Fleet Ops Roots 4.0 is now available.

posted on August 17th, 2024, 9:22 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.

Enjoy!

Oh, make sure you have the version, I made a mistake earlier so I reuploaded it about 15 minutes ago, you'll know you have the correct version if the file is called "Armada_Fleet_Operations_Roots_rev5.0.1.zip".

posted on August 17th, 2024, 9:32 pm

Thanks! I have downloaded the correct version apparently.

Just curious do I have to uninstall old version first, or I can simply install this new one over old one?

posted on August 17th, 2024, 10:03 pm

Thanks! I have downloaded the correct version apparently.

Just curious do I have to uninstall old version first, or I can simply install this new one over old one?

In general best practice is to first delete the install folder of the old version, but in this case it should be safe to install over the old version (no filenames have been changed).

posted on August 18th, 2024, 12:47 pm

Ok, I have just tried this new Dominion mission about dozen of times, even on the easiest difficulty as well with max handicap to AI, but it is impossible to do it, as Federation seems to collect dilithium extremely quickly while having enough resource to harass my ships and stations as well. And those cluster of turrets are really annoying because they are literally everywhere and they keep targeting weaker ships which get destroyed quickly in the process.
And besides that, they are starting with 3 dilithium moons I believe, while at the same time I have none, and only one tritanium moon which severely delays production of my new ships/stations, and it is not really helpful in getting extra dilithium either. So now this mission seems near impossible to finish, because the Federation collects 30k before without much trouble. Maybe up the goal to 100k would even help, as around them having 20-25k I manage to clear up most of defenses around moons and build my stations, while having sizeable fleet to deal with their ships.

posted on August 18th, 2024, 2:36 pm

Ok, I have just tried this new Dominion mission about dozen of times, even on the easiest difficulty as well with max handicap to AI, but it is impossible to do it, as Federation seems to collect dilithium extremely quickly while having enough resource to harass my ships and stations as well. And those cluster of turrets are really annoying because they are literally everywhere and they keep targeting weaker ships which get destroyed quickly in the process.
And besides that, they are starting with 3 dilithium moons I believe, while at the same time I have none, and only one tritanium moon which severely delays production of my new ships/stations, and it is not really helpful in getting extra dilithium either. So now this mission seems near impossible to finish, because the Federation collects 30k before without much trouble. Maybe up the goal to 100k would even help, as around them having 20-25k I manage to clear up most of defenses around moons and build my stations, while having sizeable fleet to deal with their ships.

Really? I always go for the nearest dilithium moon ASAP and build two Cloning Facilities in front of it, then research weapons upgrades, tech up all the way, then build dreadnoughts and some battleships. At around 15-20k enemy dilithium I can clear two enemy moons, also using my warp-in Attackships as distractions for the enemy (check to see which ones have mining freighters orbiting them, the rest you can ignore), that slows down their mining a lot. Then I keep building more battleships and berserkers and keep suppressing new mining stations the Federation builds at moons that I can reach. Then I attack one or two more of their defended moons and at that point their mining tends to become slower than the rate they spend dilithium at. A couple of minutes later I'll have something like 20k dilithium and a lot of tritanium that I can sell for more dilithium. This is all on medium difficulty and me mining from just one dilithium moon.

posted on August 18th, 2024, 9:25 pm

I do the same with first moon, bud build only one Cloning facility right next to mining facility, but I simultaneously go to set up another mining facility at the second moon, as soon as I destroy Federation outpost there that is guarding it.
I do lose quite a few ships on that though, which might be the problem, but I guess it is easier to mine with 2 - 3 moons than just 1. As for their mining operations I manage to take out 1, or 2 of them at most, plus maybe a shipyard(s) nearby, but they seem to keep building new mining stations at incredible pace and never really stop gathering dilithium quickly.
The biggest problems for me are those turrets that are all around map and pick off less powerful ships quite quickly and as far as I am aware, Dominion have no artillery ships to deal with them.
I would love to have some kind of assault ships so I could take couple of Steamrunners from enemy, and speaking of which Dominion would be ideal race for having such type of ships.
I'll try the mission some more, but I definitely do think that Federation has too much advantage at start. It is ''Enemy of my Enemy'' mission all over for me.

posted on August 19th, 2024, 10:49 am

How dit it go?

posted on August 19th, 2024, 5:09 pm

Not well unfortunately. I simply can't break through, despite trying several times with various strategies. Those damned turrets are probably making the biggest problem for me.
I was able to set up mining stations at 3 moons, along with Cloning facilities, and bring down Federation mining to 2 moons, but they still got ahead of me by lot, because I have lost a lot of ships in the process. No strategy so far has been viable for me, not even building Dreadnoughts made much difference. Those turrets are way to many, and there is almost no area devoid of them, so I can't get ships past them to destroy enemy mining operations. It is too much of unfair advantage for enemy side IMHO.
Also there were instances where the opposite side all of a sudden gets drastic increase in dilithium by several thousand units. For example, I've seen on at least 2 occasions where they have around 10k, and instantly jump to 13k. Now I'm not sure if enemy has access to tritanium moon/s at all, but such an influx of resources they have to collect before you seems like a cheat.

