Fleet Ops Roots 4.0 is now available.

posted on August 13th, 2024, 11:21 am

Yes, that's about what I have done in my playthrough. I surrounded the gate with 4 Mothers, and kept calling ships through until I had a decent sized fleet of 10 to 15 ships to be as a backup. Then further back where were shipyards I have built another fleet, got around the map and leveled the Borg stations. So yeah, that mission only seemed hard at first, because I thought 2 mothers would be enough, but it really isn't. Plus I forgot to setup resource collector at the upper biomatter moon at first, which I did later so I could gather resources faster.

Oh yeah, can't forget about those extra resources (there are more to the south of your base too).

Yes, I noticed they are rather though, as well as ''A Good Day to Die'', but that one I passed without much trouble. I built additional Starbases and cluster of turrets in front, as well as many high tier ships (mostly Negh'Vars and Qeh'Rals) as possible and held out without much losses. At first playthrough though I have tried to take my fleet out and destroy Dominion base, but that ended up mission impossible, since I haven't made it not even through half of map before having my fleet decimated. It was more of an experiment if I could do it. I did destroy part of their base though. Haven't played ''Overcome'' and ''Adapt'' yet, so thanks for the heads up I guess.

Haha, everyone has to try counterattacking at least once in A Good Day to Die. I did actually program a trigger to give you a victory if you destroy their base before the timer is up. One day The Chosen One (probably a Korean) will pull it off

So anyway, I ran into another troublesome mission called ''The Enemy of my Enemy" which I played on easy difficulty. Well, if Foothold was difficult this ended up being even more, 'cause I don't recall how many times I tried it by now (must be dozen I believe). The thing here is that I can't seem to build a fleet soon enough before Free Borg gets overrun and Sphere 617 destroyed. I managed to clear the rear base one time, but still got overwhelmed at the end by forces from northern base. So I'm stuck on that mission now. Got any hints for it?

Yeah, build a Nexus on both sides of the starting Nexus, adds some Tactical Nodes in between and spam Detection Nodes behind them. Also buy the systems upgrades ASAP and tech up to get a Cube. A Cube can destroy the southern base on its own. So static defenses > ships for the first part of the mission (though using the starting Diamond's Fleet ECM helps the static defenses).

I've attached a screenshot of where my base was at around the 20 minute mark (at max game speed).

If you play the mission as Species 8472 it's a matter of building up a fleet ASAP and sending reinforcements to help the Free Borg base defend. Note that you could run them past the southern base, especially once you destroy their Tactical Nodes around the wormhole.

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posted on August 13th, 2024, 2:54 pm

Oh yeah, can't forget about those extra resources (there are more to the south of your base too).

True, I found those resources later, especially that last one on the north. Well that mission won't be such a big deal anymore I guess. Maybe not even on hard difficulty.

Haha, everyone has to try counterattacking at least once in A Good Day to Die. I did actually program a trigger to give you a victory if you destroy their base before the timer is up. One day The Chosen One (probably a Korean) will pull it off

Yes, I don't think I'll ever succeed passing that mission in such way. Maybe on easy difficulty, but certainly not at harder ones. Not before time runs out anyway. I'm not that good.

Yeah, build a Nexus on both sides of the starting Nexus, adds some Tactical Nodes in between and spam Detection Nodes behind them. Also buy the systems upgrades ASAP and tech up to get a Cube. A Cube can destroy the southern base on its own. So static defenses > ships for the first part of the mission (though using the starting Diamond's Fleet ECM helps the static defenses).

I've attached a screenshot of where my base was at around the 20 minute mark (at max game speed).

If you play the mission as Species 8472 it's a matter of building up a fleet ASAP and sending reinforcements to help the Free Borg base defend. Note that you could run them past the southern base, especially once you destroy their Tactical Nodes around the wormhole.

Yesterday I was trying as Species 8472 and just couldn't do it. Today I passed the mission on first try with Free Borg, because I have actually build more than decent defense, especially at the north side where attacks are much stronger and more often coming. I had walled off everything with 5 Nexuses and clusters of turrets supported by at least dozen or so detection nodes. Nothing could have passed by it and the sizeable fleet that included Cube and mostly Spheres and Diamonds as well. So I had time to sit back, build up fleet of those artillery ships paired with scout and ran over first the southern and then the northern base as well.

