Some questions and ideas for one of the next releases

posted on December 17th, 2009, 5:59 am

Hello!
I have just two questions/ideas:
1. Hitareas like in SW Empire at war. So for example you can damage the warpdevice and the enemies ship cant get away. Is something like that is possible?
2. And can`t you take out this copy protection? I know from games like Gothic 3 that the publishers normally don't have any problems with that for "fan-patches", even if the game is "old" like ST Armada 2.

Thats it for the first time. Hope, this written in the right forum 

posted on December 17th, 2009, 6:06 am

Erm ... I'm not entirely sure what your questions are.

In #1 I assume you mean to ask whether or not you can target specific systems?

  No.  Once an opponent's shields are down their sub-systems are able to be disabled, but you can't' decide which one is hit.


In #2 do you mean can we get the source code for Armada 2?  The answer is no.  Activision has never given out their source codes.

posted on December 17th, 2009, 6:25 am

he means having the cd in the drive and the answer to that is no however look around NoCd patches are everywhere

posted on December 17th, 2009, 6:28 am

Aaaaaah  I see.

  I don't know how Flops and the NoCD cracks out there will meld.

posted on December 17th, 2009, 6:45 am

1.  Not specifically.  But some ships have special weapons that target subsystems.  There are several ships that use tractor beams to immobilize vessels, or others that can disable someone's weapons for a short while, but most of these have limited effect.  Some races specialize in engine immobilization, like the Klingons.  Most of their early game ships have specials or passive abilities that attempt to slow or stop the enemy.

2.  This should answer your question.

posted on December 17th, 2009, 5:25 pm

[font=Verdana][font=Verdana]2.  This should answer your question. Cheesy[/font][/font]

Not really. Cause I have bought it when it was released and I just think of playing without the cd in the rom. Thats all. But its ok for me if it must like this 

[font=Verdana]1.  Not specifically.  But some ships have special weapons that target subsystems.  There are several ships that use tractor beams to immobilize vessels, or others that can disable someone's weapons for a short while, but most of these have limited effect.  Some races specialize in engine immobilization, like the Klingons.  Most of their early game ships have specials or passive abilities that attempt to slow or stop the enemy.[/font]

Have you all ever play SW EAW? Cause that system is very nice. You can concentrate you fire on the shield-emitters and if the shield is down, it is very much easier to destroy a capital ship. And if I see a Sovereign-Class oder Vorcha or other "big" ship I just think it would be an tactical option to destroy the shield-emitters before the rest of a ship. In the end it is easier to enter the ships without making to much damage which makes entered ships much easier to integrate in my fleets. In the end it doesn't really matter but in EAW I have enjoyed this "more real physic-stuff" very much!

posted on December 17th, 2009, 5:34 pm

The ability to target individual systems has been suggested before, but has been dismissed as too micro intensive (and probably difficult to code in the first place) for an RTS like FO.

There are plenty of nocd programs available that work in tandem with FO . I never play with the CD in the drive. Patch protection is obviously not allowed to be removed, as that would be a direct violation of the rights under which this mod is created. Maybe in 40 years once the patent protection expires...

posted on December 17th, 2009, 11:32 pm

i have an even better idea why dont the fleetops team make a real trek mod for empire at war i mnow there is already a trek wars mod but its taken smg age to make it any good it had only the feds the last time i looked

posted on December 17th, 2009, 11:33 pm

also the space battles using the eaw cinematic cam would be awesome

posted on December 17th, 2009, 11:39 pm

As great as that would be, I don't think it would be practical for the team to suddenly switch to a new game they don't know nearly as much about and don't have any previous modding to build on.

posted on December 17th, 2009, 11:43 pm

In addition to what Ruanek has stated:

As the question of whether or not the Fleet Operations Team will branch away from Armada II and create their own game engine seems to be asked and answered so many times in general, it is probably important to have this topic addressed definitively. The truth is that the Developer Team has never written an engine from scratch and doesn't plan to because it is an unbelievable amount of work, even with a team of people. A new engine would not just be about the graphics engine of course, but also the AI, network, weapon and damage logic, a modding interface and so on. It is work that you easily can invest years into. You also have to carefully plan how you code, as it will be really hard to integrate a working multiplayer for instance if you don't plan your code to later integrate one--syncing a strategy game over multiplayer can be a real pain in the ass. You need a lot of experience if you really want to program a game from scratch, which none of the team has. Obviously given this situation it is best to stick with the current Armada engine which can be quite easily modified. Even though the source code is not available, it is not that bad in reality. Most importantly, the Developer Team likes working with it.

From the guide's FAQ's (frequently annoying questions).

posted on December 18th, 2009, 12:00 am

EaW hardpoint system is very buggy. Fire a weapon that does an insane amount of direct damage? can only kill one hardpoint (funny thing is the eaw devs seem to have noticed this and so the hypervelocity gun that can kill a ship with one shot actually is several random hardpoint damaging shots strung together.)  Have a turret firing on a hardpoint and then that hardpoint dies? The turret keeps firing on the nonexistant hardpoint until u give it new orders.  Want your fleet to spread out its fire across all of a target's hardpoints? You'll have to micromanage every single vessel (automatically they target only the closest hardpoint regardless of what other ships in the fleet are targeting.)  Want to get back a destroyed hardpoint? EaW repair code doesn't allow it.
I do not want hardpoints in fleet ops, they actually really make eaw screwy. As far as fleet ops mod for EaW, I think that other modders should waste their talent on a buggy, obviously unfinished at release game.

posted on December 18th, 2009, 12:07 am

i disagree eaw is a superb game with some excellent mods i cant help but love sending a huge fleet of star destroyers into battle along with the dseathstar 2 and the executor i also love fleetops may the devs keep up the superb work

posted on December 18th, 2009, 12:33 am

And Forces of Corruption, the expansion to EaW, is one of the most unbalanced games I have ever played.  Though I like the reinforcement system (you don't actually "build" units; they come in from hyperspace after you invest time and credits into getting them), which I think would work well in Star Trek, there are too many other issues, including hardpoints, as was already stated, an extremely simplified resource gathering aspect, and the fact that from my knowledge of modding it you can only change existing special abilities to a very limited degree, not add new ones.  Not to mention the fact that its land battles and galactic conquest wouldn't work for Star Trek, and that's removing 2/3 of the game.

posted on December 18th, 2009, 12:39 am

I think a hardpoints system would work better for dominion wars or legacy, where you only have a handful of ships in your "fleet".  It really doesn't make sense in FO, where you have many more vessels you have to control.