Fleet Ops Roots 4.0 is now available.

[JanB]

posted on January 18th, 2024, 10:02 pm

Last edited by JanB on July 26th, 2024, 11:13 pm, edited 2 times in total.

For those of you looking for something new to play, here is version 4.0 of the Roots Mod, the only mod with original single player missons and with a modified version of the Fleet Ops 4.0 game engine. Version 4.0 of the mod brings a ton of technical and visual improvements, like larger shell menus, better AI, and better ship movement physics. It also comes with the original Fleet Ops, made compatible with the modified game engine, installed as a submod.

Download link here: https://www.moddb.com/mods/fleet-ops-ro ... s-roots-50

posted on January 18th, 2024, 11:37 pm

For those of you looking for something new to play, here is version 4.0 of the Roots Mod, the only mod with original single player missons and with a modified version of the Fleet Ops 4.0 game engine. Version 4.0 of the mod brings a ton of technical and visual improvements, like larger shell menus, better AI, and better ship movement physics. It also comes with the original Fleet Ops, made compatible with the modified game engine, installed as a submod.

Download link here: https://www.moddb.com/mods/fleet-ops-ro ... ps-roots-4

Many people can’t play FleetOps it lags their systems way too much and also causes “Out Of Sync Errors”. This is a major reason why we’ve destroyed FleetOps proper and using the FleetOps engine (4.0) restored Star Trek Armada II. Through the years this has been a major complaint we e heard and received about FleetOps and many mods using it so we set out to rectify that problem for everyone well utilizing the FleetOps Engine (namely the FleetOps 4.0 Engine) as a base Armada II with all its original glory without needing the Mods Directory is back. So what primary files did you edit for FleetOps 4.0 so we can implement your improvements? Hopefully none of your improvements are in the ODF.fpq because we outright scrapped that, any FleetOps ODF files we’ve utilized are restored to the original ODF file setup.

So what my modding partner and I need to know is what files need to be “cannibalized” over into our mod as well as into the Armada II In FleetOps Mod (the working title for the “Stock Star Trek Armada II Upgrade Mod”) utilizing the FleetOps 4.0 Engine?

posted on January 19th, 2024, 11:23 am

For those of you looking for something new to play, here is version 4.0 of the Roots Mod, the only mod with original single player missons and with a modified version of the Fleet Ops 4.0 game engine. Version 4.0 of the mod brings a ton of technical and visual improvements, like larger shell menus, better AI, and better ship movement physics. It also comes with the original Fleet Ops, made compatible with the modified game engine, installed as a submod.

Download link here: https://www.moddb.com/mods/fleet-ops-ro ... ps-roots-4

Many people can’t play FleetOps it lags their systems way too much and also causes “Out Of Sync Errors”. This is a major reason why we’ve destroyed FleetOps proper and using the FleetOps engine (4.0) restored Star Trek Armada II. Through the years this has been a major complaint we e heard and received about FleetOps and many mods using it so we set out to rectify that problem for everyone well utilizing the FleetOps Engine (namely the FleetOps 4.0 Engine) as a base Armada II with all its original glory without needing the Mods Directory is back. So what primary files did you edit for FleetOps 4.0 so we can implement your improvements? Hopefully none of your improvements are in the ODF.fpq because we outright scrapped that, any FleetOps ODF files we’ve utilized are restored to the original ODF file setup.

So what my modding partner and I need to know is what files need to be “cannibalized” over into our mod as well as into the Armada II In FleetOps Mod (the working title for the “Stock Star Trek Armada II Upgrade Mod”) utilizing the FleetOps 4.0 Engine?

The essential parts are FleetOpsHook.dll, Armada2.ldl, admiralslog.odf, and the shell menu/button bitmaps in the bitmaps folder. Also, make sure ships with cloaking devices have non-zero special energy, otherwise they can fire their weapons while cloaked (unless that is what you want them to do).

posted on January 19th, 2024, 8:59 pm

For those of you looking for something new to play, here is version 4.0 of the Roots Mod, the only mod with original single player missons and with a modified version of the Fleet Ops 4.0 game engine. Version 4.0 of the mod brings a ton of technical and visual improvements, like larger shell menus, better AI, and better ship movement physics. It also comes with the original Fleet Ops, made compatible with the modified game engine, installed as a submod.

