Star Trek Armada II: Fleet Operations 3.1.2 released news

Initially we planned the 3.1.2 release to focus on fine tuning the new balancing system introduced with 3.1.0 and only have few new features with this version. However due to some technical issues we were facing with the previously announced new weapon effects we had to push the release date back till now, which left us a lot more time to integrate some more new stuff in this version than we had originally in mind.
Besides the new weapon effects, Admiral Mayson now is able to build the Federation Nova class, the Borg Collective have been given a new vessel, the Dodecahedron (good i don't have to say that out loud) and the Romulans got their defensive concept revised along with two new stations. Several smaller tweaks to increase overall game speed have been integrated and two more maps made by Boggz have been added. There is more - read the changelog below.
Thanks everyone for their contributions in the forums!

Patch 3.1.2 is only compatible with a previous 3.1.0 or 3.1.1 installation. Patching an earlier version (3.0.7 and below) will result in a corrupt installation.

Changelog:

Features

• New weapon and impact effects
• Armada Game Engine fixes to improve overall game performance and memory consumption
• Federation Venture Class scouts have been refitted with special sensor beacons, allowing them to engage progressive scan patterns
• Dominion A-4 Scouts may now drop special Passive Probes
• Romulan Defense Batteries are now powered by a Singularity Transmitter that will also regenerate energy on nearby friendly Romulan vessels. There are also rumors about particle weapons being deployed in the Romulan defense grids
• Admiral Mayson is now deploying a squadron of Nova Class vessels to assist the Fleets
• A new Borg Dodecahedron has been spotted assisting the assimilation capabilities of Borg fleets. The collective also adapted the Scout Cube by adding a new module
• Dominion Sensor Stations may now activate the Remote Tachyon Beacons of friendly vessels
• Hovering special weapons when having a group of ships selected now shows the appropriate subsystem icon in the ship group display
• Station construction placeholders can now also be seen by allied players
• Model or texture redos
  • Romulan Defense Battery (formerly known as Disruptor Turret)
• New maps
  • Duel by Boggz
  • The Final Frontier II by Boggz

