That's a whole lotta questions
I'll try to answer a few as best as I can, but I am sure others will also offer their opinions as well
Games get organized in a variety of ways, so far as I know: any instant-type messenger works... as well as putting up threads on this forum. Even email has worked for me. Keep in mind that the community for FO is not very sizeable (thus it can sometimes be hard to find someone online without setting something up), but I am sure you will find a few people who are ALWAYS ready to play, if you plan ahead.
Simply put, the AI stinks. There are attempts to make it better (i.e. Redman's mod) ... and supposedly it is much better in v3 full, but for anybody who plays the game semi-regularly, it is a breeze to kill the AI.
I would definitely say the community is alive... though some of us may be hampered by schoolwork/jobs you-name-it from time to time. As far as I know, the mod is definitely not pettering out. Personally I know that in the summer I will be ready to game much more
Dunno how to help you out on the mod tech-trees... it is always changing; you could try looking around the site a little more (I seem to remember there was one place on it where trees, avatars and ships were listed). For A2 tech-trees, there are plenty of sites to find; just google and you'll find it. Ships lists can also be found that way for vanilla A2... again I am not sure about FO (you could browse thru the gallery of course). The amount of ships included can be found under basic info and stuff... (just checked... can't find the techtrees and stuff anywhere
)
Difficulty of installing... well for v3PR there are some oddball difficulties for some people (I haven't experienced any that weren't due to my own stupidity though). Personally I don't think it's that hard but...
For the full v3, it'll be a piece of cake (new compatibility thingy)
No campaign in the mod yet
That's the plan for a version after v3
I sorta liked the campaign from vanilla A2, but it wasn't incredible.
There are definitely video bytes of FO online on youtube and the like (heck, you can even find a grainy one on the newest update from the producers... I think it is called On Screen)
Whether it is worth 70 bucks (ouch
) is ultimately up to you. Remeber, if you need an Armada II CD "Either contact Activision or try to get the Star Trek Action Pack with Elite Force + Addon, Armada 1 and Armada 2 in it. You can still get full Armada 2 replacement Backup images from various P2P networks." (from the site)
I fiercely recommend it, but then again, I'm biased. Maybe you can borrow a friend's to find out if you like it or not first? All I can say is v3 full will inject new life into the game (it's gonna be sweet), so be there for the party
