Armada II: Evolution - comes to FleetOps!

posted on June 4th, 2011, 8:35 am

Why not let the refits themselves be player-controlled, akin to the existing Romulan system but on a larger scale? Fleet upgrades aren't free, after all.

posted on June 4th, 2011, 3:45 pm

It would need too much of micro-management. And I don't want to see TOS Connies fighting Sovereigns just because the player was tricky and hid some of those ships behind a nebula for fun 

posted on June 5th, 2011, 3:31 am

Some races (notably the Klingons and the Feds) keep their old designs around anyways, as evidenced by k't'ingas, Mirandas, and old-spec Excelsiors darting about in the 2370's. I wouldn't be too worried about manual updating being micro-intensive; all it would take is a click.

posted on June 5th, 2011, 12:31 pm

DOn't worry, they WILL remain in the fleet.
You see, you won't only get Refits, but Upgrades as well. This means that certain ship classes (most notably the Miranda and its variants) will remain in service for a very long time without any visible refit. Still, they will get modernized weapons, shielding, sensors etc. The Constitutions however retired from service somewhere between the TMP and TLE era, so they won't be upgraded after that.

Manual upgrade/refit is still an option. If the community would start to demand it, I may reconsider the case 

posted on June 5th, 2011, 1:45 pm

i DEMAND it! lol just kidding. but it would be nice to manually upgrade, that way you get more options, and also your choices have a deeper impact on gameplay, like your tos constitutions vs, a sov example. yeah, the connies are going to die, but at least the player owning them had the option of doing it.
the main reason im so excited with your mod is because you're about to lay EVERYTHING out on the table for us to use. and thats awsome, so being able to upgrade, refit, or just have your ships old and out of date should be the choice of the players...

just my opinion on it. 

posted on June 5th, 2011, 2:08 pm

Hmm, I'd favour the automatic approach. Sure manually you would have the OPTION of upgrading, and when, but why would you leave a ship non-upgraded? Also, for every upgrade, you would need to go through every ship in every fleet every few minutes to keep them all up to date. Is that really what you want to spend gameplay time doing? I don't think so.

posted on June 5th, 2011, 2:22 pm

And don't forget that currently AI can't use replaceweapon (the only way to upgrade ships), so human player would be in a huge advantage. I don't want to make your work so easy 
The main reason I don't want to dismiss the idea of manual upgrade completely is because when you upgrade your TOS Miranda (Surya) or TMP Excelsior you could have multiple choices (Miranda, Soyuz, Lantree subtypes and Lakota-Hood subtypes).

posted on June 5th, 2011, 3:44 pm

Surely the AI replaceweapon problem would be there whether you have player control or automatic upgrades?

TOS Miranda (Surya)

Woah woah woah. Surya is NOT a TOS Miranda. Common misconception, but it doesn't have the full-length extended hull. It has a half-length one, making it a TOS Knox*.

However, the source book* that the Surya came from also has a full-length hull class, named Coventry. THAT is the TOS Miranda.

*: Ships of the Star Fleet : Edition One. It includes the Surya, Coventry, Knox, and Miranda.

posted on June 5th, 2011, 5:43 pm

Yeah, there is a huge confusion about the predecessor of the Miranda. SOme call it Surya, some call it Coventry, some call Coventry hull Surya Class.... I decided to use the name Surya simply because it sounds better

There is a weapon called autorpelaceweapon. That affects AI as well, because that's how the ships promote. So all I had to do is to trigger the autoreplaceweapon and it replaces everything at the same time.

posted on June 5th, 2011, 5:49 pm

Why does the Miranda need a predecessor?

posted on June 5th, 2011, 7:06 pm

ok, so...the best of both worlds...have era advancement on a countdown, example, 20 mins...then you can click and advance, giving global stat upgrades to your ships and stations, plus giving you access to the new era's ships/stations. but for individual upgrades like the excel's ugly, dumb refit with flared out hull...that is kept as a optional refit.

so that way you get essentially automatic upgrades to the fleet, but can pick and choose on some specifics.

posted on June 6th, 2011, 3:19 am

Actually it will be automatic in most ways.  you will have to manually upgrade your stations and what not, but it will automatically move you into the next "age"  YOu can upgrade certain shipyards and ships, whereas others will reach there technological limit.

Think of it like a somewhat automatic age of empires.

[JR_109]

posted on June 6th, 2011, 4:19 am

Last edited by JR_109 on June 6th, 2011, 5:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

thats the best of both worlds. can the player continue to build the older designs though?

also, i have a question to ask. will we see npc ships like the kazon, ent vulcans and hopefully the promellian battlecruiser?

the promellian battlecruiser is my holy grail of ships, ive been looking for one ever since i first started playing armada 2...

if you are interested, i found a fine example of one. only problem is that it's for legacy, but if you can get permission from the maker and convert it, it would make a fine addition. (even comes with the klingon version too)

K-2 / Promellian battlecruiser pack 1.0 Download, Star Trek: Legacy Large Addons

posted on June 6th, 2011, 5:22 pm

There will be NPC ships, but only in the later releases.

posted on June 7th, 2011, 12:23 am

Actually it will be automatic in most ways.  you will have to manually upgrade your stations and what not, but it will automatically move you into the next "age"  YOu can upgrade certain shipyards and ships, whereas others will reach there technological limit.

Think of it like a somewhat automatic age of empires.

Empire Earth is a better way of putting it, each time you research your units upgrade till  they can't anymore, so sometimes you may be in the Atomic age and still have a cave man or two running around.

It's good to see you can only upgrade ships so far till they become too old to be upgraded anymore.