Changes

• Adjusted some parameters in the balancing formulas, which caused incorrect calculation of movement speeds and some other attributes. That causes adjustments of most unit speeds and some slight cost changes
• More special weapons will now show their area of effect when hovered
• Constructors have tractor beams now to rescue damaged ships from the frontlines
• Reduces research time and costs for Analyze Alien Technology
• Certain temporary crafts like fighters will no longer be repairable by repair ships
• Borg vessels are far to complex now for repair ships to repair
• Replaced the construction delays with a "halt construction" button that will stop the queue permanently until canceled
• Reordered icons in the menu palette to consume less space
• Adjusted the effectiviness of some passive abilities, Single Stage Energy Conduits do now also increase the resource costs. Passive abilities that include a damage vulnerability are more effective compared to their counterparts. High Density Shield Generators and Ablative Armor Plates do now also include a small damage reduction against short / long range targets. The Autonomous Defense AI will now also reduce the combat effectiveness against support ships
• Changed the targeting priorities for several vessels, including fighters
• Reduced the Defensive and System Values of fighters
• The "Normal AI" is now less difficult to beat to be more beginner friendly
• Troopships no longer need to lower their shields to transport. Troopship cap reduced to 6 (bf.: 10)
• Reduced the construction costs of experimental yards to 600 dilithium and 150 tritanium (bf.: 800 / 200)
• Tachyon Scan has been removed on all sensor stations. All factions got other methods to track cloaked vessels in the field. Stationary Tachyon Pings are still available and the respective structures are cheaper to produce
• Area weapons that do not have an efficient effect on temporary crafts will no longer count them as valid targets and try to find other, more valuable victims (like Distortion Field on fighters for example)
• Added some additional info to the tooltips of burst-volley and multi-target weapons
• Adjusted the construction time of mixed-tech vessels
• Most aim-to-fire special weapons to no longer have limited attack arcs to ease their manual usage
• Reduced the Offensive Value of all scouts, but increased their Defensive Value
• A new hotkey is available for cloak
• Borg
  • Assimilation will now cause Incubation Centers to slowly assimilate hostiles (bf.: granted Matrix Teleport)
  • Borg vessels may no longer be recrewed like stations. Allied vessels are now automatically recrewed if close to an Incubation Complex
  • Matrix Teleport is now available to all avatars on incubation centers and restores a large amount of drones to all friendly ships at the target location
  • Borg Adaption Matrixes do now have proper Borg-like designations
  • Increased the damage reduction granted by stacking Beam Modules
  • Perfect Logistics generates resources much faster now
  • Dilithium and Tritanium Synthesis generates resources much faster now and the supply-resource transmutation rate has been improved
  • Adaption resistances granted from mixed-tech modules have been increased
  • Scout Cube System Value and construction costs reduced
  • Adaptor System Value and construction costs reduced
  • Establish Energy Nodes research costs adjusted
  • Slightly increased the Holding Beam boarding rates
  • Bring order to chaos damage boost reduced to 70 percent (bf.: 100)
  • Sensor Relays no longer emit Tachyon Pings
  • Graviton Relay has been removed. The Dodecahedron may transform into a defense station if a Relay Module is installed
• Dominion
  • Puretech: Now increases all attributes by 3 (bf.: 6), but also affects the S-7 Defender. The construction-time-reduction is more effective now due to formula changes, but no longer affects the war frigate
  • B-8 Warfrigate construction costs and construction time reduced
  • B-5 Battle Cruiser fighter carriers now support one less fighter. Prototypes only support half the fighters of regular carriers
  • Added a better display for the Worker Ship modes to keep track on cooldowns and the current state
  • Perimeter ping range increased to medium. Construction costs adjusted
  • The Sensor Station is now equipped with Graviton-Tachyon Pings
  • The Phaser Sentry is now equipped with a new passive ability called EPS Control Nodes, increasing shield damage
  • Phaser Sentry and Perimeter construction time reduced
  • T-15 Heavy Cruiser gains Ablative Armor. Construction costs adjusted
  • Cascade Feedback damage increased, special energy drain chance reduced
  • Breen Torpedoes will now deal increased damage to battleships and reduced damage to small ships
• Federation
  • Admiral Mayson: ACS Torpedoes have been converted into a passive ability and therefore no longer requires research. The construction time reduction has been removed, but all defense Plattforms are now equipped with altered weaponry
  • The Eraudi Yard no longer requires Star Fleet Science to be built. All Eraudi Yard vessels got their resource costs and construction times slightly adjusted accordingly
  • Plasma Coil area of effect reduced to match the visual effect
  • Officer rank Defiant Class vessels deal now more damage with their Quantum Torpedoes, but slightly reduced damage with their Pulse Phasers
  • Probe (Canaveral Class level 1 ability) has been replaced by Sensor Synergy
  • Tachyon Scan (Canaveral Class level 2 ability) has been replaced by EC3M
  • Sensor Research has been moved to Starfleet Engineering and special weapon research is located at Starfleet Science again
  • Excelsior II Class construction costs reduced, but Quantum Torpedoes are now on a limited attack arc
  • Guided Quantum Torpedoes converted into an active ability
  • Hyper Impulse Drive now also reduces the combat effectiveness of short range attackers, but now reduces Offensive Value by 3 (bf.: 2)
  • Avalon Class fighter carriers now support one less fighter
  • Dual Pulse Phasers replaced with normal pulse phasers. Gameplay characteristics remain unchanged
  • Starfleet Command now requires Starfleet Engineering and Starfleet Science to be built (bf.: just Starfleet Science)
  • The Torpedo Platform is now a baseline turret and available to all avatars. It is now armed if Photon Torpedoes per default
  • Sensor Platform ping range increased to medium. Construction costs increased
  • Assault Mode is now on a 30 second cooldown
• Klingon
  • General Martok Defensive Value bonuses reduced to 4 / 3 / 2 (bf.: 8 / 6 / 4) but now reduces the supply costs of yard extensions by half
  • Shield strength reduced, hull strength increased
  • B'rel Class and the Vutpa' Class are now equipped with manual targeting, tracking down cloaked targets. Construction time and construction costs adjusted
  • K'beajQ construction time adjusted
  • K'Vort construction time adjusted
  • SuS'a' construction time adjusted
  • Veqlaragh construction time adjusted
  • Taqrojas Bird of Preys deals now more damage with its torpedoes and reduced damage with disruptors
  • Ion Torpedoes reload times and damage adjusted. They do now deal variable damage with a chance to deal high extra damage on a successful hit
  • Micro Photon Torpedoes replaced by normal Photon Torpedoes, but they will now fire faster
  • The Negh'var Class is now armed with Photon Torpedoes and gains Ion Torpedoes on officer rank
  • The Chor Class is now equipped with a special civil disruptor defense weapon, which is more effective against early destroyer attacks
  • The NoQ'Duj Class does now also deal increased damage to fighters. Sensor range reduced
  • Reduced the research costs and research time of Large Scale Cloaking Devices
  • Compound Torpedoes damage increased
  • Cho'naQ Class damage increased
  • Polaron Field now only affects up to 5 targets
  • Scout Station ping range increased to medium
  • Adjusted the construction time of Field Yard extensions
• Romulan
  • General Mijural: Now increases the Defensive Value of Defense Batteries by 5 and increases the Defensive Value of Singularity Transmitters by 10. Defense Batteries remain active for a longer time span if disconnected from a Singularity Transmitter (bf.: Extra Plasma Torpedo and bonus to all attributes)
  • Reduced all Dilithium and Tritanium costs
  • Shrike Class construction costs and construction time reduced
  • Shield strength reduced, hull strength increased
  • The Rei'karansu Covert-Ops Team no longer substracts marines from the Tavara's crew. The Tavara may no longer be field recrewed. The Covert-Ops Team is now in a 20 second cooldown and consumes 400 energy (bf.: 250)
  • If you researched a refit for Generix or Rhienn Class vessels, they will now also be directly available at the yards
  • Metaphasic Disruptor damage reduced and special energy costs adjusted slightly. Is now a target-ability
  • The Talon Class is now equipped with an advanced cloaking device. Sensor range reduced
  • The Spy Satellite has been removed. The Singularity Transmitter will now function as a long-range sensor station. Use refitted Talon Class vessels for Tachyon pings. Intelligence Report has been moved to the Talon Class refit and it is now equipped with Graviton-Tachyon Pings
  • Disruptor Turret renamed to Defense Battery. The Defense Battery no longer requires a Staryard to be built. Stationary Cloaking on Defense Batteries no longer consumes energy. Singularity Transmitters may not cloak
  • Radiation Device energy costs and area of effect increased
  • Eresis Class movement speed and construction costs increased
  • Suppressive Shielding effectiveness reduced
  • Spy now reveals a sensor radius around all hostile stations. The radius and the duration is random
  • The Generix Class Support Refit is now capped to 6 vessels. Attribute bonuses changed to reduce Offensive Value by 3 and increase the Defensive Value by 17 (bf.: 2 Defensive Value). Costs adjusted.
  • The Talon Refit no longer requires research
  • Prefine Defense Components construction time shortend, but no longer reduces dilithium and tritanium costs. Now reduces construction time slightly and reduces the supply costs to a minimum
• Misc and Non-Playables
  • The Federation McKinley Yard may now produce all Warp-In vessels uncapped
  • Unity One may now use Intelligence Report and Tachyon Scan and is equipped with a medium range Graviton-Tachyon Ping

