Comments - quicksilver67

Too bad about the GUI.

Unbalanced and missing content.

I'll focus on the federation, a faction I usually don't play. I've noticed that the "advanced" ships like the Akira, etc., are actually no where near as good as some of the first ships available to you. In fact, much of the ship research can be completely ignored because it either weakens or duplicates existing forces. The intrepid class vessel is clearly in the frigate range, but it displays heavy cruiser capabilities far exceeding the Akira class? The New Orleans class, which frankly should occupy an earlier light cruiser class, as a step up from the Norway, is instead relegated to a completely unnecessary role, and is not even capable of defending itself, and is so late to the game that it is completely obsolete even in terms of what it can do. By the time it is available, hostile defenses (such as turrets) last only a matter of seconds anyway.

Let's talk claiming resources in an empty/un-colonizable space. Exactly which federation ship is supposed to perform that function? I have yet to find one that can do that.

Frankly, I can fix most of this, since I can unpack and rebalance these as well as anyone else, I'm just sorry that such a milestone release has this sort of issue.

Regarding the TEC:
I'm sorry, I meant cruisers, not capital ships. The TEC does NOT need capital ship help. In my opinion, that diplomacy option should have provided access to better Frigate Factory choices. They need access to mid-range, multi-task cruisers. The Kodiak is heavy enough, of course, but it has no fighter defenses what-so-ever. A "quad cannon" option for the Kodiak would go long way towards shoring it up, as would some ability to multi-target. It's the same story with the Katana Dreads that can be captured. The little AA frigate the TEC has gets taken out far too easily, but that's always been the case.

When I looked at the Assault Frigate and the MC40a frigates, I feel that the additional expense of the MC40a is not supported by the added abilities. I could see it being worthwhile, if it supported 2 squadrons of fighters. In a cost/benefit analysis, however, it comes up short. I don't need a frigate bombarding a planet, that's what I use capital ships for. I need frigates providing cover and taking out the rest of the facilities. My main gripe is regarding the description entry for the MC40a; I set a ton of those to build, based on the description before I realized they were essentially not worth it.

As to the Vassari/Advent -vs- TEC in late game:
I've played that match over and over for years. With the right mix of TEC ships, and points put into the correct areas, and a correct strategy, a player TEC fleet will ALWAYS walk all over an AI fleet. I cannot speak to a pvp match of those fleets. The point is, there is room for players to choose their winning strategies, and I disagree that the TEC "is all about" anything in particular.

Okay, so there seems to be some new balance issues. The TEC is now hopelessly outgunned, except for heir capital ships. I found it curious that 2 new cruisers for the Advent were listed (as if they needed any) in the shipyard menu for the TEC (not buildable, of course), but nothing new for the TEC. The ship descriptions/capabilities for the Rebels also need some work. The calamari light cruiser (which was supposed to field SEVERAL (several = 4) squadrons of fighters fields exactly 1, costs more than the Nebula attack cruiser (which also fields 1), and is significantly weaker. Total fail there. So there's some patch-work to do. To be honest, I'm not exactly sure what to do about the TEC, since their combat equipment is even more basic than the rebels.

The major issue I see here is that the starting ships available are descendants of ships that come later. For example, the federation starts off with access to the Saber, but requires several military labs to get to its predecessor, the Excelsior. That's not even about game balance, that's just plain silly. Another example is having the Voyager return research BEFORE the Intrepid class is even available. Silly. And what about the New Orleans class, with NO phasers?

Don't get me wrong, it's a solid mod, but there are a lot of details that still need to be corrected to avoid annoying those in the know.

You know, I have the mod in and working fine (use the zip version, peeps), no mini-dumps, no run issues. However, to be honest, I have been tracking the actions of the Large Address Aware software, and I'm really not completely sure it is actually doing anything, or if something on my computer is already handling that. I mean, it doesn't really seem to matter for me whether it is running or not.

This mod is visually very nice, and is better coordinated than SoA. I would agree that it is currently the best Star Trek mod, however, there are some problems. Nonetheless, thanks very much for the release!

1) Refits do not seem to have4 any effects on the ships they apply to.
2) Star Base (not outpost) constructors cannot leave the gravity well, and cannot make starbases.
3) Intro seems to promote Dominion as a separate race, but they are thrown in with the Cardassians.
4) Planetary defenses do not seem to be properly upgrading when research on improvements to armor, etc. are made.
5) Serious balance issues with late game races, specifically Borg.
6) GUI is a bit small, and could be a bit more clear.
7) Auto-repair platforms/ships seem to be hesitant to repair damaged vessels.

Sorry to say this, but it appears you have a serious memory leak issue. I had just started a game with the mod when I noticed severe frame stuttering. I run a memory usage reporting program, so I popped it open and low and behold, the memory was scrolling up like the national debt within the first 60 seconds of play. Within 72 seconds, it had exceeded 1.4 gigs, and was still headed up. The specs on my computer are enough to allow multiple vanilla games to run at the same time, so that isn't the issue. Just thought you'd want to know there's a problem.