Fleet Operations: Roots is a total conversion of the Fleet Operations project,
itself a mod of the popular space-based RTS game Star Trek Armada II, which
in turn was the successor to Star Trek Armada.
To celebrate the re-release of Star Trek Armada II on GOG.com, version 4.0 brings many fixes and improvements, including a modified game engine to improve gameplay.
The mod includes 3 fully original single player campaigns with a total of 19 missions. You get to play as, and against, every one of the 6 factions in the game. For several missions you get to choose the faction you play as.
Roots aims to keep most of what made Fleet Operations and Star Trek Armada II
great while also returning a bit of the atmosphere of Star Trek Armada.
A rock-paper-scissors system, combined with a smaller number of ship classes and
build limits on capital ships make each ship useful, even during the late game.
This mod also puts the Cardassians back into the game as a fully playable faction.
1. Introduction
Fleet Operations: Roots is a total conversion of the Fleet Operations project,
itself a mod of the popular space-based RTS game Star Trek Armada II, which
in turn was the successor to Star Trek Armada.
To celebrate the re-release of Star Trek Armada II on GOG.com, version 4.0 of
this mod brings many fixes and improvements, including a modified game engine to improve gameplay.
The mod includes 3 fully original single player campaigns with a total of 19 missions.
You get to play as, and against, every one of the 6 factions in the game. For several
missions you get to choose the faction you play as.
Roots aims to keep most of what made Fleet Operations and Star Trek Armada II
great while also returning a bit of the atmosphere of Star Trek Armada.
A rock-paper-scissors system, combined with a smaller number of ship classes and
build limits on capital ships make each ship useful, even during the late game.
This mod also puts the Cardassians back into the game as a fully playable faction
where the original Fleet Ops left them out. Speaking of… the original Fleet Ops is
now included in Roots, accessible through the “Mod Loader” menu.
This mod does not require a previous installation of Fleet Ops,
however it does require a valid Star Trek Armada II executable file (armada2.exe)
from GOG.com, or an original CD-ROM.
Enjoy,
JanB
2. Installation Instructions
- Run the Fleet Ops Roots Mod 4.0 Installer exe.
- Do not install into a folder that already contains files, instead choose an empty folder or create one
during installation when the installer asks for a destination location.
- You do not need an existing Fleet Ops installation, but you will need a valid Armada 2 copy from
GOG.com, or an Armada 2 CD-ROM.
- The installer will ask you for either the setup.exe located on a mounted CD-ROM, or a valid
Armada II executable (armada2.exe) file from GOG.com, this can typically be found
in:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games\Star Trek Armada II"
- Run the game from the desktop icon and set graphical, sound and gameplay settings under the
Options menu. If you run into trouble here you may have to change the game's "High DPI Settings" to
"Scaling performed by Application", and if that doesn't work set the game to Windows 8 compatibility
mode (although the latter may lower performance)
- Also note that setting the game speed directly from the main menu may not always set it correctly ingame, in that case set the game speed from the escape menu during a game, or from the advanced
settings menu under the instant action setup (and then click “Save Settings”).
- Play the game and enjoy!
3. Global Features
- New rock-paper-scissors balance system between ship types and armed stations, based on types rather than weapon range.
- Fully original single player campaigns, complete with cutscenes.
- A combat system where even small, early-game, ships stay relevant.
- A modified game engine with upscaled menus (1200x900 instead of 800x600), and
several other improvements (more details can be found in the Changelog below).
- The original Fleet Ops has been made compatible with the new game engine and is included
as a mod (accessible though the “Mod Loader” menu under the “Options” menu). It also gets
the game engine modifications, a reduced framerate impact from cloaked ships, and better graphics
for background objects.
- Much improved AI opponents that you'll struggle to survive against on
the highest difficulty setting.
- Most combat ships and stations have secondary weapon systems that
target additional enemies so battles look less like entire fleets ganging up
on individual ships.
- A fully functional Cardassian faction.
- A special ability cycle system to allow more control over support ships with
multiple special abilities.
- Fewer ships classes and stations per faction for increased battlefield
control and oversight, eliminating units that served no real purpose.