Download link here: https://www.moddb.com/mods/fleet-ops-ro ... ps-roots-4

Many people can’t play FleetOps it lags their systems way too much and also causes “Out Of Sync Errors”. This is a major reason why we’ve destroyed FleetOps proper and using the FleetOps engine (4.0) restored Star Trek Armada II. Through the years this has been a major complaint we e heard and received about FleetOps and many mods using it so we set out to rectify that problem for everyone well utilizing the FleetOps Engine (namely the FleetOps 4.0 Engine) as a base Armada II with all its original glory without needing the Mods Directory is back. So what primary files did you edit for FleetOps 4.0 so we can implement your improvements? Hopefully none of your improvements are in the ODF.fpq because we outright scrapped that, any FleetOps ODF files we’ve utilized are restored to the original ODF file setup.

So what my modding partner and I need to know is what files need to be “cannibalized” over into our mod as well as into the Armada II In FleetOps Mod (the working title for the “Stock Star Trek Armada II Upgrade Mod”) utilizing the FleetOps 4.0 Engine?

The essential parts are FleetOpsHook.dll, Armada2.ldl, admiralslog.odf, and the shell menu/button bitmaps in the bitmaps folder. Also, make sure ships with cloaking devices have non-zero special energy, otherwise they can fire their weapons while cloaked (unless that is what you want them to do).

You’re mistaken about Cloaking! Stock Armada II Cloaking doesn’t allow for weapons to be fired well cloaked. You have to add additional coding to the Stock Cloaking Device gcloak.odf to make cloaked ships use weapons. We had to do this to make the Scimitar attack well cloaked and make its own unique cloaking ODF file to compensate for this.

Special Energy is only needed to ACTIVATE a special weapon as a cost and unless you have it linked to weapon ODF files then and only then is it used with weapons. We have many armed ships in our mod with Cloaks and 0 special energy and they don’t fire weapons well cloaked but they needed special ODF files for their cloaks for to engage the cloaking device the stock gcloak.odf states it requires a special energy cost of: “specialEnergyCost = 100”. This means it uses 100 special energy to engage its cloaking device and in stock all factions cloaking device ODF files link back to include: gcloak.odf.

I would suggest you actually take a look at the Stock Armada II game instead of making an inaccurate statement like that. Unless you seriously changed how Stock Cloaking Devices work… or the FleetOps Devs did. With all the lagging FleetOps causes cloaking in their game makes the lagging worse for many players who have computers that seriously can’t handle it that weren’t designed for gaming.

[JanB]

posted on January 19th, 2024, 11:12 pm

Last edited by JanB on January 19th, 2024, 11:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Unless you seriously changed how Stock Cloaking Devices work…

Well guess what, that's exactly what I did, that's why I call it a modified game engine. I changed some of the functions inside FleetOpsHook.dll and Armada2.ldl with a hex editor and a disassembler. More details on what I changed are in the ReadMe, and also in changelog in the comments at the download link.

With all the lagging FleetOps causes cloaking in their game makes the lagging worse for many players who have computers that seriously can’t handle it that weren’t designed for gaming.

The cloaking device from the original Armada 2 (classlabel "CloakingDevice") causes a lot less lag than the one introduced by Fleet Ops (classlabel "CloakingDeviceImp"), it also keeps cloaked ship a lot more visible against the background of space, but it lacked a way to fire non-special weapons, so that's why I changed that. I also reduced cloaking lag by optimizing the .sod models because the lag is directly proportional to the number of polygons of the ship's model. I added LODs to the models of ships that can cloak and they switch to these lower-polygon LODs when the camera is far away enough to have multiple cloaked ships on the screen, which reduces cloaking lag.

In Roots all ships use classlabel "CloakingDevice", have heavily optimized .sod models, and the AI does research cloak detection, so cloaking lag is barely an issue. In the stock Fleet Ops I included in the download as a loadable mod I set the AI to not always use cloak and optimized the stock models as best as I could, but that's limited and they still use classlabel "CloakingDeviceImp", so lag is reduced, but still considerably more present than in Roots.

posted on January 19th, 2024, 11:18 pm

Well that explains the SERIOUS CRASHES in our mod and in the Armada II In FleetOps 4.0 Engine Mod utilizing your changes that we were really looking forward to.

Unless you seriously changed how Stock Cloaking Devices work…

Well guess what, that's exactly what I did, that's why I call it a modified game engine. I changed some of the functions inside FleetOpsHook.dll and Armada2.ldl with a hex editor and a disassembler. More details on what I changed are in the ReadMe, and also in changelog in the comments at the download link.

With all the lagging FleetOps causes cloaking in their game makes the lagging worse for many players who have computers that seriously can’t handle it that weren’t designed for gaming.

