Armada II: Evolution - comes to FleetOps!

posted on July 4th, 2010, 5:59 pm

I'M planning to add the Borg as a map race, or as an unbalanced race. The Borg seems timeless to me, I don't think they developed as much as the Federation did for example - especially if we''re talking about warfare. So if the Borg will be added, then they'll have a simple techtree (comparing to the other races of course) ad they will be impossible to stop in the TOS era, but you'll have better chances in the TNG and very good chances in the Future era against them.

posted on July 4th, 2010, 6:37 pm

u could always use the designs from legacy as a guide

posted on September 11th, 2010, 10:11 am

It's update time!

The very first alpha version of the mod is up and running, tests were started two weeks ago. I decided to give you some information about techtree and technology development.
Technological researches can make a game/mod very enjoyable or unusable. I try to keep the balance and make the game not too simple, but not unplayable either. As you may already know, in Evolution you'll be able to advance in Eras of Star Trek. This means that you have to do a generic research (technically it will be a research pod) to advance from one Era to another. These researches will cost a significant amount of resources and will take quite a while to complete them. And when I'm saying "a while" I mean about 10 minutes. So you'll be forced to focus on your current Era and you can't just "skip" one and jump to the next, guarding your base for the time being. This also means that you barely can play the game from the ENT to the Future Era, it will be more suited to choose a timeframe of Star Trek and only play there. This also increases the replayability of the game significantly.
Besides of the Era-research, there will be multiple research possibilities, which open in different Eras, depending on when they were developed originally. These researches are not necessary for playing or even winning the game, but they could help you a lot. The researches are divided into three parts:
- The first one is the General Technology Research. Here you can develop or advance your already known technologies. These researches may give you access to special ships, but if you don't do them, you still will be able to build most of the starships.
- The second one is the Advanced Technology Research. Here you can research innovative technologies, which could be necessary for building certain starships and stations, or increase your overall capabilities significantly.
- The Third one is the Secret Technology Research. These researches are the most expensive and some of them are considered forbidden, but they can give you huge boost or unique special abilities. You have to pay special attention to these researches. I tell you, you don't want to lost them and especially don't want your enemy to get them. Oh yes! I'm planning to make these research stations to be usable for both sides, so if you capture the enemy's Secret Technology Research Center, you gain a huge advantage.

posted on September 13th, 2010, 1:13 am

Sounds interesting mate, hope you plan on releasing some images 

On a side note, I just noticed that the link to your site is no longer functional 

posted on September 13th, 2010, 8:58 am

Dont forget to disable transporters in the NX era Reminds me of the Birth of the Federation mod I played once.

posted on September 13th, 2010, 10:29 am

Dont forget to disable transporters in the NX era Reminds me of the Birth of the Federation mod I played once.

Its important that this mod doesn't play like the BotF mod.  BotF was nice in concept but even ignoring the bugs and the incompleteness of several sides the actual game play was not very interesting.  You want to tech up, and for the Fed it takes something like 15 minutes before you can build your first real combat ships (excluding the first contact vulcan ship)  Then it became a real drag because you had to research like 5-6 techs at each progressive level to get to the next stage.  This was one of the things i also didn't like about the B5 mod (great as it is to play).  Each tech by itself rarely gives anything, its only when you get several does it unlock something and then it usually unlocks lots of things together.

In my personal mod where I have the fed progressing I created an Officer's Club, where you "research" the Enterprise captains - kind of (Young Kirk (TOS), Old Kirk (TMP), Sulu (Ent-B/Excelsior, Late TMP), Garrett (TLE), Picard (TNG, Ent D), Riker (Late TNG, Ent E), and lastly I had Daniels representing the ships from the Concept Future Mod.

In each era i had ships with the same roles as the next (with some exceptions and additions) so each era had a destroyed, frigate, cruisers, battleship, etc, but in each era the following ships became 10-20% stronger.  The choice basically was try and tech up to get the stronger ships or live at low level and spam cheaper weaker ships.

Unfortunately in gameplay this didn't work too well and i quickly realized that it would never be really good for play against human opponents.

What I thought may be most interesting to do, although I have never thought how it could be satisfactorily achieved, would be for the mod to have an internal clock, a stardate if you like.  Once you get to a certain stardate, new ships become available.

