So to answer some frequently asked questions lets dive right in.
What's happened to the mega patch progress?
Well, it's still in progress but we have tackled one major challenge in some respects I think I may have bitten off more than I could chew (he does that sometimes - Gul) in that we have rebalanced the gameplay constants file, for those of you who do not know what the file does or is let's explain.
The constants file holds information about how the game engine will apply key bonuses to a game and how armour types and weapon types will interact with each other. Painstakingly this has not been looked at since version 0.95 over eight years ago! until now! as part of rebalancing the core mod, this means we can finally fix some of the glaring issues in the early and mid-game, namely that frigates and corvettes don't have much impact in the early-mid and late game, with the new version we have engineered these constants to give frigates, destroyers and corvettes much more effective in these stages of the game, this means its quite possible for multiple smaller ships like for example the sabre to take on a large ship and win.
But I like STA3 as it is now!
We hear you, so to ensure this doesn't ruin the feel of the game prior we have had a team of the STA3 multiplayer discord testings our changes as we go, so far you can really feel the effect of having a diverse fleet of ships. To make this easier for old and new players we have also updated the counter description strings to demonstrate to players when they choose a ship from the build menu what ship types they are good against.
It does not stop there!
The reason the patch is taking some time is individually Bane has rebalanced every ship and made some great tweaks to them including their weapons and armour. So far we have completed the rebalance on three factions the Federation, The Klingons and The Romulans with the new constants. Bane has just given the Union over to the testers for final gameplay tests.
Is there any way we can help?
If you would like to assist in testing parts of the new version then contact Robert Saunders on the multiplayer discord server linked in the earlier news posts to apply, to test you will need to install a few programs so make sure you are happy to do this.
Anything else?
We hope to demo the new build very soon with the other devs for our other projects too! so stay tuned for an announcement on a dev diary online soon on our youtube channel.
Until next time stay... .... oh wait that's Orion's line...
Bane Out.
Glad to see you guys are making good progress! Can't wait for the new release, I want to dive back into Armada 3 very dearly... All appendages crossed that no wild Q appears!
This sounds great!
So many iconic ships as frigates and when i build them i feel like i'm playing with a handicap instead of going full cruisers.
Thank you very much for all of your hard work.
I hate to add even more hard work for you, but I think that I may have found a bug in the diplomacy research when playing against the AI in single player mode.
I've had factions offer me peace treaties that are not possible for that faction. For example, I once was offered the Khitomer Accords by a Federation AI when I was playing as the Federation, even when there was no Klingon player at all in a four-way contest. I've had a faction research and offer me every single peace treaty possible - I was able to sign 'peace treaties' covering all factions except the Borg (diplomacy is irrelevant to them), and they were offered by the same AI player.
This occurs in the late game when I have an alliance with the AI player and both of us have diplomacy ratings of 15 or higher with each other. I suspect that the research tree for the AI player doesn't limit its treaty research to players that are both still alive in the game and have high mutual diplomatic ratings. The AI appears to lack a check to see if a treaty is even possible with the faction that the human player has chosen.
I can also research things in the diplomacy tree to the right of the treaties (after I agree to the treaty), such as getting Klingon armor on a Federation ship when no Klingon AI player is present, so it provides advantages to a player that should be impossible to get.
i have the games saved, so if it would be helpful to see the game files, I can send them to you at your request. I'm using the March 2020 version of the game, so it's a bit out of date.
What about the Cardassians?
I played some multiplayer games against the AI with 2 friends, and every time we were defeated by the Cardassians. These are completely OP. After a while, the Cardassians have a follower of small surgical ships, about 30 pieces. This destroyed my Borg Dreadnought and some of the best cubes in 3 minutes. The other factions didn't even last 1 minute before all of the ships were destroyed.
Why is that?
i cant seem to access several maps in the mod? it says they are part of a forbidden worlds dlc? also i cant use the random events, minor factions< and the other one. wondering whats up?
Did you buy those DLC?
Any updates? your mods i play all the time vs computer and just awesome.
Looking forward to the mega patch i think it will be great to help balance things a bit and give some new life to some ships.
Hoping all is well on yalls end, Any updates?