The cloaking device from the original Armada 2 (classlabel "CloakingDevice") causes a lot less lag than the one introduced by Fleet Ops (classlabel "CloakingDeviceImp"), it also keeps cloaked ship a lot more visible against the background of space, but it lacked a way to fire non-special weapons, so that's why I changed that. I also reduced cloaking lag by optimizing the .sod models because the lag is directly proportional to the number of polygons of the ship's model. I added LODs to the models of ships that can cloak and they switch to these lower-polygon LODs when the camera is far away enough to have multiple cloaked ships on the screen, which reduces cloaking lag.

In Roots all ships use classlabel "CloakingDevice", have heavily optimized .sod models, and the AI does research cloak detection, so cloaking lag is barely an issue. In the stock Fleet Ops I included in the download as a loadable mod I set the AI to not always use cloak and optimized the stock models as best as I could, but that's limited and they still use classlabel "CloakingDeviceImp", so lag is reduced, but still considerably more present than in Roots.[/quote]

Then you SERIOUSLY BROKE THE STOCK ARMADA II CAMPAIGN! People still want to play that in mods, idiot! You need to use your brain before you go and do coding they will break other aspects of the game! Not only did you break the stock campaign you’ve broken the game for everyone who uses your mod and the mods directory to play the classic mods that keep the campaign! Way to mod without thinking; idiot!

FURTHERMORE WHEN MY MODDING PARTNER AND I SAY STOCK, WE ARE REFERRING TO STAR TTEK ARMADA II, NOT FLEETOPS! People have wanted Stock Armada II utilizing FleetOps’ Engine only without FleetOps in it and that’s what we are bringing them. We get emails daily asking about our mods completion and requests for minor FleetOps features but not for FleetOps. Your extra files that could get exactly what people want in a Stock Armada II In FleetOps Engine you’ve ruined for everyone by not thinking!

posted on January 20th, 2024, 12:10 am

Well... as usual, a USS Jasmine tirade of personal insults has ensued, and they're acting like they paid me for the modified game engine or like I'm forcing them to use it, so I'll only post a response here for the passing reader who wants to learn about A2/FO modding.

Well that explains the SERIOUS CRASHES in our mod and in the Armada II In FleetOps 4.0 Engine Mod utilizing your changes that we were really looking forward to.

There are no new crashes: everything that works with the FO 4.0 engine will work with this modified engine. Naturally, since some classlabel properties (for example for shipyards and research stations) have been changed between 3.2.7 and 4.0 singleplayer maps will need to be updated by deleting these objects in the 3.2.7 map editor, saving the map, opening it in the 4.0 map editor and placing similar objects, at the same position and with the same label on the map. I have done this successfully for the Roots missions, in vanilla Fleet Ops there are no missions so it's not necessary, if you want to bring the original Armada 2 campaign to Fleet Ops 4.0 or my modified game engine, you would have to do this. Of course as an experienced modder who always knows everything, USS Jasmine must logically already know this.

Then you SERIOUSLY BROKE THE STOCK ARMADA II CAMPAIGN! People still want to play that in mods, idiot! You need to use your brain before you go and do coding they will break other aspects of the game! Not only did you break the stock campaign you’ve broken the game for everyone who uses your mod and the mods directory to play the classic mods that keep the campaign! Way to mod without thinking; idiot!

Naturally, being the ultra-experienced modder they are, USS Jasmine would know that a) not everyone mods with the sole purpose of having compatibility with the original Armada 2 missions (which are broken in several ways with even the Fleet Ops 3.2.7 engine, and were horribly unbalanced anyway, they were just objectively bad campaigns compared to Armada 1, and other RTS games), and b) that odf files for cloakable ships can be changed and cloakable ships already on the map can be replaced in the map editor, the mission triggers will recognize a ship as long as it has the correct label.

posted on January 20th, 2024, 2:17 am

Well... as usual, a USS Jasmine tirade of personal insults has ensued, and they're acting like they paid me for the modified game engine or like I'm forcing them to use it, so I'll only post a response here for the passing reader who wants to learn about A2/FO modding.

Well that explains the SERIOUS CRASHES in our mod and in the Armada II In FleetOps 4.0 Engine Mod utilizing your changes that we were really looking forward to.