- Graphical updates to most ships, stations, effects, and background objects.
- Interface improvements to allow more (efficient) control.
- Improved formation system, ship physics, and ship movement autonomy system.
- Heavily optimized with low memory usage, shorter loading times, and higher framerates,
even with cloaked ships on the screen.
- Avatars and ship ranks have been removed to improve oversight, because the AI could not handle them properly anyway (such as with build limits) and because they had little impact on gameplay in any case. However there is a limited avatar system in some single player missions where you get to choose
the race you play the mission with.
4. Detailed Features
- Each faction has 8 combat ship classes (except for the Dominion who lack a Destroyer), namely a Scout, Destroyer, Cruiser, Artillery ship, Berserker, Support ship, Battleship and Dreadnought.
- Scouts are extra fast, have cloak detection and a large sensor range, but they
are quite vulnerable, even to Destroyers.
- Destroyers are cheap, light warships that are especially useful against Scouts,
Artillery ships, and Berserkers, but weak against Battleships and Dreadnoughts.
- Cruisers are balanced medium warships, neither weak nor strong against any particular targets, but cheaper than Support ships and Berserkers (also harder to capture than Berserkers), buildable by basic shipyards, and with numbers still a serious threat.
- Artillery ships excel against base defenses, but are generally quite powerful against any non-moving target, even Dreadnoughts, but they are glass cannons that are even vulnerable to Destroyers, and they need a Scout's sensor range to fire from outside the firing range of base defenses.
- Berserkers are derived from Cruisers. They are specialized big-target hunters that are cost-effective against Battleships, Dreadnoughts, Support ships and base defenses. Compared to Cruisers they are more expensive, have smaller crews, and require an advanced shipyard. They are not cost-effective against
Destroyers.
- Support ships are also derived from Cruisers. They are more expensive but come with special weapons, including the Fleet ECM Optimizer that does not have to be researched and partially protects an entire surrounding fleet (or base defenses) from enemy weapons fire. They are vulnerable to Berserkers.
- Battleships are heavy, expensive warships. Only 10 can be fielded at any one time. They are especially useful against base defenses and Destroyers, however they are somewhat vulnerable to Berserkers.
- Dreadnoughts are the most powerful, most expensive warships. Depending on the faction 1, 2, or 3 can be fielded at any one time. They are essentially beefed-up Battleships but also have a special weapon that boosts the damage output of all nearby allied ships and stations by 20%. They are somewhat vulnerable to Berserkers.
- Starbases and a single type of defense platform are the only armed stations (base defenses) in the game. However Starbases are incredibly powerful, they can easily take on a Dreadnought 1-on-1 (except the Borg Cube) and both they and defense platforms have slightly longer firing ranges than any ships, except Artillery ships.
- Scouts and sensor platforms can continously detect nearby cloaked ships, although scouts (except the Romulan scout) require a technology to be researched first, and for scouts the detection range is smaller than their normal sensor range.
- All conventional weapons have a 100% hitchance unless affected by defensive special weapons.
- The maximum zoom out level has been increased by 10%.
- Large stations now have smaller footprints (but shipbuilding stations still have enough room to function) so they can be placed closer together.
- An example of the rock-paper-scissors system is the following: the Defiant class is the Federation's Berserker type ship, which does 50% more damage to, and take 50% less damage from, large targets such as Battleship type ships and Stations, but do 50% less damage to, and take 50% more damage from, Destroyer type ships, which in turn are weak against Battleships and Stations.
- The shields of all ships and stations have 3 times as many hitpoints as their hulls. For example, a Starbase has 11200 hitpoints of which 8400 are shield hitpoints and 2800 are hull hitpoints.
- All ships and stations need 240 seconds to fully recharge their shields and 360 seconds to fully repair their hulls. System repair takes 300 seconds, except for the Cardassians and Borg who can repair faster. Going back to the Starbase example: it recharges 30 shield hipoints per second. For comparison, a typical Scout only does 11 damage per second (combined DPS of all its weapons) so it can never deplete a Starbase's shields on its own, but a typical Battleship, with a DPS of 58, could.
- Resources can be bought and sold for other resources in units of 1000 at a starbase.
