the defense station will give you the same stats like a destroyer in adrenalin-modus, with lesser ressource-need.

The last defense station is the so called perimeter. This perimeter is grown out of a battlecruiser - the last step before the dreadnought.

The dreadnought itself cant be transformed into a station, but he can melt.

Other stations are build by the breeders.

Wait... ummm... are my ideas going to be in there?


Are they good enough to be in this mod? I think they'd be quite unique.

Maybe im missing something as i haven't read the whole thread only the first post but.... wtf is a Noxtor? made up species?

...Yes

@ Optec

Anyway we could tie in the Tin-Man creature from Next Generation with the Noxter?  Like maybe it was one of the offshoots as a ship or something? B)

Hmm, I don't think that would really fit, as the Tin Man if you remember was constructed for humanoid creatures.... basicaly similar to the 8472 vessels  :sweatdrop:

make it so resource stations, would fire dilitium or tritanium  as ammo, to repel enemy ships early game, so you don't go dead 5 min into the game  ^-^

Why such a simple way of strategy? Always fire and backfire will make it kind of boring.
Let the noxter build an organic like station around the moon that will manifest on it until it is destroyed. We also discussed, that mining stations shouldnt have any weapons installed, because it is a part of your strategy to defend it with your fleet or build up defense turrets.

For the noxter, defense turrets may be a problem because of the ultra short range of their attacks and there is also a problem of the permanent ressource decrease while having ships active. All these balancing points are already discussed.

So if you want to defend your stations, maybe we could act passive abilities like torpedo-pin-point defense systems. Like defense-fighters for the other races like the federation or the dominion, the Noxter stations may get something similar. These little bugs send themselves to the torpedos and detonate in order to defend the station. You will get some "drones" back after a while, but you can only take... lets say, 5 or 6 torpedos per minute to defend the station. If you stand against a large flet or ships with mainly beam weapons, you are pretty fast outnumbered...

Hmm... I think, this is a thing that should be tested at first before we discuss the details.

sounds simula to how tyranid spores work in battlefleet gothic (due to being organic traditional shields wouldnt make sence so they have a cloud of spores that get in the way of incoming fire to protect the ship)