I haven't tried bypassing southern base with 8472, so I guess that's what I'll try next time when playing as them. The most problematic thing is I believe Free Borg AI who doesn't do enough of defenses/ships and that's why it gets overrun so early in the game. And I can't go pass those turrets if I at least don't have a small fleet consisting of dozen of ships in order to take them down quickly without much losses. A several Watchers and few Launcher are required next to a starting Leviathan in order to take care of those platforms. Yet I can't seem to build them fast enough so I can help Free Borg from being overrun. However, as I said I have concentrated on dealing with southern base first, not trying to go around it, so maybe that's the key to success. Will try it and report how it went, but I still have ''Adapt'' and ''Overcome'' awaiting for me first.

posted on August 13th, 2024, 3:41 pm

Well, I just replayed The Enemy of My Enemy as Species 8472 multiple times and now I can't beat it either... I think I need to edit that mission and do a reupload (probably also give the Borg slightly more starting resources in Foothold). And here I was sitting so proud that finally I had a finished product and was rid of the reupload cycle

posted on August 14th, 2024, 1:04 pm

Well that's alright. Mistakes happens even to the best ones. I'm glad I could have helped to point it out. It really makes no sense getting defeated so early in the game. I even managed to pull once Sphere 617 to my side, but then a large Borg fleet came through and wiped me out eventually as I didn't had enough defenses around the portal (I had 2 or 3 Mothers at most, plus couple of mid-tier ships). So yeah, Free Borg AI should be somewhat improved to build more defenses/ships so it can hold out at least long enough before you can build decent sized fleet.

I'll sure give it another try once you update the mod.

posted on August 14th, 2024, 3:39 pm

Yeah, the same thing happened to me. I only had to take away the enemy Borg Transmission Node and add a few Detection Nodes to the Free Borg base to restore the balance. Now they can hold out for at least 15 minutes or so. This illustrates how difficult it is to design missions with the Armada 2 AI: small changes can make a mission way too hard or too easy.

posted on August 16th, 2024, 11:39 am

True. 15 minutes should be enough to bolster up defenses. However, I started today Adapt mission and it's extremely hard even on easy difficulty setting. I did found out their 2 shipyards in the south so I took care of them in my second playthrough. But still the onslaught coming from west was just too much to handle. 5 minutes in the game and they even managed to bring cube with them. I was frantically trying to build as many ships as possible, turrets, detection nodes, but they overwhelmed me eventually. So I'm not sure what to do in other to prevent it. Maybe 5 Nexuses are required instead of 3, but I'm not certain I can build them soon enough, or that I will have enough resources, since I got to build at least 2 at northern passage in order to defend from Dominion forces as well.
I am thinking about taking over their cube, so with 2 of them, I'll have better chance of defending myself against their waves of ships they are sending my way. However it would be easier if those waves are somewhat smaller, or at least less frequent, because they pile up pretty quickly. Also, I think for this mission 4 constructors are not enough, so maybe double the number since I have to get defenses up as soon as possible.
And lastly, those artillery ships they keep sending are very annoying, as they are decimating my defenses and ships very quickly, so I tend to focus on taking them out first, but that's not always easy, because their Spheres and berserker ships are protecting them. It won't be easy getting this mission done at all.

posted on August 16th, 2024, 1:28 pm

Did you find the two Borg shipyards to the southwest of your base? You can also take those out early using your Cube and that should help. But it's not very intuitive, I agree, so I'm changing that mission a bit: the Borg get one fewer shipyard inside their base, but I'm adding a trigger that makes every Borg ship in the most eastern one-third of the map attack your base, not the Dominion base (because otherwise the ships from those southwestern shipyards switch to attacking the Dominion base after a few minutes and all your expensive defenses don't do anything anymore).

I'm also ironing out the details of a seventh Dominion campaign mission I made this week (between "Shoulders of Giants" and "Writing on the Wall") where you have to win a dilithium mining contest against the Federation.