Fleets move in reworked, tactically useful and relatively compact formations.
- The AI has been reprogrammed to make cloaked AI-controlled fleets decloak when they stop moving
if enemy ships are nearby, making the AI use cloaking more effectively and preventing AI fleets from
staying passive while permanently cloaked.
- The "Game Difficulty" setting in the "Game Settings" menu affects the Roots single player
missions: on "Hard" the enemy deals 20% more damage to your ships, on "Easy" the enemy deals 20%
less damage to your ships and your mining ships mine 10% more quickly, note that "Game Difficulty"
does NOT affect instant action games.
- Cloaked ships affect the game’s framerate much less than in the original Fleet Operations.
Installation Instructions
- Run the Fleet Ops Roots Mod 4.0 Installer exe.
- Do not install into a folder that already contains files, instead choose an empty folder or create one during installation when the installer asks for a destination location.
- You do not need an existing Fleet Ops installation, but you will need a valid Armada 2 copy from GOG.com, or an Armada 2 CD-ROM.
- The installer will ask you for either the setup.exe located on a mounted CD-ROM, or a valid Armada II executable (armada2.exe) file from GOG.com, this can typically be found in:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games\Star Trek Armada II"
- Run the game from the desktop icon and set graphical, sound and gameplay settings under the Options menu. If you run into trouble here you may have to change the game's "High DPI Settings" to "Scaling performed by Application", and if that doesn't work set the game to Windows 8 compatibility mode (although the latter may lower performance)
- Also note that setting the game speed directly from the main menu may not always set it correctly ingame, in that case set the game speed from the escape menu during a game, or from the advanced settings menu under the instant action setup (and then click “Save Settings”).
- Play the game and enjoy!
EDIT: since people have asked me how to shift between the two (in-game) font sizes after installation, here is how to do that:
- open \Data\Sprites\FontFinal4_18.spr
- change the line @include FontFinal4_XX.spr where "XX" should be "16" for the smaller font, and "17" for the larger font (without the quotation marks).
Changes since Roots version 3.2
- Game engines modifications:
----------------------------------------------------------
- fixes the invalid pointer crashes in the Fleet Ops 4.0 engine
- now shows tooltips on objects belonging to other teams
- disables the checksum protection on the dll so others can improve it
further
- shell menu and button fonts no longer resize to outsized proportions
when Windows desktop scaling is enabled on the user's system
- when loading a savegame all objects already under construction are
now correctly counted towards the unit caps
- the user profile, savegames, saved maps, etc... are now stored in a
different folder to avoid interference with other versions of Fleet
Ops, the path is the same but ends in "Star Trek Armada II Fleet Ops
Config" instead of "Star Trek Armada II Fleet Operations"
- crew cost is no longer displayed in verbose tooltips of buildbuttons, just like in Fleet Ops 3.2.7
- ships using a cloaking device with classlabel "CloakingDeviceImp"
are now more visible against the background of space (for their owner
and allies)
- ships using a cloaking device with classlabel "CloakingDevice" no
longer have their alert status automatically set to yellow when they
cloak (this was bugged in the stock game where the alert status would
stay yellow even after decloaking)
- construction ships can now build stations from farther away (100
units instead of 15), vastly reducing the chance they'll get stuck trying
to reach a hard-to-reach build location
- starbases (the object needs to have ainame = "StarbaseProcess" and classlabel = "Starbase")
can now be ordered to use special weapons while building a ship
- nebula objects are now hardcoded to not rotate, except for the
rotation animation from their .sod models
- increases the size of the shell menus by 50 percent (from 800x600 to
1200x900)
- provides a hack that can make ships fire conventional weapons while
cloaked with a classlabel "CloakingDevice" cloak, for this set
maxspecialenergy = 0 in the ship's ODF
- mining ships replacing into another mining ship will now keep following their mining orders
- mining ships can now fire both regular and special weapons while mining
- construction ships can now fire regular weapons while building something
- fixes a glitch where AI-controlled ships would sometimes stay completely passive for
long periods of time after exiting a wormhole, not even defending themselves when
attacked
- the AI has been reprogrammed to make cloaked AI-controlled fleets decloak when they stop moving if enemy ships are nearby, making the AI use cloaking more effectively and preventing AI fleets from staying passive while permanently cloaked
