NP Forces

posted on July 2nd, 2007, 7:25 pm

How do you play against NP forces?  I've heard that the Tholians are in their somewhere...what other NP races are there?

GREEN X LANTERN

posted on July 2nd, 2007, 8:30 pm

By now you can't really play against NP forces because they aren't implemented as a special race. The only way to get in contact with them is by placing them on a map as map objects you can take over or as AI faction.
The Tholians aren't part of the game right now but they will be a playable race in some future release. At the moment there are no Tholian ships available but you can take a look at their design in the Texture folder. They are among the other ship-images, easy to recognize due to their design.

Welcome to the forums btw.

posted on July 3rd, 2007, 5:39 am

nope the tholians wont be a playable race in fleet operations, at least not following the current plan.
NP Races will be featured in version 4 as ai-controlled forces in maps (so as part of the environment ) or as neutral stations or units like mercenary bars, trading posts and the like

posted on July 3rd, 2007, 5:43 am

Ups... sry.. my mistake...
(Wishful thinking?  )

posted on July 3rd, 2007, 12:11 pm

That sounds great.  One type of gameplay a lot of RTS games don't seem to recognize is cooperative multiplay (though I've seen at least SOME recognition recently).  My friends and I have much more fun fighting cooperatively against the computer (a couple of marathon Starcraft sessions come to mind waaaay back long ago) and, so, computer AI is REALLY important to us.  We can tell the difference right away between a superficial AI and something that was really well programmed.  I'm hoping the Tholians, while not a playable race, will give us a chance at a computer only opponent that's truly challenging.

So far we've played that AI on 3.0 PR at Medium.  I've noticed it hasn't gone with any of the larger vessels.  I've played Instant Action at Hard and saw at least one larger vessel before being trashed ().  Note to self: torpedo turrets don't have a particularly high rate of fire...wonder how they would do paired with pulse phaser platforms...

GREEN X LANTERN

posted on July 3rd, 2007, 12:23 pm

try to play our "Defend" map against the AI

posted on July 3rd, 2007, 1:03 pm

Cool!  Got a quick description of it?

GREEN X LANTERN

posted on July 3rd, 2007, 1:35 pm

the map was made for fighting against the ai. it's been a while i played the map the last time. two human players start on left and the other slots on right on the map 6 slots can be filled with AIs. a small passage is leading to your bases where the AI will try to attack you and right there you should put up defences fast. in the area of your bases a few empty vessels like the promenition from armada 1 (has this big blue time wave which stops vessels in time) and a few special shipyards (mc kinley, breen shipyard) you can both beam on and use. quite fun to play against 6 AIs on that map btw

posted on July 3rd, 2007, 2:02 pm

Excellent!  Is that map included in the 3.0 PR release?

GREEN X LANTERN

posted on July 3rd, 2007, 2:05 pm

since beta 2.0 i think. i am not sure if we have the abandoned bases still on it.

posted on July 3rd, 2007, 2:33 pm

Is there a list of map descriptions I can look at?  Which ones contained abandoned bases?  I hadn't even thought of that...what a great idea....

GREEN X LANTERN

posted on July 5th, 2007, 6:18 pm

I've seen the Defender and Defender II maps.  A couple of questions.  You mentioned that there are abandoned shipyards and ships you can take over.  I didn't see them in there...is there a setting you need to set to allow those derelicts?  Secondly, how do you place your starting points in the Defend maps (for instance I and an ally would like to start together on one side of the Defend map)?  Any way to do this?

Green X Lantern

posted on July 6th, 2007, 7:49 am

there is an option left of your minimap "random placement" - set it to "fixed placement", then you can mark with the mouse in the minimap where you will start.
yea, i wasn't sure about the derelicts, we had to take them out at one point of development, seems we forgot to place them again later

posted on July 6th, 2007, 11:11 am

Are their any maps that your sure have derelicts?  I'd be interested in seeing how they affect gameplay!

GREEN X LANTERN

posted on July 6th, 2007, 11:40 am

i am not sure, we had derelicts on maps but had to remove them, i am not sure yet if we placed them on the map again. still, it is possible for you to set some derelicts yourself with the map editor. it is quite easy to do so. take a look in the map editing forum