Fixes

• Fixed a crash when loading a savegame when vessels on the map were affected by special object effects like disabled shields or objects revealed by cloak detection
• Admiral's Log: Ships destroyed by some special abilities were not accounted correctly to the attacker
• Fixed a memory leak
• Solved several tooltip issues
• Breen Prototypes now also show their correct passive subsystem icons
• Fighters where invisibly counted against a fighter carrier's group number, making the Ctrl+Shift+(groupnumber) hotkeys ineffective in some cases
• Construction delays (or the new halt construction option) replaced a build item instead of moving it to the next queue slot in some cases
• Romulan Combat Cloak showed a 'stuck' cooldown delay on it's system icon
• Game mechanic
  • Romulan Cloak no longer consumes energy if the Leahval Class' Advanced Energy Reeling special is active
  • Dominion Cascade Feedback drains the intended amounts of special energy now
  • Klingon K'Vort Mixed-Tech (Federation) now has a correct weapon range
  • Fighters do not block construction anymore
  • Removed a station constructor exploit
  • Extra Energy Stores work as intended now
  • Klingon Scout Stations got their shield generators back
  • The chance that Graviton Torpedoes will deal hull damage now correctly improves with more modules installed
  • Many vessels which are refits had incorrectly high supply costs, like Rhienn Refits for example
  • Starfleet Warp-In reinforcements will no longer inherit the shield/hull damage ratio of the Starfleet Command structure
  • Fixed several cloak-detect issues with neutral targets
  • Fixed some bugs with the Federation Tricobalt Triloader
  • Romulan Vmax Projectile Weapons do now correctly increase damage against targets with higher Defensive Values
  • Some special weapons were no longer usable on veterans once the veteran cap was full
  • Klingon ranked up Call-to-Arms-Vutpa' Class troopships are now correctly double-click-selected along with unranked crafts
  • You should now get the correct amount of resources back from recycling
  • Cloaked stations will now decloak when the Romulan Cloaking Generator is destroyed
  • Romulan Stationary Cloak can no longer be exploited. There is now a cooldown on all cloaking devices
  • If a vessel gains a new rank while a temporary special ability is active, those effects will no longer be canceled
  • Vessels sent to a repair facitlity shouldn't 'forget' their given command anymore when they were previously part of a ship formation
  • Fixed the docking positions for many shipyards and repair facilities
  • Corrected some incorrectly calculated prices for Borg Adaptor modules
  • Dominion Tetryon-Photon Torpedo is now artillery range as intended
  • Klingon K'Vort Class Bird of Preys should no longer decloak when using their special ability
  • You may now refit Romulan Talon Class scouts during cease fire