Building the Nebula

posted on March 29th, 2010, 10:40 pm

Long story short: I can't install the base Armada 2 game on my Windows 7 64 bit machine.  The install shield hits 100% and then disappears.

But Fleet Operations installs fine and, if I turn off FRAPs, I can actually play.

Unfortunately, Fleet Operations has removed my favorite class as a build-able ship: the Nebula.  Without debating this decision, I wondered how much effort would be required to reinstate the Nebula as a buildable class.

Alternatively, has anyone been able to successfully install this game on a 64-bit Win7 machine?

posted on March 29th, 2010, 10:43 pm

in stock the nebula is a support ship, making it the centre of your fleets isnt going to be useful. so you wont use many.

posted on March 29th, 2010, 10:51 pm

You can make the Nebula buildable just by adding it into one of the yards, in the appropriate place in the tech tree, and changing the warp in cap for it. Of course you can also hit ctrl E and add the mckinley yard into the game. That will let you build the Nebula

There are plenty of people who've installed on a 64 bit version of Win7 as far as I know - I can't recall who off the top of my head though (I think Redmanmark86 for one). 

[Atlantisbase]

posted on March 29th, 2010, 11:18 pm

Last edited by Atlantisbase on March 29th, 2010, 11:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If you're running the Business or Ultimate versions, your hard drive is big enough, and you don't mind giving up something like 15 GBs you can make use of Windows 7's "new" XP Mode thingy. I say "new" because it's actually just a virtual machine running XP. Check the Microsoft site for details, all I know is that it exists. Of course going that route might be a bigger pain. You could also install it to an XP machine and then copy all the files and registry entries.

posted on March 30th, 2010, 12:26 am

I did the registry thing for Emperor of the Fading Suns.  It was a huge pain.  Not sure I love Armada as much as EFS. 

Whether I can build tons of Nebulas or just a few isn't the point.  Right now, it's not even guaranteed to be in the game at all.  I didn't use many Nebulas in Armada I (which I played much more than Armada II), but I wanted it in there.

I do recall a MOD which made the Nebula much better in Armada I and then I used it in place of the Akira to support my ridiculous Sovereign fleets.  It's silly to take a popular canon ship basically out of the game (but then they did that with the Ambassador AND Galaxy too so what do I know).

I can't figure out why that stupid install shield craps out at 100% (or doesn't come up at all) and a google search has revealed nothing useful.

I guess my foray back into Armada was short-lived.

posted on March 30th, 2010, 12:31 am

Wait, so you are petitioning to have the Nebula buildable in FO... or... ?

Did you mean for this to go in the Feature Request subforum then?

[Anonymous]

posted on March 30th, 2010, 12:47 am

Last edited by Anonymous on March 30th, 2010, 12:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

I was hoping that I could easily make it buildable myself or that someone else had already created a mod allowing you to build the Nebula (and ideally the Ambassador and Galaxy as well).  I couldn't find such a mod, so I took a flyer on a post.

Reading the instructions on how to mod shows this is well beyond my ability, so I'm guessing Armada is going back in my coaster pile.

posted on March 30th, 2010, 12:56 am

actually, its not hard at all.  What yard do you want it to be built from?  if you tell me I can very simply how to do it

please don't give up because it seems hard or complicated.  sometimes that is part of the fun

posted on March 30th, 2010, 1:02 am

The Eraudi yard makes the most sense to me.

But if its not that capable of a combat ship, then maybe Antares.

posted on March 30th, 2010, 1:27 am

Either will build them .  The Nebula in FO is about on par with the Akira in terms of power.  The Neb is also a large sized vessel, which means that Pulse weapons will only do 60% damage to it, however torpedoes will never miss .  The Akira is medium sized and takes 80% from pulses and has a 20% dodge rate on torpedoes.


