Gameplay

• Individual techtrees
  Each race has an indiviual techtree. In Armada II all races had the same fundamental techtree of stations and ships with very low deviations (for example the amount of ships differed in the small shipyards). Three research stations and two types of shipyards for each race was not in our intention to continue. So we developed a unique techtree for each single race and in addition found the way to balance it in an appropriate way. Now, for example, Klingons have three shipyards while the Dominion has just two of them and also have to build more expensive prototypes before building the corresponding cheaper "copies". Also research of technologies is linked with a unique system for each race. A special offer you can expect in 3.0 is the ability of trading technologies between races which will bring more depths and variety into gameplay. 

•  "Physics"
  We have removed the 3D space box from the game. That means all actions are done on one level in hight and depth (zero level). Result is no more pointless building in hight/depth and flying over defence structures without harm. Further vessels do not have warp capabilities anymore as warp took away much strategic possibilities fom the game. So, retreating from torpedoes by warping away will no longer be a major aspect of gameplay and attacking an opponent's base is not linked with warpin-shot-warpout tactics but with a smart strategy and intelligent fleet combinitions to achieve a high efficiency.
  Experiences out of Armada 1 showed us that this solution fits better to the game. 

Graphic

This category compares the graphical aspects of stock Armada II and Fleet Operations. Unlike our Gallery you can see how the look of Fleet Operations differs in contrast to Armada II as we tried to take similar scenes from both games.

Federation Outpost

Armada 2

Fleet Operations

Federation Sovereign class starship

Armada 2

Fleet Operations

Romulan Starbase

Armada 2

Fleet Operations

Fixes and Enhancements

Armada II is over 6 years old. Back then originally designed for Windows 98 and in parts for the not very common Windows 2000.

Though Armada II is still compatible with Windows XP and also Vista, nevertheless, Armada lacks what most games from 2000 have not when most gamers turned over to Windows XP. Reason for that was a support for the user folders which was introduced with Windows 2000. Now Fleet Operations introduces support for user profiles, too.

That means:

Your screenshots aren't created in the Armada root folder anymore but in a folder in your user directory. Also all settings are now saved in your users folder, too. This feature gets very important with Windows Vista as writing settings and screenshots to the program files dir isn't permitted anymore by default. Fleet Operations provides full Windows Vista UAC compatbility for Armada II.

Now your screenshots are also saved in the more space friendly and also lossless png format with a timestamp in the filename.

We found several issues in the Armada II executable that prevents Armada II from starting or crashing on some configurations. Those issues are fixed now.

A non common feature for gamers have been widescreen monitors in 2001, so Armada II lacks support for them entirely. A simple notepad edit wasn't enough to get widescreen support back. So we reintroduced that feature with Fleet Operations. Finally the game menu supports 32bit color and isn't limited to blocky looking gradients. Have fun playing around with it.