- the AI now chooses resources moons in order of distance (instead of resource type) to decide where to build its expansions, giving it a more compact and logical base building posture, this can be overruled in the AIP files
- large ships will now return fire when attacked by a smaller ship at the edge of the larger ship's sensor range (sensor/weapons range mismatch for large ships has been reduced)
----------------------------------------------------------
- The game now comes with vanilla Fleet Ops 4.0 installed as a mod, which has
been made compatible with the game engine modifications and with better-looking background objects, reduced impact on the framerate by cloaked ships, and the optional larger in-game font
Changelog, part 2:
- Converts the mod back to Fleet Ops 4.0, this brings back all the small
improvements of Fleet Ops 4.0, and it solves the intermittent lighting/hull
reflection issue with Fleet ECM and Fleet Coordination
- Improved installer which now allows the user to choose small or large
in-game fontsize and ensures everyone has the same version of the game,
verification before installation can be done with either a valid Armada2.exe
file (for example from the GOG version of the game), or a valid CD
- The AI is now much more likely to starts exploring and attacking early in the game, instead of staying inside its base for a long time
- The "Lines" formation has been replaced by the "Wall" Formation which is
perfect for massing fleets of artillery ships without them bunching up or straying too close to targets that can shoot back, but can also be used by other ship types to bring as much firepower as possible down on a single immobile and valuable target, like a starbase
- The default formation is now two vertical layers deep and slightly more tightly packed, making it easier to maneuver fleets through chokepoints and around nebulas
- All formations, including the default formation, now have the fleet lining up behind where the move cursor was clicked, not around it, this makes it easier to move fleets just outside of enemy weapons range or around nebulas
- Tooltips are now more compact, taking up less screen space, and build tooltips now display the build time for objects, in in-game seconds (which varies based on the game speed)
- Decreased texture memory usage for smoother gameplay without compromising
on visual quality
- Further reduces the impact of cloaked ships (using the CloakingDevice classlabel, as all ships in Roots do) on the screen on the game's framerate, even while displaying larger numbers of them before it starts to hide them from view
- Ships systems repairs are now faster faster, and the Borg and Cardassians repair their ships' subsystems 50% faster than the other factions
- Ships and stations now have Borg nodes appear on their hull if assimilated or built by the Borg
- Warp-ins now have the vessel warping in across the map, providing some delay
and warning for warp-ins behind enemy lines
- Fixes shadow-like black areas on some ship models for some graphic cards
- Fleets now move and stack up more seamlessly, especially larger ships, and now are much less likely to point upwards when standing still
- Many lower-resolution textures have been carefully AI-upscaled, but not so much that it affects game performance
- Fixes a bug where the destruction of a Jem'Hadar Attackship would not always
return part of its resource cost to its owner
- Supply generation is now 20% slower to make supply more relevant as a resource
- Buying dilithium and tritanium at starbases now happens in increments of 1000, instead of 100, and the supply/connections cost per unit of dilithium or tritanium has been increased, because of the game engine modifications resources can now be bought while the starbase is building something
- The Romulan Holo-emitter now has a limit of up to 4 for the number of vessels it can target
- The Romulan Serkas Class artillery ship now has the same cloaking device as all other Romulan ships, and it can still fire while cloaked
- The "Game Difficulty" setting in the "Game Settings" menu now affects the Roots single player missions: on "Hard" the enemy deals 20% more damage to your ships, on "Easy" the enemy deals 20% less damage to your ships and your mining ships mine 10% more quickly, note that "Game Difficulty" does NOT affect instant action games
- The Roots AI now builds mining stations at the two resource moons closest to its starting base
- Several minor fixes such as reducing the Z-fighting on several ship models and adding music for observers back in.
Hi Jan, could you add a update log we can see please. There is constantly new versions being uploaded and I am not sure what changed. It would be great just to see what you do or fix every time you upload the new update.
Sorry: yeah, fingers crossed this was really the last time. My vision for the mod is complete, so it was only because of major bugs that I uploaded new versions. Hopefully that's now done.
