Stock Armada 2 Rebalance

posted on April 3rd, 2011, 3:49 pm

Okay, progress report.  The stock Intrepid is in, but it's a tad bit overpowered right now.  That will change soon as I'm going to make some major modifications to it.  Also, the Borg textures will be removed until the ship has been refitted with Borg technology.  So that when it comes back to attack you, you'll know whether or not it's been refitted just by how the vessel looks.  The vessel is going to replace the Fleet Ops Intrepid.

The Intrepid will have a couple of specials.  Full burst, where you greatly increase firepower at the expense of recharge rates, and a tricobalt torpedo, which has to be researched.  It works like the stock A2 tricobalt torpedo.

• Default Setup
  
  [li]Fires from 1 phaser strip.
  
  • Fires a single torpedo every few seconds.
  • Can fire a tricobalt torpedo at a specific location using special energy
  [/li]
• Full Burst Setup
  
  [li]Fires from both phaser strips simultaniously.
  
  • Fires a volley of torpedoes from both tubes and reloads.
  • Can fire a tricobalt torpedo at a specific location using special energy.
  • Special energy does not recharge while firing full burst.
  • Shield recharge rate drops by half while firing full burst.
  • Lasts 30 or 45 seconds, I haven't decided which yet.
  [/li]

And that's how all of the vessels and stations are going to work.  They'll just replace the Fleet Ops vessels and stations with the A2 vessels and stations.

By the way, hit chance will be determined mainly on whether or not a vessel is moving.  So you should keep the vessels moving if you want them to be missed by enemy weapons fire.  Especially pulses and torpedoes.

posted on April 5th, 2011, 12:12 am

Well, I finally figured out how I'm going to name the ODfs for this mod.  It'll be similar to the Fleet Ops system, but with several enhancements.  The details of which are classified.  I got the Intrepid working, so I'm going to try to get the rest of this stuff working.

There was one problem with the Intrepid though.  Why did it use a Fleet Ops explosion instead of a stock A2 explosion?  The explosion reference was for a stock A2 explosion that I thought I added to Fleet Ops.

[Anonymous]

posted on April 5th, 2011, 12:00 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on April 5th, 2011, 12:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Okay, just about everything is in except for the new ODF naming scheme.  However, I'm having a problem when the game loads.  Whenever the loading bar reaches 100%, it crashes.  I've checked the ODF files and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong.

---

UPDATE:
I used the map editor and it seems I have quite a few errors.  The worker bees have this annoying "error" model instead of the actual model and the A2 selection bubble has an exaggerated width and a somewhat small length.  The planets do not scale correctly either and it seems that the hardpoints aren't where they're supposed to be.

Funny, because when I added just the one unit, it was working perfectly.  I add everything (without overriding any fleet-ops stuff) in at once and it's all messed up.

posted on April 5th, 2011, 4:03 pm

Flying errors are usually due to missing SODs or name mismatch with the what's in the ODF as I recall.

posted on April 5th, 2011, 4:28 pm

Okay, I believe I got that fixed now, but that doesn't explain this.  The shields also look this way and dispite the looks, the ships are fully operational.

Attachments

posted on April 6th, 2011, 2:58 pm

Okay, now that the majority of the problems are fixed, I'm going to start updating the interface and add the Cardassians.  For now, they'll use the Dominion interface until I can re-integrate their own interface.  The map icons are working properly as well as the selection thing.

Warp is still enabled and weapons still do overpowered damage to units, but that will eventually be fixed.  There was a small problem with the cursor but that's been fixed.  Theoretically, all of the A2 maps should be able to be imported into FO.

Also, I would like to request a "damageShieldMultiplier" and "damageHullMultiplier" for weapon ordinance commands to make the damage distribution a bit more realistic because some weapons will do more damage to the hull than they will to the shields and vise-versa.  Plus, passives will also change the damage distribution on the ship between hull and shields.

I would like some help in changing the resource symbols in the fonts to be Dilithium, Metal, Latinum, and Supply instead of Dilithium, Collective Connections, Tritanium, and Supply the way it currently is.

posted on April 7th, 2011, 1:27 pm

PROGRESS REPORT
I've made major progress for this mod.  Planet colonization is in, warp is in, trading is in, there is at least one working faction (the Federation is playable), and the resources are back to stock (usage, not interface).  The crew, dilithium, latinum, metal, and supply resources all appear on the interface.  Although I think tooltips are inaccurate still.  Unit tooltips are in for the stock a2 units and nebulae/asteroid fields can be placed with paths.

posted on April 10th, 2011, 7:14 pm

Well, I'm going to have to reformat my hard drive.  Just so you know, the backup I'm creating will not contain this mod.

posted on June 2nd, 2011, 4:41 pm

I hope you already had the work backed up elsewhere...

posted on June 2nd, 2011, 5:06 pm

The format is already completed.  I saved some of my projects, but this wasn't one of them.

posted on June 2nd, 2011, 7:03 pm

I gathered that given the date. I was hoping you had already had the work backed up elsewhere. But no matter.

posted on June 20th, 2011, 8:55 pm

Well, when Blade releases his A2 import project, which I think may be in the next week or two, I'm going to start this project back up.  No more starbases one-shooting the battleships.  And I'll probably make some new models as well.  Mostly for the Borg.  Especially their scout and Tactical Cube models.

posted on June 21st, 2011, 10:56 pm

Here's what to expect for the Borg.

