Hello and thank you for downloading and installing my modification to Star Trek Armada II by Activison and MadDoc Corporation. First of all, I want to let you know that this is the Beta Version of this mod so it isn't fully complete yet. There will be two more versions of this modification to follow this one, the Second Beta Version with even more added and the remaining races that will be used. The third release will not be a beta version but the Final Version with an edited AI that is able to play everything that has been added to each race. This AI will be fully tested by me before I deem the game fully ready for release. Those who are testing Beta Two will also be testing part of this new AI. For those new to this game and don't have a Player's Manual, I have included a PDF Version of it, this book is the original that came with the game when Activison released it so it doesn't show everything that is related to this modification except for all that originally came with the game. MODS BACK STORY: This modification follows the original storyline set by Activison and MadDoc when they released the game, so if you have played the original, there shouldn't be any surprises for you. For those who haven't though, here is the story so far: That of course is the Main Story for Star Trek Armada II, that includes the original Activison's Version, but now some of the extra races have their own back story. Those are the following: Set just six months after the events of Star Trek: Armada, the Borg once again threaten the Alpha Quadrant. They have created a new ship capable of assimilating entire worlds in just a few seconds. After routing the attempted foothold, Captain Picard discovers a new type of nebula - a tachyon nebula. Intrigued, Picard discovers a new type of transwarp gate called a Transwarp Portal, capable of sending fleets of starships from one quadrant to another almost instantly, thus giving reason as to how the Borg managed to get so deep into the Alpha Quadrant undetected.Starfleet Command then orders Picard to seize control of it and launch a counteroffensive into the heart of Borg space in the Delta Quadrant, into the Borg staging grounds. Though successful, some of the Federation forces, Picard included, are left stranded when the Transwarp Portal collapses due to a destabilization of the inter-spatial transwarp manifolds. Meanwhile, the Cardassians use the sudden absence of Federation forces to begin their own offensive. Klingon Chancellor Martok discovers that Gul Kentar, leader of the Cardassian "revolution", is in league with the Romulans. Kentar is developing the "Quantum Singularity" that allows the Cardassians to summon Species 8472 ships at will. Martok leads an attempt to thwart Kentar's grab for power and destroy the project. The Klingons stop the Cardassian invasion and obliterate their homeworld, Cardassia Prime. In the final battle, Martok tracks down and kills Gul Kentar, taking out the Quantum Singularity Project along the way. The Borg Queen, stranded in the Alpha Quadrant by the same twist of fate that trapped Picard on her side of the galaxy, discovers that Species 8472 has found a way into the Alpha Quadrant. She attempts to mass an armada to suppress this threat by assimilating native species planets, ships and technologies, but its growth is stunted by the constant attacks from the Federation. She then realizes that only by working with the Federation they can defeat Species 8472. The Federation and the Borg Collective create an alliance and venture into Species 8472's Fluidic Space to destroy their staging grounds by destroying the Rift Maker, thus ending the threat to the Alpha Quadrant by closing all the rifts. The game ends with the two sides parting ways, the Klingons asserting control over the Cardassians and order, somewhat, returning to the galaxy. LEGAL INFORMATION: With all that said, there are a few legal things that I want to get into first. 1. Star Trek Armada II is a registered game of Activison and MadDoc, I have only added units to it that others have created as their own mods and released to the Armada Community on sites such as www.armada2files.com, www.armadafleetcommand.com and Majestic's Sci Fi Central. These sites can also be used by you to add other untis and or other races from many different types of games and series you might like. 2. All mods used are original properties of their creators and can only be used with permission given from them. I have though went and modified the ODF files of the ships, stations, special weapons, and weapons (these are the previous mentioned units of the game) that others have created to make the gaming exsperience you'll find here unique. With that, all the races you encounter here have been modified to make them stronger than they were in the Stock Version (or original version of Star Trek Armada II). Just be aware of this as you start playing the game. 3. There are some models (mods) that were used in this game's creation that are of a high poly count, meaning higher than 512/512, there are some that are lower than that ratio, but there may not be alot. Just for a final warning, these higher poly count files can and could be murder on older and slower computers, therefore a lag or pause in game time might be normal for your computer. 