There are no new crashes: everything that works with the FO 4.0 engine will work with this modified engine. Naturally, since some classlabel properties (for example for shipyards and research stations) have been changed between 3.2.7 and 4.0 singleplayer maps will need to be updated by deleting these objects in the 3.2.7 map editor, saving the map, opening it in the 4.0 map editor and placing similar objects, at the same position and with the same label on the map. I have done this successfully for the Roots missions, in vanilla Fleet Ops there are no missions so it's not necessary, if you want to bring the original Armada 2 campaign to Fleet Ops 4.0 or my modified game engine, you would have to do this. Of course as an experienced modder who always knows everything, USS Jasmine must logically already know this.

Then you SERIOUSLY BROKE THE STOCK ARMADA II CAMPAIGN! People still want to play that in mods, idiot! You need to use your brain before you go and do coding they will break other aspects of the game! Not only did you break the stock campaign you’ve broken the game for everyone who uses your mod and the mods directory to play the classic mods that keep the campaign! Way to mod without thinking; idiot!

Naturally, being the ultra-experienced modder they are, USS Jasmine would know that a) not everyone mods with the sole purpose of having compatibility with the original Armada 2 missions (which are broken in several ways with even the Fleet Ops 3.2.7 engine, and were horribly unbalanced anyway, they were just objectively bad campaigns compared to Armada 1, and other RTS games), and b) that odf files for cloakable ships can be changed and cloakable ships already on the map can be replaced in the map editor, the mission triggers will recognize a ship as long as it has the correct label.

Not insulting at all! Stating facts! And evidence can be provided as well! Thus you’re pure wrong about personal insults! The evidence clearly shows you didn’t fully test your mod with all possible crash-able causes! You never whatsoever took into consideration the STOCK Armada II game and the Classic Mods based on it and edited required .dll files that affect the game for that campaign!

Jan wants to claim that the Stock Armada II Campaign is broken yet those that mod it to FIX IT and make it BETTER like myself and many others know that Jan is wrong. We can all prove it.

Jan is also wrong about the Map Editor here as well! We use nothing but the 4.0 Engine and the Map Editor allows for 100% editing, no need for the 3.2.7 engine. You thus have done what you don’t need to for you clearly haven’t understood and comprehended the 4.0 Engine and its capabilities with Stock Armada II using it! Stock Armada II doesn’t with the campaign recognized changed ships or stations done through the Map Editor it causes a crash. We’ve learned this the hard way and had to restore all the missions we edited like that! The missions and what’s needed is hardcoded into the mission files. Something she doesn’t understand! Yet we learned this through the Data Mining Mission, we replaced all Borg Nexuses with Unicomplexes yet we tried to keep the one for the data mining to occur at as the Nexus. We replaced the models with the Stock Nexus and CRASHED on testing with keeping the file names and same labels but the game CTDed (Crashes to the desktop) with no bug report but since it was our only change we knew the cause. Restored the edit with backups and no crash.

Plus Armada I campaign sucked. Many hated it over A2’s Campaign. It’s why many people are asking about OUR mod and the Armada II In FleetOps 4.0 Engine Mod for they want that campaign back. There are some who want to see it transferred to FleetOps proper using their models and just reading Species 8472 and the Cardassians.

If Jan was a smart modded she would know that if she’s going to create and utilize the Mods Directory in a Total Conversion as she’s done (and since she’s changed serious files and.dll’s that that can break the mods that people carry over to that Mods Directory. She’s already ruined both the original Classic Mod by doing her changes as well as Classic Mod 2014 Upgrade. She didn’t think and that’s on her!

We at least have Disclaimers for mods our releases don’t work with and that’s because we do in-depth mod testing to know what mods will work and what won’t as a curtesy to the Armada Community and all interested in our mod. It was my boyfriend’s idea with seeing so many mods crashing due to other mods not being compatible. Furthering our endeavor to remove FleetOps Proper from the 4.0 Engine and restore Star Trek Armada II to all its magnificent glory with Campaign fixes that make it better than the original Activision release that GOG re-released.

Jan clearly isn’t thing how the stock Armada II works within the FleetOps 4.0 Engine, and doesn’t mod it or e en test it with her changes. In fact you can still use the ORIGINAL tech.tt files and not the html file versions for the loader prefers .tt and loads quicker than the htmls.

Thus here she is belittling my modding partner and I for facts that we’ve discovered utilizing her work! Luckily we make backups and fixed the crashes she has inadvertently caused by editing .dll files that shouldn’t have been touch when you want the best campaign in Armada history to work.

posted on January 20th, 2024, 5:20 am

Take it you don’t know that GOG doesn’t allow for their Executable files to be re-released by modders for their games. I actually contacted them about this for use in our mods due to many of our friends having newer computers with no Disc Drives and they strict stated that the game has to be purchased by the end users then they can transfer their purchased executable into the game. Also if you’ve hacked this file you actually have broken the law and the User Agreement to use GOG.