I'm also thinking about a scripted Tower Defense map (maybe even co-op with two players against the scripted enemies), but no promises on that, I'm not 100% it can even be done well with the Armada 2 game engine.

posted on August 16th, 2024, 3:20 pm

Yeah, I have eventually found out about both 2 Dominion shipyards in the north, and the additional Borg ones beyond the nebula. Ones I took those out, mission got easier, but was still quite hard even then, as Borg kept sending waves after waves of ships. Eventually that died down ones I had all the Spheres paired with Diamonds and berserker ships, 7 Nexuses and a pretty big cluster of turrets/detection nodes. So before I sent out my few constructors to that nebula at the west, I ordered my fleet to pull back behind the defenses so I could determine whether they were sufficient to survive onslaught of Borg fleet/s on their own, and it turned out they were. So I just escorted my constructors with full fleet of 30 vessels and also in the process wiped out Borg base.
So it is not that hard except in the beginning where you must build defenses and ships very fast, along with setting up economy and doing research as well. It takes a lot of effort to fend off attacks at the very beginning and taking out those shipyards nearby is a key to success.
Although I wonder now if I could have left Dominion shipyards in the north alone, sent constructor to Nebula, and then have Dominion ships from there coming to aid in my defense. It should be doable, but I guess it is a slightly more difficult thing to do so.

Btw just now I have completed last Free Borg mission on a first try with Federation, and I got to admit that one went a bit too easy. I have literary curb stomped the enemy Borg base with 3 fleets of top tier ships, and couple artillery ones as well. The most baffling thing for me is that enemy attacks at the beginning were few and with not that much of a ships. Even their cubes weren't much of a challenge, and they had at least 3 or 4 of them. Maybe the Federation is a bit OP I don't know. Haven't tried the mission playing as Free Borg though so I'd have to give it a try.

Anyway, I do have some questions about some aspects of the mod. First and foremost, the limitation on a single cube seems a bit to harsh even if it is the most powerful vessel in the game.
Second how there are no tactical cubes at all? I mean every race has their own top tier dreadnought, but the Borg is missing it.
Third, it is a bit of a bummer that holding beams don't work faster given how much crew some of the ships have. Assimilators from Armada 2 would come in handy in that regard.
Also where is Prometheus class? It would be nice to have it as alternative to Sovereign class.
Last but not least, is it possible to build Spacedock? I haven't tried skirmish yet, but still I think it would be nice to have a more powerful type of Starbase (and not just for Federation). Of course, that one should be limited to a singular construction.

posted on August 16th, 2024, 5:42 pm

Yeah, I have eventually found out about both 2 Dominion shipyards in the north, and the additional Borg ones beyond the nebula. Ones I took those out, mission got easier, but was still quite hard even then, as Borg kept sending waves after waves of ships. Eventually that died down ones I had all the Spheres paired with Diamonds and berserker ships, 7 Nexuses and a pretty big cluster of turrets/detection nodes. So before I sent out my few constructors to that nebula at the west, I ordered my fleet to pull back behind the defenses so I could determine whether they were sufficient to survive onslaught of Borg fleet/s on their own, and it turned out they were. So I just escorted my constructors with full fleet of 30 vessels and also in the process wiped out Borg base.
So it is not that hard except in the beginning where you must build defenses and ships very fast, along with setting up economy and doing research as well. It takes a lot of effort to fend off attacks at the very beginning and taking out those shipyards nearby is a key to success.
Although I wonder now if I could have left Dominion shipyards in the north alone, sent constructor to Nebula, and then have Dominion ships from there coming to aid in my defense. It should be doable, but I guess it is a slightly more difficult thing to do so.

I usually rush a few Construction Nodes to the West ASAP after the cutscene where you're given that option, with 3-4 Construction Nodes escorted by a Cube in front of them. Usually at least one of the Construction Nodes makes it to the nebula and the Cube survives and can retreat to the Dominion base. Having the Dominion as allies takes a lot of pressure off and you can use the Cube for active defense of their base and I also construct shipyards inside their base. But yeah, I'm removing one of the shipyards from the Borg base for balancing.

Btw just now I have completed last Free Borg mission on a first try with Federation, and I got to admit that one went a bit too easy. I have literary curb stomped the enemy Borg base with 3 fleets of top tier ships, and couple artillery ones as well. The most baffling thing for me is that enemy attacks at the beginning were few and with not that much of a ships. Even their cubes weren't much of a challenge, and they had at least 3 or 4 of them. Maybe the Federation is a bit OP I don't know. Haven't tried the mission playing as Free Borg though so I'd have to give it a try.

It's definitely easier as Federation, and that's by design, but I'll take a look at rebalancing it maybe a little, maybe giving you fewer Federation ships at the starts if you play as Federation.

