Fleet Operations

posted on March 9th, 2009, 9:44 am

After reading a post from a while ago (Star Trek Armada II: Fleet Operations - Battleships - Are they really worth it?) and seeing someone comment on how there should only be 1-2 soverigns, it got me noticing and contemplating, that it seems like fleet ops may have drifted from its roots....

This is supposed to be a mod that puts more emphazize on the single ship, as opposed to what we saw in stock armada 2

but ive noticed recently, it seems like ships are becoming cheaper... faster built, and I notice that battles do not seem to be a small organized fleet of maybe 1-15 ships, attacking each other, where each ship plays its own pivotal role in the battle, with its special abilities, and where the battles do not consist of alot of tactics such as formation, and use of special abilities, (partly because the fleet are rather large),

I notice that the fleets usually consist of 3 fleets or more (48 or more) where each fleet is predominantly one type, (the strongest type) and then the user just watches,

Also there’s way to many turrets,

Not allot of emphasize on dilithium and tritanium value

Cloaking isn’t as valued and is easily detected

Ships aren’t as unique

Now don’t get me wrong, fleet ops is the best armada mod, and is better then the games

but shouldn’t the focus be more on a slower game, at least for smaller maps and such, more of a strategic game, with more emphasize on ships, and not just as a whole, but on a piece of ship basis, where each main individual system of a ship (attack, defense, sensor, life support/crew, engine), can be upgrade, refitted, and take its own individual damage,

Where it’s not necessarily who has the most ships, but who has the best experience crew (by crew training and battles/battle practice, who upgrades the best, has the best tactics (different maneuvers, formation)
And who uses there special abilities better,

brining the scale down a bit, because it seems more like a throw in all your ships, and hope you win type of thing, where one defeat in a battle, means your whole fleet is destroyed, and you cant do anything about it, there’s no tactics to do it, no nothing

Wouldn’t it be nice to bring it bake to a more individual basis, ship parts, upgrading, crew training, colonizing,

I just feel, fleet ops although there is allot of detail on the ships, and such, its mainly its offensive and defense value ship wide, system value, the cost, the special ability, and that’s it, no emphasize on crew, no emphasize on upgrading, speed, tactics, repairs, damage

I think fleet ops could be a better game if more was looked at individually, and in my opinion, all of us (mainly the team), need to step back from it, take a break for a while, (days a week or two), and come back and look at it, and play a few games,

because personally I feel maybe a bit of that uniqueness has been lost, a bit of that special ness of the ships has been lost, and we haven’t started by taking what the fleet ops team first started with, and adding on to it I feel that we have taken it and just made visual changes, adjustments to values, addition of new stations, with new abilities, but not new additions of principals, and not more focus on the individual level

anyway those are my thoughts, and guys, im not saying that fleet ops is bad, I love fleet ops, best thing that happened to armada, what im really questioning, is what fleetops is now, what it was intended to be,

Is this the fleetops we (they, the fleet ops team) set out to make, or has it drifted away from the principals and ideas it was founded upon?

posted on March 9th, 2009, 10:04 am

While I agree with the concept of your post there is a small issue Id like to point out. As you all know FleetOps is a mod and not a full game so they dont have access to the source code of the A2 game.
Basically they are limited by it, so whatever A2 was able to do so is FO, hell they even pulled some stuff I didnt think was possible, but I believe there are far too many limitations to even attempt at something like that in A2 engine since you basically propose the complete change in game dynamics.

Nice post otherwise though, but I dont think it can be done. A similar game to what your proposing would be the Bridge Commander I suppose or Starfleet Command or Legacy.

posted on March 9th, 2009, 10:27 am

FleetOps with RPG elements. Not going to happen. I agree with baron, i don't think it's possible. I already suggested a limit for the number of ships a player can have (limited supplies) but I don't think this will be implemented either.

posted on March 9th, 2009, 11:40 am

Some of those elements would be doable, but we are happy with the gameplay of Fleet Operations. we have some ideas about extending the one or the other, but we are happy with the general direction. Each ship is unique, has its own role and the races have a good outline. We wont touch the basics of gameplay.

posted on March 9th, 2009, 12:22 pm

FleetOps is a mod and not a full game so they dont have access to the source code of the A2 game.

Actually, I remember reading somewhere that they did, or at least had plans to, hack the source code.


But I do agree with Baron, that RPG in an RTS is contradictory. RPG's focus on the singular, while RTS' focus on the many.