Things I've changed since the first upload of 4.0:
- workaround for an out-of-sync issue in multiplayer that plagues Fleet Ops, I can't guarantee it will solve all OOS in Roots, but it seems to definitely solve most of them. I didn't have any afterwards and the only ones that were reported to me were fixed by this, but you never know with such an old game and stock Fleet Ops is known for having OOS issues (though Roots has way fewer elements that can potentially cause OOS issues than stock Fleet Ops does).
- changes to the engine so construction ships can't be ordered to move (via group-select), decommission, etc... while building, but starbases can still use (special) weapons while building, also a fix to the longstanding Fleet Ops issue where a mining ship that got promoted or transformed would stop mining.
The Borg Cube fires more rapidly, but less damage per shot, so same DPS, but better against swarms of small ships.
- The Borg Support Node now generates resources.
- Improvements to some mission maps (like location of moons, and the pacing of The Raptor's Wrath).
- Better race icons for the admiral's log.
- AI-upscale of the ship explosion textures.
- Slightly more spread out formations to reduce ships getting stuck.
- Slightly reduced range for mining beams to reduce mining ships getting stuck.
-The Cardassians now start with an Emergency Mining Center, which can now also move around slowly.
- Fixed a 12-year old bug in the Fleet Ops engine where the application would crash to desktop if you ended a game while a build or ship command menu was open.
- The ReadMe now has a bit more explanation on the differences between the factions.
Thank you very much for the detailed explanation. These are great QOL changes.
Well, I had to upload another file after all (4 February 2024)... I replaced the Armada2.ldl with a file with random content (since it's non-functional anyway, it just has to be present in the file structure) to prove I'm not secretly a dirty pirate giving away the GOG.com executable to people so they can run stock Armada 2 without buying it from GOG ;-)
But I put in some actual updates content too, mostly as a result of more gameplay testing:
- The default movement autonomy for ships is now "High" in instant action/multiplayer and most missions. I found that "Medium" doesn't have any advantages over "High", and it can cause groups of artillery ships to move closer to their target than they need to (even to within the target's weapons range), that is fixed by using "High" movement autonomy.
- Starbases can no longer be outranged by ships (except artillery ships of course, and in edge cases the Borg Cube, which has a slightly longer range than other ships because it's so large and range is calculated from the center of a ship).
- Starbases are now slightly easier for ships to physically navigate around.
- The Emergency Mining Center will now be selected as a non-combat ship (like mining freighters and construction ships) when dragging a selection box.
- Fixes to glitches that could occur in two missions ("Improvise" and "Adapt") if you skipped cinematics, and balance/pacing fixes in some other missions to make them less frustrating. I can now definitely vouch for all missions being beatable for experienced, but not top-tier, RTS-players, most missions can be completed within 30 minutes realtime at max game speed, a handful will take 60-90 minutes.
- Fixed a visual glitch in the Serkas' ship model.
Thanks, there is also a visual glitch on the Keldon. If you look below its pod, you will see through its black shadow.
Thanks for catching that, it's been fixed in the new upload.
Oh sorry I forgot to add as a suggestion
The Klingons and Romulans have cloak, which is cool and according to lore it's right. Keep in lore, the Breen should also have cloak. If the Breen artillery ship and support vessel gain cloak it would really add a interesting dynamic to the Dominion game play as their game play is very static and not that flexible. I hope you could add it in as I see this mod as really Canon to the letter.
Okay, another upload today:
- There is no Armada2.ldl file in the mod anymore.
- Movement autonomy has been changed: on low ships truly won't move unless ordered, on medium they will also not move, but will surround a manually (by the player) designated target so they can all fire their weapons. A lot less babysitting will be required now and medium movement autonomy is now actually very useful, and the default setting (Fleet Ops engine change, so will transfer to any sub mods).
- Fixed a bug that made many missions from the A2 Classic Mod crash/freeze if that was ran as a sub mod within Roots.
- Fixed an old Fleet Ops bug where after exiting a wormhole AI-controlled ships would sometimes sit still and not fire weapons, even if they were under attack (Fleet Ops engine change, so will transfer to any sub mods).