Anyway, I do have some questions about some aspects of the mod. First and foremost, the limitation on a single cube seems a bit to harsh even if it is the most powerful vessel in the game.
Second how there are no tactical cubes at all? I mean every race has their own top tier dreadnought, but the Borg is missing it.
Third, it is a bit of a bummer that holding beams don't work faster given how much crew some of the ships have. Assimilators from Armada 2 would come in handy in that regard.
Also where is Prometheus class? It would be nice to have it as alternative to Sovereign class.
Last but not least, is it possible to build Spacedock? I haven't tried skirmish yet, but still I think it would be nice to have a more powerful type of Starbase (and not just for Federation). Of course, that one should be limited to a singular construction.

The single Cube limitation is definitely by design. The Cube's impact on the game scales exponentially because sending 1 Cube against a fleet/base and it surviving is much better than sending 3 Sovereigns and 2 out of 3 surviving, with the 1 destroyed ship having to be rebuild and sent back across the map. Cubes also concentrate a lot of firepower in a small area, which is a tactical advantage in itself. If you could build even just 2 Cubes that would be OP, same if there was an even more powerful Tactical Cube variant. The Sphere is basically the Borg equivalent to the battleships of other factions, so the Borg do have that.

I actually do agree about the holding beam, I'm increasing the speed at which it transfers drones by 20% to make it more useful.

posted on August 16th, 2024, 9:34 pm

I usually rush a few Construction Nodes to the West ASAP after the cutscene where you're given that option, with 3-4 Construction Nodes escorted by a Cube in front of them. Usually at least one of the Construction Nodes makes it to the nebula and the Cube survives and can retreat to the Dominion base. Having the Dominion as allies takes a lot of pressure off and you can use the Cube for active defense of their base and I also construct shipyards inside their base. But yeah, I'm removing one of the shipyards from the Borg base for balancing.

Haven't tried that strategy, but it did crossed my mind. However, I was focused of making impenetrable defenses in my base as soon as possible, and getting rid of those nearby shipyards. It may have been easier to do things your way though. Next time I'll certainly try it.
I agree that removing one shipyard will help. What also might help is to have AI build ships somewhat slower, because when I was at the enemy base it seemed to me that it can spam ships much faster than I could. Now I'm not certain about if that is true, but it did seemed like it to me.

It's definitely easier as Federation, and that's by design, but I'll take a look at rebalancing it maybe a little, maybe giving you fewer Federation ships at the starts if you play as Federation.

Yes, a fewer ships may be a good idea, and have enemy send more of ships, but again not too many like in previous mission.

The single Cube limitation is definitely by design. The Cube's impact on the game scales exponentially because sending 1 Cube against a fleet/base and it surviving is much better than sending 3 Sovereigns and 2 out of 3 surviving, with the 1 destroyed ship having to be rebuild and sent back across the map. Cubes also concentrate a lot of firepower in a small area, which is a tactical advantage in itself. If you could build even just 2 Cubes that would be OP, same if there was an even more powerful Tactical Cube variant. The Sphere is basically the Borg equivalent to the battleships of other factions, so the Borg do have that.

I actually do agree about the holding beam, I'm increasing the speed at which it transfers drones by 20% to make it more useful.

Yeah, I guess I can see the reason for having just a single cube buildable. Still, I'd prefer if Spheres were relegated to a cruiser level, Cubes to battleships (of which 5 could be built at max), and introduce Tactical cube as dreadnought which only one would be allowed for construction (as it is now the case with Cube). I just think it's great to have more canon designs in game.
Similar to that, maybe a Scimitar could make appearance as a comparable dreadnought for Romulans, and Prometheus would be Starfleet's variant of it.

Yeah, holding beam should be definitely stronger. I remember playing that mission you start only with Sphere and Diamond, and have to bypass other Borg ships in order to get to an constructor for capture. It wasn't that hard, but it took me lots of time to overtake that first Cube by having Sphere hidden inside nebula and slowly kill off its crew, while at the same time using transporter from it, as well as additional ships to capture. It took at least half an hour to finally capture it, and that was quite exhausting, since I had to watch not to push any wrong button and then have my plan ruined eventually.

posted on August 17th, 2024, 2:10 am

Wait you actually tried to capture the Cube at the start of "Exodus"? Wow, that takes dedication... (you can bypass it using the pink nebula, a little later you do come across two Dodecahedrons with lowered crew numbers that you're "supposed to" capture).