Plus playing your mod results in a crash as the missions load, then it goes to the mission cutscenes and resumes playing. On top of that the screen size when selecting Small Text is still way too big and even goes through the “text boxes”. Get this with two different installs utilizing BOTH of your system settings.

posted on January 21st, 2024, 8:15 pm

For those of you looking for something new to play, here is version 4.0 of the Roots Mod, the only mod with original single player missons and with a modified version of the Fleet Ops 4.0 game engine. Version 4.0 of the mod brings a ton of technical and visual improvements, like larger shell menus, better AI, and better ship movement physics. It also comes with the original Fleet Ops, made compatible with the modified game engine, installed as a submod.

Download link here: https://www.moddb.com/mods/fleet-ops-ro ... ps-roots-4

:-) F A N T A S T I C job People.
(*thumbs up + smile*)

A wish to a Future version: Please go Your own way(s) with your own engine so You can free yourself from the limitation(s) of The Official Star Trek Armada 2 game.

PPlleeaassee.

Anyway: Please keep up A l l Your good work at Your "Fleet Ops Roots".

posted on January 22nd, 2024, 2:56 pm

Hi
Steam deck has a resolution of 1280x800, is it possible to resize the menu to 125%? (800x600 to 1000x750)

posted on January 22nd, 2024, 7:55 pm

Hi
Steam deck has a resolution of 1280x800, is it possible to resize the menu to 125%? (800x600 to 1000x750)

Sorry, changing the shell menu resolution requires manually hardcoding the size/position of every button, every element, every background image, with a hex editor, it took me hundreds of hours, it's not something I can just repeat. Lots of respect though for anyone who can play RTS games on a Steam Deck.

posted on January 30th, 2024, 9:59 am

I tried out the current version and think it's really good. But there are a few points that I find somewhat negative:

Font size cannot be changed afterwards

I just tried it with the larger font, but it's terrible Unfortunately I couldn't find a way to change the font back to the normal size. Is there a trick?

Too few variations

Yes, that's complaining on a high level, but the small selection of ships, research, special abilities and stations is quite a pity. It also takes away some of the tactical scenarios.

Ship design

I noticed this very clearly with the Federation: The ships differ in terms of attention to detail and also colour scheme, sometimes significantly. Two ships next to each other, one very beautiful and next to it a ship with chunky, square-edged warp nacelles.

Reaction of the ships

If I give one or more ships a directional command, it sometimes takes seconds for this to be implemented (by all) ships. Do the bridge crews sometimes take an afternoon nap?

posted on January 30th, 2024, 10:53 pm

I tried out the current version and think it's really good. But there are a few points that I find somewhat negative:

Font size cannot be changed afterwards

I just tried it with the larger font, but it's terrible Unfortunately I couldn't find a way to change the font back to the normal size. Is there a trick?

Too few variations

Yes, that's complaining on a high level, but the small selection of ships, research, special abilities and stations is quite a pity. It also takes away some of the tactical scenarios.

Ship design

I noticed this very clearly with the Federation: The ships differ in terms of attention to detail and also colour scheme, sometimes significantly. Two ships next to each other, one very beautiful and next to it a ship with chunky, square-edged warp nacelles.

Reaction of the ships

If I give one or more ships a directional command, it sometimes takes seconds for this to be implemented (by all) ships. Do the bridge crews sometimes take an afternoon nap?

For the font, you can go to \Data\Sprites\FontFinal4_18.spr and change

@include FontFinal4_17.spr

into

@include FontFinal4_16.spr

As for the ship classes, that is a deliberate gameplay choice, I hope the addition of the ship types (berserker, artillery, etc...) provides enough tactical variation while not cramming the game with ships no one barely ever uses, or putting off casual players, but of course tastes differ.

I tried to find the best looking ship models and textures for each ship class, and yes, some of them are blocky, but AFAIK they're blocky in the shows/movies too, like the Norway or the Steamrunner, but if you can point me to better models for these ships I'll gladly use them.

You can disable the automatic formation move by setting the line cfgDEFAULT_TO_FORMATION_MOVE in \Data\RTS_CFG.h to 0, although that also means ships in a fleet can move at different speeds and if you want ships to arrive somewhere at the same time you would have to assemble them into a tight ball beforehand.

posted on February 9th, 2024, 10:11 pm

I noticed FO 3.2.7 as sub mod. Does the vanilla armada 2 3.2.7 mod work with 4.0.0?