Why the Canaveral and not the Nova?

posted on January 13th, 2008, 7:02 am

I know it's probably a bit late in the piece to be changing things like this now, but I'd just like to know why the canon Nova class (VOY: Equinox) was not used as the Federation's first tier sciecne ship, instead of Fleet Ops' own creation the Canaveral class. The two ships are very similar, so why didn't you guys just use the Nova?

posted on January 13th, 2008, 12:08 pm

The Nova was built and equipped for Deep Space Missions - as she appeared in Voyager - and therefore exists only in small numbers. The Canaveral instead was part of a greater program, granting Federation-Member-Planets without advanced yards the ability to built and equip their own starships for science and trading reasons. The Canaveral is therefore a quite common Federation (not Starfleet) vessel and Starfleet utilize her for scouting and patrol purpose with the equipment you can find in Fleet Operations.

The Nova will probably appear in Fleet Operations as an Avatar unit in the future.

posted on January 13th, 2008, 2:23 pm

Well, I guess that makes sense, since the Nova was not intended for tactical assignments, just as the Oberth before it was never, for example, seen in any of the Dominion War fleets, even though we know there were Oberth class ships still active around that time...

The 'small numbers' assumption is, to quote Robert Anderson, a chancy guess at best, though. Its Oberth class predicessor was pretty common and indeed, we know than Nova class vessels (or something resembling them) are still being used by the time of the Battle of Procyon V in the 26th century.

Well, anyway, since replacing the Canaveral with the Nova seems to be unlikely, what role will the Nova likely serve?

posted on January 13th, 2008, 4:59 pm

As Star Trek is fiction i don't think it makes much sense to argument with the shows. Many aspects a real universe would need like economics, politics and especially social stuff is missing or only barely covered by the shows. We had to fill many gaps while creating our RPG universe and constructed the Fleet Operations universe around it, to be a playable, more complete setting - still far from real of course - and still match the episodes. And in the Fleet Operations universe the Nova does only exist in small numbers

She will most likely appear in booth the "normal" and the modified version seen in endgame. precise balancing and her exact role are not yet set, but she will probably appear under Special Agent Lewitt, a Star Fleet Intelligence Avatar planned for a future version, as many long-term stealth or espionage missions are not much different from deep space missions in terms of contact with "friends"

posted on January 13th, 2008, 5:55 pm

Ooo, more avatars 
Very nice, and Fleet Ops seems to becoming even more extraordinarily intricate as a result  .

posted on January 13th, 2008, 7:00 pm

Yea of course we plan to add more avatars in future versions

posted on January 13th, 2008, 7:22 pm

It's definitely a much richer and more interesting setup than the original A2 and has even surpassed A1. Makes me wonder why the developers with their multimillion dollar budgets and huge teams couldn't do better... 

posted on January 13th, 2008, 7:38 pm

Yeah, that always befuddled me. I guess it is just a lack of imagination or perhaps the pressure of quotas. Still, it is rather stupid how rarely companies make a true quality game.  ...However it could just be that the companies want to make as much money as soon as possible, and so launch an inferior product. >:(

posted on January 13th, 2008, 8:59 pm

well if companies did make the games how brillient modders such as the FO team make them then there wud b hardly any fun for the modding community to have altering the game

posted on January 14th, 2008, 3:23 am

It's definitely a much richer and more interesting setup than the original A2 and has even surpassed A1.

I wouldn't quite go that far, but yea, it's way, way better than A2...

Makes me wonder why the developers with their multimillion dollar budgets and huge teams couldn't do better...

Armada 2's case is a particularly astounding one, because, unlike with movies, game sequals aren't normally crap. Even if the sequal isn't as good or well recieved as the original, you'll still tend to find that each game is, on its own, a good to very good game (Star Fox is a good example of this).

Not so with Armada 2, however. Armada 1 was a fantastic game, and Armada 2 was crap, simple as that...

posted on January 14th, 2008, 3:35 pm

nearly every mod is better than stock armada 2. we were just trying to bring an armada 1 gameplay back to armada 2 combined with our ideas and a lot of community input.

btw. the nova is actually a listed todo on our project progress page.
Star Trek Armada II: Fleet Operations - Project Progress

posted on January 14th, 2008, 4:05 pm

nearly every mod is better than stock armada 2.

Yea, but some mods are better, some are way better and some are way, way better (as Fleet Ops is).

I suppose the thing the one thing I really want from Fleet Ops is for the ships to be genuinely tough. In Armada I, ships with their shields down didn't instantly die (in fact, some of the larger ones could last quite a while). In Aramad II, shield faliure was a death sentance for even the largest ship and even in Fleet Ops the ships still don't seem tough enough... I don't know... Armada I just seems to have, something that Aramada II never had, and that, sadly, I think no mod can ever give it...

Don't get me wrong though, I still love Fleet Ops... it's just missing... something... from A 1... I just can't quite put my finger on it...

[DOCa Cola]

posted on January 14th, 2008, 4:33 pm

Last edited by DOCa Cola on January 14th, 2008, 4:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

i know exactly what you mean...

i played armada 1 yesterday for comparisin and noticed that not even the sound is f*cked up but now also graphics make the game unplayable... has to be some kind of driver issue.
yea, i know there is an ackward solution for sound by disabling hardware acceleration but armada 1 got old in sense of it's engine

posted on January 20th, 2008, 6:34 am

Since we are sorta on the subject... I've always wanted to get my hands on Armada 1: do you know any legal (or if I really do have to... illegal) methods to getting a copy? 

posted on January 20th, 2008, 10:56 am

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