- Some improvements to missions, including countdown timers in minutes instead of intervals of 5 minutes.
- Formations are now more efficient and when they have to turn around ships are less likely to get stuck in them.
- Mining ships that possess regular weapons (the Klingon one) can fire those while mining (Fleet Ops engine change, so will transfer to any sub mods).
Those changes are really amazing. These are really great, I mean great QOL changes that really bothered me. Thanks for this!
Hi Jan_B, I noticed when the Sartan goes through a wormhole, the fighters don't follow it into the wormhole. The fighters travel across the map to meet up with its parent ship. I saw this on the Nirvana II map.
AFAIK this is stock Fleet Ops behavior for fighters: the Avalon's fighters in stock Fleet Ops also behave like that.
Okay noted thanks
Hey janb -- very excited to try this out, but running into an EAccessViolation error upon completion of a mission/instant action loading screen. Any ideas? I'm running on an M2 Mac via Parallels w/ Windows 11 so there's a lot of layers of emulation going on; vanilla (GOG) Armada II and FO 3.2.7 (the separate instance; the one in the Roots launcher also crashes) both run fine (the latter after manually replacing Armada2.exe with the one from the GOG folder). Is there something different about yours vs. regular FO that would cause a crash? Have tried all the compatibility mode options, high DPI stuff, even some of the DX9 wrapper apps; nothing seems to get past it. Appreciate any advice you might have! I've attached a bug report/screenshot here: Fleetops.net
I have the same setup. It works quite well. The only issue I would say I have at this point is after a while the ram usage starts to creep up in a very large game. Some models loose textures. So to clear it I just push the escape key and return to game again and everything works well. Come to the discord server and we can talk about it. You can find the link to the discord on the bottom of the main page on fleetops.net site
Does it work now?
No unfortunately. Will check out the Discord, appreciate the suggestion Whyarewehere
Can confirm we got it working! For anyone else experiencing, rename helper.dll in /data to ArmadaL.exe and you should be good to go :) Thanks again!
Changelog of version 4.0.2:
- Fixes an issue where ships and fleets would sometimes be unable to permanently return to the level plane of the map.
- When first installed on a system with desktop scaling the game no longer requires forcing DPI scaling to be overridden by the application to run. It will now launch without crashing and automatically set the correct scaling mode the first time an instant action game or mission is launched.
- Small improvements to the missions "Resistance" and "The Means of Construction", also in all Borg missions Sphere 617 now starts with low special weapon autonomy so it doesn't use its holding beam unintentionally.
- Jem'Hadar Attackships and Topmey Class mining ships now always refund 50% of their resource cost when lost, even when they're captured by the enemy, or destroyed in a ramming attack.
Changelog of version 4.0.3:
- Fixes an issue where Borg units would all cost zero collective connections (or tritanium in the stock Fleet Ops 4.0 sub mod).
- Crew cost now no longer shows up in a build button's verbose tooltip, just like in Fleet Ops 3.2.7 (Fleet Ops engine change, so will transfer to any sub mods).
- Moved the shield projector weapon from starbases to sensor platforms, and those now will use the weapon under special weapon autonomy, unlike the starbases, and Borg mining ships now also have a shield projector.
- Fixed an issue where in the advanced setup menu for instant action an illegitimate techtree could be selected by selecting one of the "---" entries, especially in the stock Fleet Ops 4.0 sub mod.
- "Overcome" (the final mission of the Free Borg campaign) is now more difficult than before.
- Several minor improvements: slightly decreased starbase footprint sizes, visual improvements to the Galor/Keldon/Emergency Mining Center models, and the Fek'lhr is now actually immune to ion storms, like its tooltip says.
Changelog of version 4.0.4:
- Fixes a glitch in the mission "Improvise" where the victory condition would not trigger if you cycled through the Borg Cube's special weapon loadout.
- Fixes a glitch in the Mission "Adapt" where the Dominion would become hostile again if you saved and loaded the game after making peace with them.
- Fixes a glitch in the mission "Duet" where the Dominion would be stuck in their techtree too early so they would barely build any ships.
- Minor texture improvements.
None of these changes break multiplayer compatibility with version 4.0.3.
