Star Trek: Armada III begins with the first stirrings of the Dominion War and allows players to take command of five unique factions, the United Federation of Planets, the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Star Empire, the Cardassian Union/Dominion Alliance, and the Borg Collective. Explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, and boldly go where no one has gone before.
Displaying the modular functionality of the Nebula-class starship, the Phoenix-type is equipped with a specialised sensor dome that allows it to make remarkably detailed scans of stellar phenomena. It is for this reason that Nebula-class starships are often converted to the Phoenix configuration when sent to study rare or dangerous events or anomalies, such as supernovas, planetary collisions or quantum singularities.
While having slightly less firepower than a standard configuration Nebula-class, the Phoenix-type remains useful in wartime. Its powerful and precise sensors allow the Phoenix to locate and strike out at the enemy's weak spots, making it a valuable tactical addition to the fleet. Phoenix-type Nebulas also excel in a supporting role, and are equipped with swarms of unmanned repair drones specially designed to aid Federation ships' damage-control efforts, even in the midst of battle.
Ooooh, will it get abilities that let it scan stuff?
Nope. both the Nebula and Phoenix will be unchanged. This is just some of the lore behind the ship.
Funny thing old Ambassador can do long range scan and specialized vessel, the Phoenix, can't.
God and game developers work in mysterious ways...
We considered moving the precision strike to the Ambassador and putting the long range scan on the Phoenix, but we decided against it as we felt it overpowered the Ambassador.
But it would fit much better with the Phoenix. Could'nt you lower the overall stats of the ambassador so it will not be overpowered? Considering it was the best ship of its time, but is now much older than the Phoenix or Nebula.
NO ONE'S NERFING MY AMBASSADOR!
Seriously though, the Ambassador is already only marginally useful in a fight. Nerfing her would be completely unnecessary, but we still felt that giving a starting capital ship a powerful ability like the Phoenix's precision strike would give it an unfair advantage. Trust me, the balancing team thought hard on this.
Also, the precision strike ability makes the Phoenix useful in a fight, which it should be as a powerful Nebula-class starship. Without it it would be little more than a repair ship.
DAT AFT.