The Scimitar is already in the game, well, at least in the form of the Invictus Class which do function as dreadnoughts. They're in between a Sovereign\Hutet\Negh'var and a Cube, same as the Jem'Hadar Dreadnought. You can build two of them. It will easily win against one Sovereign, but will lose to two Sovereigns (but will destroy one of them in the process), I though that was an appropriate power level that maintains balance and keeps the game playable.

posted on August 17th, 2024, 2:10 am

Wait you actually tried to capture the Cube at the start of "Exodus"? Wow, that takes dedication... (you can bypass it using the pink nebula, a little later you do come across two Dodecahedrons with lowered crew numbers that you're "supposed to" capture).

The Scimitar is already in the game, well, at least in the form of the Invictus Class which do function as dreadnoughts. They're in between a Sovereign\Hutet\Negh'var and a Cube, same as the Jem'Hadar Dreadnought. You can build two of them. It will easily win against one Sovereign, but will lose to two Sovereigns (but will destroy one of them in the process), of course it will lose to a Cube. I though that was an appropriate power level that maintains balance and keeps the game playable.

posted on August 17th, 2024, 11:03 am

Wait you actually tried to capture the Cube at the start of "Exodus"? Wow, that takes dedication... (you can bypass it using the pink nebula, a little later you do come across two Dodecahedrons with lowered crew numbers that you're "supposed to" capture).

Not at the start, but somewhere around halfway through mission when I acquired enough ships and that shipyard I returned all the way and took a Cube for myself. Heck, I even wanted to take another one, but haven't succeeded as that one followed me all the way, so I decided to destroy it after all with my Cube and the rest of the ships. That pink nebula is actually not only good for hiding, but also from striking at Borg while being invulnerable to their attack, if you have a ship outside that gives you a line of sight at it. That's how I obtained the Cube eventually, because otherwise it wouldn't be possible.
The problem with Cubes and Spheres is that they can replenish their drones so that is why they are so difficult to capture. In other missions it is virtually impossible, even if you target them with holding beams from everything you got. Eventually you'll get your stations and fleet destroyed before you capture a Cube.

The Scimitar is already in the game, well, at least in the form of the Invictus Class which do function as dreadnoughts. They're in between a Sovereign\Hutet\Negh'var and a Cube, same as the Jem'Hadar Dreadnought. You can build two of them. It will easily win against one Sovereign, but will lose to two Sovereigns (but will destroy one of them in the process), I though that was an appropriate power level that maintains balance and keeps the game playable.

Oh yeah, I haven't played as much as Romulans so I might have forgotten about it, or missed it. As far as I can remember I have played only a single mission with them, and were not able to build anything stronger than D'deridex class I believe. I'm going to give it a try once.

When I was speaking about Tactical cube, I remember how in Armada 2 you could build a number of Fusion and Tactical Fusion cubes and destroy everything on the map. Even 7 hard AI opponents teamed up could be defeated that way. I'm sure that is almost impossible with just one ordinary Cube to do so. Well maybe it is, but I sure wouldn't want to try that, because I guess it would be too much difficult. So yeah, that's why I think one OP tactical cube and a few (5 or so) standard cubes would be ideal for playing the Borg, or against it. The Borg should be OP anyway, because they are such race.
On the other hand, I'm not sure if there is included species 8472 planet killer weapon in a mod, but it should be. Well of course, you wouldn't be able to destroy planets, because that's obviously difficult thing to do, and planets are of no use here, but it would be useful for destruction of enemy Dreadnoughts.

posted on August 17th, 2024, 4:55 pm

Version 5.0.1 is now live with the balance fix to the mission "The Enemy of My Enemy", as well as some others, and a new mission for the Dominion.

Oh, I forgot to mention this before, but in Roots in the advanced settings menu for instant action or multiplayer you can actually select an option that lets you build unlimited battleships and dreadnoughts (but the AI will still build the normal number), so you can use that when you're in the mood for a compstomp against 7 AIs with your 20 Cubes

posted on August 17th, 2024, 9:13 pm

That's great. Gonna redo some missions with races I haven't played with, and try some skirmishes as well.
I am especially eager to retry Exodus mission with more powerful holding beam. Should be easier now to take over ships, and maybe both cubes as well.

And that new Dominion mission sounds interesting as well.