4. As a legal notice, this part by law has to be added; I am not responsible for any damages to you or your computer that your playing this game on. If anything happens, do not contact Activison, they will not help you since you are playing a modified version of the game. Sorry for any inconviance with that, that's just the law and Activison's policy. Play at your own risk. KNOWN ISSUES: For any and all known issues, please see the document titled "Random Crashings Log". This document reports all of the known issues that were occuring during this mods creation and if they have been solved, you will find "SOLVED" right after the name of the issue. If you find an issue that isn't fixed yet and you know how to fix it, I hereby give you permission to release a patch for the problem as long as you also report the issue to me and report how to fix it too. CONTACT INFORMATION: If there are any questions up to this point or anywhere's after this, please e-mail me at jetnova16@yahoo.com.I welcome any suggestions that anyone might have and even though this mod started as a college assignment for Intro To Game Designing and the classes after it, I welcome anyone who wants to help out with the mod as part of a modding team. If you are interested, please contact me at the above e-mail address, thank you very much. PERMISSIONS: These are the mods that I used in this games creation, there are alot of them so bear with me with their listings. If a certain mod was given to all or almost all of the races featured in this game, it will show up last in the All Races Section. This section will go by the names of each race and they will not be in alphabetical order. This section right now will also have a spoiler for whats to come in the Beta Two Version to make things simpiler. ****** The Following Section of this Read Me is to give you alittle background on each of the individual races that are in this Star Trek Armada II Mod and it will also tell you if they have been heavily modded or left alone. After this will be the instructions on how to Install this mod to your computer. A) Federation Side - (This is also known as Starfleet or the United Federation of Planets) This side is the main side in the game and they have the most units added to them. The other races have been made to counter act this as much as possible. The United Federation of Planets is the main power force in the Star Trek Universe. Usually anything Star Trek related is going to follow the B) Klingon Side - This side is the second main side in the game, and since they are allied with the Federation, I came up with alittle twist for them and you'll also find this played with the Federation Side as well. The Klingons have been given a few Federation starships, consider them a trade of technology, these ships though have been upgraded with Klingon technology as well such as cloaking devices. In the trade off, the Federation were given a few notable Klingon Starships. Each side has the Unity Station to build what they got in trade from the other. C) The Borg Side - This is the final main race in the game and they happen to be the last race that you can play as in the campaign missions, the other two are the Federation and Klingons, that's why they all appear here first. This is the side that I've been trying to make the strongest and that's because the Borg on the TV shows and in the books dealt a series blow to the United Federation of Planets but in this game, its sad to say but the developers at Activison made them a joke that I can't help but to laugh at. Everyone of the Borg's ships, combat and non-combat alike have all been armed and that includes special weapons to. Each Borg ship is able to take on a Federation (or any races) battleship. The health of each of these ships has also been raised and the Borg Nexus has been replaced to be more canon. The new Borg base is no other than a very strong and way up there in health Unicomplex. I've set out to truely make Resistance Futile and I think I may have done that. D) Species 8472 Side - There isn't many mods for this race so there was hardly much I could do. Therefore, this is the only race I would say is truely unbalanced in the whole game. I may have set out to make the Borg very strong and to give many more ships and stations to each race, but this one surely is the underdog. Species 8472 will need some work to get them to be among the strong races and to make them even worthy of truely even being in this game because they are and always have been the one race who truely could resist the Borg and now they can't even do that with how strong I've made the Borg, but to be honest, they never could stand up to the Borg in this game. E) The Cardassian Side - After siding with the Dominion in the war against the Federation and its Allies, the Cardassian Union became in disarray. Their influence throughout the Alpha and Beta Quadrants deminished, in fact, with the Breen joining the Dominion near the end of the war, Legate Damar choose to resist and rebel against the Dominion. This turned out to be a bad choice for the Cardassian people. The Dominion started to destroy Cardassian cities in retaliation. The Cardassians in the ladder half of the Dominion War changed sides because of the destruction of Likarion City and joined the Federation Alliance in the final assualt against the Dominion at Cardassia Prime. Even though you could say that the Cardassians technically lost the Dominion War because most of their cities were destroyed and their people dead, there was one Cardassian that started to try to reclaim power and prestigue for the Cardassian