Ray, when you say "upgrade systems", I shudder. I mean, come on! That would require the best microing person in the world to be even half decent at!

posted on March 9th, 2009, 2:01 pm

if you are looking for gameplay like that you might start by adjusting the build times from the advanced option menu.

posted on March 9th, 2009, 4:48 pm

well mainly its just that i see us attacking with 3 or 4 fleets at a time, and itd be nice if it could just be brought down a notch, cus with that many ships, you can keep them in formartion, and using all the special abilities is a pain, thers not just one button for the special abilities, and you can groupd them in a way that the support ships can affect all the ships in the fleet, or maybye im just not good at that,

maybye some new fleet formations,

also 1. what is a source code

and 2. why hasnt it been hacked yet or can it, from what it seems to be, wouldnt that open up the game to new things

also i keep hearing about this armada 2 engine, and i dont really understand it that well, i know it runs the game of course, but, cant you just make a new engine, or upgrade the armada 2 engine?

also i wasnt suggesting a rpg, defiantly not, just controling on a bit more, detailed and realistic level with less ships, i realize some of my stuff wont work with what we got, but some of it probably could, for instance(note: i know absoulutely nothing about modding, or manipulating anything in a game),

anyway for istance im sure you could implement the sub system a bit differently, so that basically when you click on a ship, its like clicking on a fleet, where you have different ships, but instead of ships, its the little picture of the engine, or weapon system, and then it has its power engine speed, sesor rtange,etc and you might depedning on your race be able to refit some of those systems, or upgrade them

and to optec, yeah i do like fleet ops, im not critisizing it, i love it, im jjust questioning if it what it was intended to be, while i agree with you each ship is unique,(well galaxy lost its uniqness, jk lol sry couldnt help it) i find that you guys seem to be focusing on the roms race, and giving them alot of stuff for spy, and the borg are fine for a while, and dominion are okay, but the kligons and feds, specifically seem to be getting neglected,

also to the fleet ops team, the warp in for feds, it only allows you to warp in 2 descents, 9 smaller ships, or one descent and 6 smaller ships, and with the 250 seconds waiting time, can we do somthing about this, waiting time is painfully long, and id be nice if it was more like 12 or 15 slots

and again, my idea was a rts, just maybye on a smaller level, because thats what i felt fleet ops was a while ago, and now i fear that its getting to big, to fast, not like stoakc armada to, but its getting there, i just think it might be drifting away a bit from the not very many ships, but empahzize on each ships value, thing.

well, those are my thoughts

posted on March 9th, 2009, 5:08 pm

1)
Source code Source code - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia is an uncomplied program Compiler - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Compiled means that you take it from a language that we understand to one that the computer understands. As these last to terms relate to armada 2 it would be uncomplied armada 2 engine (see 3)
2)
It has been hacked before but not by the team (well at least not in relation to this mod) but hacking tends to be in violation of the EULA and would thus make this mod illegal.
3)
the armada 2 engine is the armada 2 executable it is what interprets all of the odf, sod, sprites, and all of the other files that are in the armada 2 directory. It then uses all of them to make the game we play.

posted on March 9th, 2009, 5:10 pm

is there a way to get aroudn the source code?

well cant you upgrade the engine or make a new one, or use a engine that every comnputer would have, like and operating system?

posted on March 9th, 2009, 5:18 pm

yea we could also write our own game... thats fast to write, but hard to do

posted on March 9th, 2009, 5:29 pm

I think the loader gets around of some features of the engine but i am not sure how it works. It takes years of work for a game developer to create a game engine so it would not be very practicle to create a new one. Once again you may not change the exe without violating the EULA. also to modify your os to use the windows explorer to play FO you might as well create a new engine. however it has been suggested that the mod move to a different engine (the main one was sins of a solar empire). I am not sure he understands could i get someone else to do a little clarifying for ray. Also feel free to point out where i am wrong in the last 2 posts.

posted on March 9th, 2009, 5:29 pm

yea we could also write our own game... thats fast to write, but hard to do

lol yeah no kidding.

posted on March 9th, 2009, 5:39 pm

yea we could also write our own game... thats fast to write, but hard to do

well personally, let me say i think thats a very good idea optec, just think about it, yes it may take time, but the supporter of fleet ops waited a few years, and with the game our own, you guys can get away from the leagality of doing stuff, and you cvould use the srouce code, whatever that means, and do things that right now are imposible, and design the engine for new specific needs, and then be able to upgraded, and im sure theres alot of peopel on fleet ops whop have alot of expirience wiht it, you have the support of the members behind you, the knowledge is here to probably, so why not?

posted on March 9th, 2009, 5:45 pm

well personally, let me say i think thats a very good idea optec, just think about it, yes it may take time, but the supporter of fleet ops waited a few years, and with the game our own, you guys can get away from the leagality of doing stuff, and you cvould use the srouce code, whatever that means, and do things that right now are imposible, and design the engine for new specific needs, and then be able to upgraded, and im sure theres alot of peopel on fleet ops whop have alot of expirience wiht it, you have the support of the members behind you, the knowledge is here to probably, so why not?

You have no idea how hard it is to write a game engine do you???

posted on March 9th, 2009, 6:08 pm

the Armada engine can handle a lot of stuff, just compare some original Armada2 screenshots to pictures from modern Armada2 mods or Fleet Operations. We will extend the graphic quality in the future, you might have noted that we redid some old models in the last patches and will continue to do so in the future. Obtaining a new graphic quality for a game is not only about the engine - unlocking a new engine feature wont bring you the slightest difference. Its the graphic content - the models, textures, shaders and effects - that are what you finally see on the screen. If you unlock a new feature for the engine, you might also have to redo all the content you already have. With close to thousand models for Fleet Operations now, thats nothing funny!
We will stay with the Armada2 engine and extend it to our needs. we are happy with whats possible now and i think it doesn't has to hide much looking at modern engines