Things that should be looked into

posted on September 17th, 2008, 8:47 pm

First of all I'd like to congratulate the entire mod team for the best A2 total conversion in existance and to say hello to everyone in the community. I've been playing fleet ops for almost 1 year and there are some suggestions that I'd like to make to the modding team:

- some ship's scales are a bit off compared to cannon ST. For example the Galaxy and D'deridex are the same size in the mod, when we both know that in ST the D'deridex is 1041m long while the Galaxy is only about 640m. The examples may continue with other ships as well.

- you should consider giving cannon weapons to all the cannon ships of the mod. For example, the Defiant should have 4 pulse phasers and 2 quantum torp launchers, the Akira and Intrepid 2 photon launchers(like we see in the show), the Nebula both phasers and photons(not that crappy pulse phaser), the Sovereign phasers, quantums and photons, the Negh'var, Vorcha and Ktinga pulse disruptors, photons and beam disruptors and the Norexan both pulse disruptors and plasma torpedoes

- all artillery ships should have a phaser for close defense against enemy ships

- the phaser beams are way too big compared to the size of the ships. I think a 1/2 scale down would be most welocmed

posted on September 17th, 2008, 9:22 pm

Cannon gives way to gameplay I'm afraid (glad?)... That's why we don't see 1937583274 torpedo tubes on an Akira or 1 Borg cube annihilating 354 ships... in one map... while in another, 3 borg cubes are destroyed by one intrepid ship in a single hit.

Even cannon doesn't remain constant... and so gameplay is not designed to reflect it incredibly "accurately" 

posted on September 17th, 2008, 9:30 pm

Welcome firewarrior!  :thumbsup:

I agree about the ship scaling, and to solve this they should preferably increase the size of the warbird rather than reduce the size of the Galaxy. The ships should be easy to look at, therefore not too small. A major problem with stock A2 was the teeny weeny ships.

Which brings me to another point - the phasers. I disagree (emphatically) that the phaser beams should be reduced in size. In fact I beg the team to keep them exactly as they are. Why am I saying this? For exactly the same reason as above - visibility. The ships are small enough as they are, since we are not viewing them close up. In fact, if we were to scale the phaser beams realistically, they would probably disappear altogether.

There are two very bad precedents for thin and tiny phaser beams:

1) Stock Armada 2. One of its many mistakes which the fleetops team rectified.
2) Star Trek: Nemesis, in which the phasers looked like useless beams of light (maybe First Contact too, but at least we were awestruck by lots of quantum torpedoes).

I much prefer phasers to look like they could cause some damage. Have a look at the DS9 episode where the Federation capture the Chintoka system (Tears of the Prophets?), and notice how the phasers are rendered. They are thick and they ripple with energy. There's a shot of a Romulan warbird being torn apart by multiple Cardassian phaser banks. Daaaaam what a rush!!!  :sweatdrop:

I hope I've added to the discussion, and once again welcome to the forums!

[Optec]

posted on September 17th, 2008, 9:54 pm

Last edited by Optec on September 17th, 2008, 9:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hi firewarrior1705, and welcome to the forums

Your concerns about unit scales are indeed something we are still looking in. there is of course a limitation to what ship sizes you can use in a game

the current weaponry are chosen cause of balancing reasons, but we plan to implement more cannon configurations within future features. the Defiant for example gets 2 Quantum torpedoes if reaching an officer rank within the new experience system and there is a Mixed-Tech version of the Akira that features 2 torpedo launchers

[firewarrior1705]

posted on September 17th, 2008, 11:04 pm

Last edited by firewarrior1705 on September 17th, 2008, 11:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

well that's good to hear. And about the phaser thing, if the ships are going to be made bigger, there's no need for a rescale And pls note that the Dominion dreadnought is 1200 m in length and so it should be like 2 times the size of a Galaxy.

Any chance of seeing some Cardies in the mod? There are a few ships on armada filefront which I've added to my mod and it gives quite a nice feel for the gameplay. It would be nice to see them, if not as a full race, maybe as an avatar for the dominion? 

posted on September 18th, 2008, 2:05 am

Any chance of seeing some Cardies in the mod? There are a few ships on armada filefront which I've added to my mod and it gives quite a nice feel for the gameplay. It would be nice to see them, if not as a full race, maybe as an avatar for the dominion? 

i'd say if you add cardies to the game they shouldn't be a dom avatar, seeing as how they rebelled against the dominion near the end of the war. they should be a whole race or map units. IMHO

posted on September 18th, 2008, 2:01 pm

Gameplay > Realism.


I appreciate there are alot of complete trekkie nerds, fanboys.. whatever you want to call them, here.

But for the love of GOD just accept it's a game, don't come here with your stiff upper lip actually's and speak about how things could be more "realistic" if they were changed. If you want to live in a fantasy world then go play World of Warcraft or wait for freakin.. Star Trek Online or whatever it's called.

FLEET OPERATIONS is a STRATEGY game, it's built on a strategy engine, in a traditional RTS style. It is NOT a roleplay game, if you want RPG, look elsewhere.

Again I make the point, Gameplay > Realism. Especially in this case, people who come here and complain about such trivial "canon" matters are surely the types who dress as their favourite characters on the weekends. Living in such an overwhelming dream world, quoting Star Trek statistics is for conventions, not for game forums.

posted on September 18th, 2008, 2:17 pm

keep cool skitzeh...
if armada wouldn't be armada but an rts like homework then "realistic" ship sizes would be possible without question. in armada that is more a 2d based strategy game. for realistic ship sizes we would have first have to make a lot bigger maps with more space for borg cubes to be able to manouver and then reintroduce warp to be able to cross these maps and 3d movement to be able to manouver the vessels around each other. all that just never fit right in armada 2 imho.
in a game like homeworld where you can manouver vessels in an real 3d environment, "real" sizes would be perfectly fine.

posted on September 22nd, 2008, 9:30 am

I also think that the klingon pulse disruptors should have green firing animations, like the romulan ones. I've just made this adjustment in my mod and they look a lot cooler than the old ones

posted on September 22nd, 2008, 2:11 pm

I also think that the klingon pulse disruptors should have green firing animations, like the romulan ones. I've just made this adjustment in my mod and they look a lot cooler than the old ones

I hope that falls under "irony" and "witty comment"

posted on September 22nd, 2008, 10:52 pm

Maybe I am just being a jerk...but...

That leaves us with Reddish-Orange, Blue and Green Weapons only.

We need the yellow bro.