people. This Cardassian Leader is named Gul Kentar and is the Cardassian that the Klingons are set out to kill for the Cardassian Unions' uprising agaisnt the occupying Klingon Empire. Gul Kentar was hoping to use the Quantum Singularity Research Facility to gate in a power alien species from another spacial dimension and to use them agaisnt the Klingons and the Federation. This alien species was actually Species 8472 amd of course they can't be controled that easily and they also started to attack the Cardassians. F) Romulan Side - The Romulans are an offshot of the Vulcan species but don't surpress their emotions. The Romulans are secretive and don't really trust other races in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. Once their fears esculated into ear with Earth prior to the founding of the United Federation of Planets in 2161. This war became known as "The Romulan-Earth War". Almost a hundred years after the war, the first Romulan Bird-of-Prey with a better cloak penetrated the Neutral Zone and destroyed our Outposts along the Neutral Zone. That ships was later destroyed before it could reenter the Romulan Neutral Zone by Captain James T. Kirk and the USS Enterprise NCC 1701, it was during this time that the Romulans were testing their Plasma Torpedo Weapon. G) Reman Side - H) Tholian Side - I) The Dominion Side - J) The Vulcans Side - K) Alpha Quadrant Additional Races - These races aren't technically playable but some of their ships might end up appearing in some other races if they could possibly form an alliance. Since the Alpha Quadrant is a huge place, there are many different alien cultures, and not all of them are friendly. Most of these races will appear in the campaign and will either attack you just because they can or on the behalf of the Ferengi will steal your deralict ships. K - 1) The Son'a Side - Originally most of them were just like the Ba'ku but once returned to their natural form of evolution, they started to age and became the Son'a. Their ships are armed with illegal Subspace Weaponry banned by the Second Kitomer Accords. They have produced mass quonaties of the narcotic Ketracel White, because of this there is a good chance that they are actually allied with the Dominion since the Jem'Hadar are only controled by an addiction to Ketracel White programmed into them by the Founders. K - 2) The Gorn Side - A reptile race first encounterd by Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the USS Enterprise NCC 1701. K - 3) The Xindi Side - One of the very few races that has 5 different sub species, there are the Aquatics, Arboreals, Primates, Reptilians and the Insectoids, there was a sixth Xindi species; the Avians, but they all died out in the war that destroyed the original Xindi Homewrold. The Xindi were tricked by the "Guardians" into attacking Earth. Their inital attack killed over seven billion people. Captain Archer of the Enterprise NX-01 managed to convince them that humanity wasn't a threat to them and that they were being lied to and that humanity was going to lead an alliance that would eventually defeat the Sphere Builders who are the "Guardians". The Guardians could see this timeline and wanted to stop it so they hoped they could get the Xindi to destroy Earth. Of course this never happened but a slight Xindi Civil War did. The Aquatics, Arboreals, and Primates might actually be allied with the Federation, the Insectoids and the Repilians might just still hold a grudge against humanity. K - 4) The Ferengi Side - A race driven by commerce alone. K - 5) The Seranix Side - This race doesn't appear yet but will be added for the final version when the mod entitled Star Trek Armada Future Tense is completed. L) Delta Quadrant Races - These races aren't technically playable but some of their ships might end up appearing in some other races if they could possibly form an alliance. Since the Delta Quadrant is a huge place unexplored sector of the Milky Way Galaxy, the only contact that we've actually had with it is when the USS Voyager NCC 74656 was hurled over 70,000 lightyears away from the Alpha Quadrant well on a mission in the Badlands near Cardassian and Bajoran Space after a Maquis' ship. Both Voyager and the Maquis' ship was traported to the Delta Quadrant by an alien entitinty known only as the Caretaker. The Caretaker died before he could return Voyager back to her rightful quadrant and then Captain Kathryn Janeway made a decision that stranded the ship 75 years from home by destroying the Caretaker's Array so it wouldn't fall into the hands of the Kazon Ogla. Now because of the USS Voyager, the United Federation of Planets has a ship in the Delta Quadrant journeying home well all the while exploring and making contact with unknown aline species. It has been confirmed though that the Borg are from the Delta Quadrant and that Species 8472 was first located here as well since they were in a war with the Borg since they were the only race ever able to resist assimilation. Like with the races from the Alpha Quadrant, most of these races will appear in the campaign when you enter the Delta Quadrant and they too will attack you just because they can. L - 1) Talaxian - Little is known about the Talaxian's what we do know comes from Neelix who is onboard the USS Voyager who was invited to be their guide by Captain Janeway. The one thing for certain is that they don't have a homeworld anymore because sometime ago it was destroyed, they are