  Also, the Nebula is primarily pulse-armed and will do less damage to large sized vessels.  You will not likely find much use for it in a combat capacity later in the game, so I would suggest either yard as approriate .  It seems to BIG for the Antares to me, but by the time you've got your Eraudi you will want to be building something better from it anyway.

posted on March 30th, 2010, 2:42 am

I did the registry thing for Emperor of the Fading Suns.  It was a huge pain.  Not sure I love Armada as much as EFS. 

I can't figure out why that stupid install shield craps out at 100% (or doesn't come up at all) and a google search has revealed nothing useful.

There are actually very few entries for Armada II, it really only has one important key: "HKLMSoftwareActivisionStar Trek Armada II". Any other entries are about installer management for Windows and as such and aren't really necessary.

What exactly do you mean by "craps out". Do you mean it just hangs and sits there apparently doing nothing or it appears to quit without finishing? I know of instances where the installer appears to vanish from step to step. The program may in fact still be running but has no visible window; what you really need to do is look at the task manager to see if the installer program is still running. Does the installer copy all the files correctly? If it does, then there probably isn't a problem with playing it.

Your best bet might still be using an XP machine (if you have one or access to one) to install it to a removable drive - i.e. flash drive, external hard drive, etc - which you can then take an plug into your Windows 7 machine. Beyond that you can copy the files to the local drive or just leave it where it is.

You could of course just edit the FO odfs and techtrees to make the Nebula buildable but as you are probably aware by now, the FO Nebula has a completely different role than in the original; it is no longer the specials wielding monster it was before.

[Anonymous]

posted on March 30th, 2010, 3:02 am

Last edited by Anonymous on March 30th, 2010, 3:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'd prefer the Nebula to be just a jumped up Akira.  My love for it is based on its appearances in TNG, DS9, and VOY, not for its bizarre role in Armada.

If I can figure out how to mod it back in, I will.  If I can't, I'll just re-drydock Armada.

Edit: My quick attempt to modify the Antares file and the nebula.odf failed.  So its not as easy as I was hoping.  Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks!

[Tyler]

posted on March 30th, 2010, 8:57 am

Last edited by Tyler on March 30th, 2010, 8:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

The following instructions should work for a buildable Galaxy, but can be easily modified for any Warp-In ship by replacing the ship/special weapon files with the ones appropriate for the ship of your choice.

Buildable Galaxy, without Warp-In version:
1. Add fed_Galaxy to the yard of choice.
2. Add fed_Galaxy.odf 0 to the techtree.
3. Remove the warp-In cap or replace it with a new one of your choice.
4. Remove all Galaxy Class mention from the Warp-In files.

Buildable Galaxy, with Warp-In version:
1. Make a copy of all Galaxy and Type-3 torpedo Galaxy files (all ranks) and rename to something else (for example: fed_GalaxyA, including adding the basename code to Rank1).
2. Make a copy of Rank 1 for the Risner Avatar (for example: fed_GalaxyYA).
3. Add fed_GalaxyA & fed_GalaxyYA to the yard of choice.
4. Add fed_GalaxyA & fed_GalaxyYA to the techtree as Chassis 2 ships.
5. Remove the warp-In cap or replace it with a new one of your choice.
5. Change the Type-3 Torpedo, Veteran rank-up files to include the buildable version of the ship.

Why doesn't someone copy this into a sticky thread to make it easier to find?

posted on March 30th, 2010, 1:24 pm

Thank you.

It's still not clear, because when you say "remove the warp-in cap", I have no idea what you mean.  Also, "the warp-in files" means very little to me.  There are tons of ODF files in the data directory.

There are also two Antaras Yard ODFs, one with a Z at the end, and one without.

Plus, there are about a dozen Nebula ODFs.  I'm assuming that the one without anything after "Nebula" is the one to use, but I can't be sure.  Also, when you open that ODF, there is no "basename" for the ship.

I also don't know how to add anything to the techtree.

[Vorsath]

posted on March 30th, 2010, 2:31 pm

Last edited by Vorsath on March 30th, 2010, 2:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

To remove the warp-in cap, simply open up fed_nebula.odf and all it's variations, and delete the following line:
fleetcapfile = "all_cap_warpin.odf"