Scout Cube

• Scout Ship, Minimum Weapons and Defenses, No Cloak Detect, minimal regenerative capabilities.
• Minimum Drone Complement is 5, maximum is 15, can be used to capture derelict ships.
• Outmatches all other scout ships, has transwarp capabilities.  Silent Assimilator will drain a ship/station of crew in a couple minutes.

Probe

• Scout/Combat Ship, Descent Weapons and Defenses, can match the firepower of some Destroyers/Cruisers, has cloak detect.  Can be shut down for 10 seconds to regenerate all damage
• Minimum Drone Complement is 550, maximum is 600.  Silent Assimilator will drain a ship/station of crew over a couple minutes.
• Transwarp capable and auto-transports onto ships with shields down.
• Can be refitted to mine resources and become an orbital mining facility as well as handle cargo for trade.

Sphere - Escape Pod Variant

• Good weapons that are multi-targeting, but minimal defensive capabilities, usually destroyed in a few shots.  Minimal regenerative capabilities.
• Maximum Drone Complement of 950, used as a last ditch effort to complete a mission.
• Silent assimilator will drain a ship/station of crew over a couple minutes.  Transwarp Capable.
• Only ejected from standard cubes and can only be ejected once per cube, ever!

Sphere - Normal Variant

• Good match for most medium-sized fleets, can regenerate massive damage quickly without having to shut everything down first.
• Minimum Crew Complement is 800, maximum of 2500.  Auto Assimilator with holding beam.
• Transwarp capable and can assimilate several special weapons.

Adaptor

• Support ships, allows nearby vessels to adapt to enemy weapons and shielding systems.  Still a pretty good match for most small to medium-sized fleets.
• Drone Complement is 800-3000.  Has Multi-targeting holding beam and is transwarp capable.  Silent Assimilator will drain multiple ships/stations of crew in a couple minutes.
• Shuts down for 15 seconds to regenerate all damage to the vessel.

Pyramid

• Combat/planetary assimilator.  A good match for a medium-sized fleet with a multi-targeting auto assimilator.
• Can destroy any planetary defenses in seconds and discharge enough nanoprobes into the atmosphere to assimilate a planet quickly.  Volnerable during planetary assimilation process.
• Drone Complement is 1000-8000.  Transwarp capable and can regenerate moderate amounts of damage quickly without shutting down.
• Shuts down for 20 seconds to regenerate all damage.  Vessel is recrewed in battle.

Diamond

• Support ship.  Increases offensive potential for several targets and has a nice array of offensive weaponry.  Generally stays out of combat but is a good match for a small-sized fleet.
• Drone Complement of 700-3500.  Transwarp capable and shuts down for 15 seconds to regenerate all damage.
• Holding beam and silent assimilator will drain a couple ships/stations of crew over a couple minutes.

Cube - Normal Variant

• Battleship, can wipe out an entire planet's population in seconds and is an easy match for a large-sized fleet with an impressive array of weapons to ensure that resistance is utterly crushed!
• Drone Complement is 4000-25000 with holding beam and auto assimilator.  Transwarp capable and can shut down to regenerate all damage in 30 seconds.
• Some sub-variants can launch a sphere to escape a battle or have a last ditch effort to complete the mission.

Cube - Tactical Variant

• Extra armor and shielding technologies for large fleets that prove tough to deal with for the normal cube variant.  More than a match for almost any large fleet but no real improvement in firepower from a normal cube.
• Drone Complement is 4000-25000 with holding beam.  Transwarp capable and can shut down to regenerate all damage in 40 seconds.  Cannot launch sphere from any sub-variants.

Assembly Cube

• Weapon systems can match that of several scouts and defensive capabilities are impressive for a constructor.  The vessel has minimal regenerative capabilities and is generally not used for combat.
• Vulnerable while constructing ships or changing configurations.
• Can serve as a mobile repair yard for smaller Borg/Allied vessels as well as a mobile trade/mining station.  Takes several seconds to change configurations, in which time it will be extra vulnerable.
• Transwarp Capable

I'm sure that some of you are wondering why I am giving the Borg such good assimilation capabilities.  It's because the Borg will be balanced so that if you don't assimilate, you will loose.  But I'm trying to make it so that early-game, if you find your ships/stations being drained of crew, you can hopefully do something about it before it's too late.

I'm sure you are also wondering about the crew complement.  The Minimum complement is what is required to build the vessel.

posted on June 21st, 2011, 11:51 pm

Lose*

Also, this isn't a rebalance, this seems more like a personal total conversion mod in the vein of fleet ops.

A rebalance would just be tweaking what already exists, not changing everything.

posted on June 22nd, 2011, 12:12 am

It's not really a total conversion since it's dependent off of Blade's STA2 Classic mod.  Only a few models will be changed/added (total) for the entire mod.  The rest will just be an ODF and mission overhaul.