now a nomadic people. L - 2) Nygean - Little is really known about this race. The crew of Voyager was held prisoner by them for awhile and forced to work in labor camps. L - 3) Kazon (Kazon Ogla) - The Kazon have been an enemy of the Federation ever since they first came acrossed Voyager at ther Caretaker's Array. Because Janeway choose to destroy the array than to let the Kazon use it against the peaceful alien race called the Ocompa (a race the Caretaker was caring for and protecting). The Kazon would surely attack any Federation vessel that they see in the Delta Quadrant, because of this, if they ever got to the Alpha Quadrant, they might just end up forming an alliance with the Cardassians. This would surely most likely be the case because Seska is a Cardassian and was aboard the Maquis's ship looking human at the time. You can already say that the Kazon possibly have an ally in the Cardassian people if Seska has ever gotten a message back to the Alpha Quadrant and Cardassia Prime. L - 4) Vidian - An alien race suffering from a disease called the Phage, they capture other alien cultures and kill them for their organs to try and prolong their own lives. L - 5) Voth - a dinosaur like alien race that actually possibly could have originated from Earth if some of the Dinosaurs did survive and managed to some how leave the planet. L - 6) The Caretaker - The one who brought Voyager and the Maquis into the Delta Quadrant against their will. He died before he could send them back. Even though he's dead, there is one remaining creature like him, a female somewhere else in the Delta Quadrant. L - 7) Hirogen - A race of nomadic hunters. *********INSTALL INFORMATION************ Most likely if you're a fan of Star Trek and all you skipped all the other information and jumped to this section to get ready to install the mod. If you did this, then you have done exactly what I would do. After this Read-Me has been written for those that aren't familiar with Star Trek and or Star Trek Armada & its sequal Star Trek Armada II. Installing this mod is simple and it is stongly recomended that you only install it this way and onto an unmodded clean install of Star Trek Aramda II: 1) Install Star Trek Armada II to your computer if you haven't already. 2) You don't have to install the Patches to this install, because using the included Auto Installer will do that for you. 3) Run the Auto Installer and select you default (or unmodded) Star Trek Armada II Directory and let the program install. 4) I would suggest that after you install this mod that you restart that your computer but it isn't fully neccesary, you can now run the program. *********JUST A REMINDER*************** LEGAL INFORMATION: With all that said, there are a few legal things that I want to get into first. 1. Star Trek Armada II is a registered game of Activison and MadDoc, I have only added units to it that others have created as their own mods and released to the Armada Community on sites such as www.armada2files.com, www.armadafleetcommand.com and Majestic's Sci Fi Central. These sites can also be used by you to add other untis and or other races from many different types of games and series you might like. 2. All mods used are original properties of their creators and can only be used with permission given from them. I have though went and modified the ODF files of the ships, stations, special weapons, and weapons (these are the previous mentioned units of the game) that others have created to make the gaming exsperience you'll find here unique. With that, all the races you encounter here have been modified to make them stronger than they were in the Stock Version (or original version of Star Trek Armada II). Just be aware of this as you start playing the game. 3. There are some models (mods) that were used in this game's creation that are of a high poly count, meaning higher than 512/512, there are some that are lower than that ratio, but there may not be alot. Just for a final warning, these higher poly count files can and could be murder on older and slower computers, therefore a lag or pause in game time might be normal for your computer. 4. As a legal notice, this part by law has to be added; I am not responsible for any damages to you or your computer that your playing this game on. If anything happens, do not contact Activison, they will not help you since you are playing a modified version of the game. Sorry for any inconviance with that, that's just the law and Activison's policy. Play at your own risk. KNOWN ISSUES: For any and all known issues, please see the document titled "Random Crashings Log". This document reports all of the known issues that were occuring during this mods creation and if they have been solved, you will find "SOLVED" right after the name of the issue. If you find an issue that isn't fixed yet and you know how to fix it, I hereby give you permission to release a patch for the problem as long as you also report the issue to me and report how to fix it too. CONTACT INFORMATION: If there are any questions up to this point or anywhere's after this, please e-mail me at jetnova16@yahoo.com.I welcome any suggestions that anyone might have and even though this mod started as a college assignment for Intro To Game Designing and the classes after it, I welcome anyone who wants to help out with the mod as part of a modding team. If you are interested, please contact me at the above e-mail address, thank you very much.