With all being said, I doubt that any casual player/s would be able to finish that mission, and I'm certainly above average when it comes to gaming. I can't even imagine how tough this mission must be on hard difficulty and without any AI handicap, but I'm quite sure only hardcore players could beat it, and barely at that.
I mean one thing is a good challenge, but this definitely goes beyond that.

So here's some fixes I suggest that could make mission more doable:

1. Lower the number of turrets across the map (especially those in pair of four randomly placed in empty spaces), and remove Federation Outpost at the northwest more moon. It makes no sense whatsoever that Federation would build outpost so far from their main and not have any mining operation setup there.

2. Give player a couple more high level ships, and maybe even a single Dreadnought as well. A starting shipyard wouldn't hurt either.

3. Give player two tritanium moons instead of just one. Deny any tritanium mining operation for Federation.

4. Make enemy unable to get large sums of dilithium instantly.

5. Have player start with double amount of resources opposed to Federation.


These are just some suggestion that I can think of at the top of my head. Now it can be any of them, it can be combination, all of them. It is not my mod, so of course it is not a demand, but mission should be somehow made more playable for everyone.

posted on August 19th, 2024, 5:33 pm

But what happens if you just stick to one moon for a while? and take out only the nearest couple of mining stations (and keep suppressing new ones and also hunting mining freighters near lightly defended moons or moons you've already attacked before)? Ie. if you're more surgical and don't try to out-mine the Federation or attacking moons that don't have enemy mining activity?

posted on August 19th, 2024, 5:45 pm

I'll see if I can make a recording of a playthrough.

The AI does not do resource trading or decommissioning, and the Federation does not have weapons that give them sudden influxes of resources (only the Romulans and Species 8472 do).

posted on August 19th, 2024, 6:53 pm

So I just tried another playthrough sticking to the one moon only and I have moved my ship production there to be closer for damaged ships to return. However, it was again all in vain. This time I even managed to bring down their mining operation to a single moon, but they still collected 30k without much problems. I even destroyed most of their shipyards as well, but that still did not seem to bother them. They seem to be going intentionally for the goal no matter on what difficulty you play, and that means they don't do much of counter-offensive, they don't rebuild their shipyards, nor anything else, but mining stations. And since they already have big advantage from the very start, the goal for them is very simple to accomplish.
Either way, even if I did managed to win this time, I still think it would be dull if that was only strategy that's worth a while for finishing the mission. There's one other possible fix I come up with, which would balance things a bit, a that is if Federation had to collect double the amount opposed to player.
As I said, I really don't want to know how this mission is on hard difficulty, because it is though on medium and even easy to do it.

posted on August 20th, 2024, 9:26 pm

Alright, my playthrough video is at https://filebin.net/r7kwajymf8uu8cyh I took a little longer than usual to get started and got hit harder than usual by their initial attack wave but after that it went fine. This was on medium and at max gamespeed (speed 6).

posted on August 21st, 2024, 3:10 pm

Alright, I have watched your video and just now tried to play almost exactly as you did. In my previous gameplays I was somewhat more aggressive with my attacks, but even with your more laid back approach I still haven't made it.
What seems to be the problem as far as I can tell, in your case Federation seems to be mostly around 15k dilithium and they almost never passed 20k during gameplay at all.
In my case, while their attacks are some less frequent and smaller in size, their mining operations are far more efficient and less than 10 minutes into game they manage to reach the goal.
I have barely made it this time to take out even their first mining stations before they reached 30k. And I also just had out my 2nd Dreadnought as well. Now I don't know how the Federation in your gameplay collects dilithium so slowly, but in every single of my gameplays they seem to be doing it crazy fast, and that was even the case with easy difficulty.

posted on August 21st, 2024, 3:31 pm

I don't know what to tell you. It always goes similar to that video for me and I had two people from the Fleet Ops Discord test it for me on their systems, they also beat it and one of them even redid it on hard and won. I can say that the reason the AI doesn't go above ~22k in my playthrough is because I keep suppressing them. If you watch closely my fleet destroys a lot of mining freighters and construction ships even when just passing between two areas. Getting the AI to attack you certainly helps, but that seems to happen almost automatically after I the first moon and place two Cloning Facilities there, though I do regularly kite enemy squadrons into weapons range of those Cloning Facility because I was afraid that if I didn't they could build up those squadrons to where they could just overwhelm my Cloning Facilities, but that also must help a bit in slowing their dilithium stockpiling.

posted on August 21st, 2024, 4:18 pm

Well I finally did it. I used your strategy, plus I was at the same time a bit more aggressive with my attacks as well. I have even managed to wipe out most of their forces before reaching 30k. However, once I did hit 30k I had CTD right before cutscene was supposed to happen. Nevertheless I count that as a success.
What seemed to do the trick is lowering AI handicap to default, since I have forgotten to return it while I was trying before playing on easier difficulty and such. It seem when you set handicap to max, they don't attack as often and only in a small groups, but rather focus on collecting dilithium and defending themselves.
I prefer sporadic attacks to being simply outpaced in collection of resources, so now I know how to beat the mission. I might even try it on harder difficulty eventually. Although it does seem a bit though at times.