The only way I could think of doing this was to remove crew requirements for ships and not enable colonization, and use the crew counter as a stardate.  Once you get enough crew you can research the next stage of development.  The problem here is then the crew count, erm i mean stardate, would reset.  Ideally would need a way to return the crew count so the date isn't lost.  Better still if the research could be triggered automatically.

This would mean that each race would be able to advance at exactly the same time keeping some balance.

posted on September 21st, 2010, 6:48 am

I have the same concern too. This was the main reason why need the Era-researchs several minutes. This means that the player woN't play throguht the complete timeline during a single game and so he can't gain significant advantage on his poopnent by having ships stronger by two Eras.
I'm thinking on a method of keeping up the balance, but as a modder, my possibilities are limited. The problem is that there is no way for two races to affect each other's techtrees/researches. I also was thinking on the crew cost method but in that case shois would have no crew, making the troop transports unusable, ships unboradable and unassimilatable.
What I really like to have is a non-map race which constantly researches the Eras and this affects all players. Or a method for affecting your enemyes' techtree like if you research an Era your enemies get a fix one minute penalty but then they can research the same Era within 3 seconds.

posted on September 21st, 2010, 7:21 am

Well, even if you can't make research automatic, then perhaps you can make the research available for free from the starbase (for example).  Players would just need to get into the habit of keeping an eye on the research (stardate) timer and be ready to click when the next era becomes available.

I haven't properly looked at your mod ideas but let's say you have 4 eras (including start era) and each era's research takes 20 minutes.  That means a sharp player would hit the final era after one hour of play.  Not usual for games to last that long but it can happen in games with a few players.

As long as no player is particularly inattentive of the research timer then all players should progress to the next level within a couple of minutes of each other.

Another thing, be careful that older era ships are not totally outdone by later era ships otherwise whole fleets will become useless and then you will have decom queues at each era and or else suicide fleets where people just look to get rid of the old ships and just produce the new.... and by the time they do that it will be time for the next era... rinse and repeat until everyone has teched to the final era.

posted on September 21st, 2010, 5:28 pm

I'm not worrying aobut the players, I'm worrying about the Ai. I'm not sure if it can keep up the pace with the human players. But of course it could be a problem between two human players as well.
Having ships from an earlier Era doesn't meen huge disadvantage. If you can upgrade a ship in the next era, then it will be about 10-15% stronger than it was in the previous era, plus it gets slightly stronger weapons. Of course, if you add to this that your opponent might be able to build more advanced ships, then it could be a problem. But even one era down, you have a chance to win the game.

posted on September 21st, 2010, 5:37 pm

that link dont work.

posted on January 2nd, 2011, 10:00 pm

Wow, it's been a while I didn't write in this thread.  The main reasons were my private life and some serious problems around the project. Fortunately, the latter were solved. I finally can make the AI to upgrade its ships and stations, so player won't be in advantage and AI won't be stucked in the current era. I also found a way to make all the participating players to advance automatically and at once eras, so no player will be able to gain an advantage by researching Era-pods faster. A big thank you for Adm_Z for the inspiration and the tons of help. Thanks again pal

So now we're running again and I think I could finish the first part of the project within two months, but unfortunately I won't have enough time. That's why I'm recruiting more people to work on the project. I don't want to hide anything: I badly need someone who has the time and the knowledge to code the weapon ODFs for me. I prefer modeling to coding anyway.  I also could use some help with the buildbuttons and the wireframes as the old ones I made for the stock game don't fit to FleetOps.
What can I offer in exchange? Well...........  You'll get access to the mod and all the stuff made for it. And you'll get my endless respect 
If you're interested, just send a PM or post here.

And as always any questions and suggestions are welcome. I promise, next time I'll post pictures as well.

posted on January 2nd, 2011, 11:41 pm

I will volunteer to do buildbuttons and wireframes, ect.

posted on March 15th, 2011, 5:26 pm

I don't know how well i could do the weapons, but i sure would like to give it a try, i can also do wireframes and system backrounds,

posted on March 18th, 2011, 6:06 pm

Thanks mate
Adm_Z and CptnBenSisco are already helping me out wireframes and weapons

posted on March 30th, 2011, 4:58 pm

Hi any new updates on your mod? When might it be done? Is this something that goes with Fleet Ops or is it separate