Great stuff
Changelog of version 4.0.5:
- Fixes a bug in the modified game engine where if the AI is set to build stations outside its main base and has to go through a wormhole to get there the construction ship would refuse to enter the wormhole (this affects the stock Fleet Ops 4.0 sub mod).
- Fixes a bug from stock Fleet Ops 4.0 where the Romulan, Dominion and Federation AI would get stuck in their build trees around the point where they start to build large battleships.
- Fixes a texture crash in the stock Fleet Ops 4.0 sub mod when playing as the Borg.
- The stock Fleet Ops 4.0 sub mod now has a working, and sensible, "Free Tech" .XML techtree option for instant action/multiplayer (it now has build limits and upgrades/research can't overlap anymore).
- In the stock Fleet Ops 4.0 sub mod starbases can no longer be upgraded while building a ship (this would cancel, without a refund, any build process). - Now only stations with ainame = "StarbaseProcess" and classlabel = "Starbase" can use special weapons while building something (classlabel = "shipyard", in combination with decommissi and repairFacility = 0, can be used instead in most cases), this ensures compatibility with several mods, including Tryptic's TM mod (Fleet Ops engine change, so will transfer to any sub mods).
- The Cardassian Fighter Drones in Roots have been nerfed a bit: they now have 25 percent fewer hitpoints and their respawn time has been increased from 7 to 10 seconds.
- Many small improvements to the single player missions, including balance/difficulty changes for some missions.
- Adds 5 instant action/multiplayer maps converted from the "Fleet Ops Remastered" mod (thanks to Admiral Nat), these were also added to the stock Fleet Ops 4.0 sub mod.
Note that these changes break multiplayer compatibility with versions 4.0.3 and 4.0.4.
P.S. I found that when large formations of large ships seem to get "stuck" in a crowded area in some of the single player missions this can usually be resolved by pressing the "S" key and then ordering the move command again.
Wow impressive changes. The Fighter drones are way to powerful I agree. Thanks.
Thanks. Yeah, the drones were certainly a bit OP in some situations. I think they're still powerful after the nerf, but now at least they can be suppressed by secondary weapons and you'll need something like 50% more Sartans to get a drone deathball.
Changelog of version 4.0.6:
- Fixes a bug where the crew cost of an item would still show up even if the crew cost was 0 (Fleet Ops engine change, so will transfer to any sub mods).
- Whitespaces between resource costs in tooltips are now smaller, making many tooltips less wide (Fleet Ops engine change, so will transfer to any sub mods). Note that this new narrow whitespace replaces the "$" character, so any modders that want to use this should adjust their font_final sprite files accordingly.
- The Cardassian Fighter Drones in Roots will now disappear when their carrier has been destroyed, even if another carrier is nearby. This is effectively also a slight nerf because it makes the tactic of targeting the carriers instead of the drones more effective (this was always the best way to handle Sartan Class drone carriers, but now it works even better than before). At the same time, the drones are now a bit more likely to engage enemies on their own at medium range.
- Cardassian Fighter Drones now show up in the admiral's log.
- Refund drones now take up only one line in the admiral's log, instead of two, and the Klingon Field Shipyard now has a picture in the admiral's log.
- Increases the range of the Ion Storm weapon from 600 to 700.
Oh the drone and ion storm changes are a great welcome
Changelog of version 4.0.7:
- Cloaked AI-controlled fleets (but not scouts) decloak when they stop moving if enemy ships are nearby, making the AI use cloaking more effectively and preventing AI fleets from staying passive while permanently cloaked (Fleet Ops engine change, so will transfer to any sub mods).
- The "Box" (default) and "Column" fleet formations in Roots can now turn or reverse more quickly and ships are now less likely to get stuck in them.
- The "Game Difficulty" setting in the "Game Settings" menu now affects the Roots single player missions: on "Hard" the enemy deals 20% more damage to your ships, on "Easy" the enemy deals 20% less damage to your ships and your mining ships mine 10% more quickly, note that "Game Difficulty" does NOT affect instant action games.
- The "Create Shortcut" button in the "Mod Loader" menu can now be pressed in the correct position.
- Fixes some issues with the "Single Player" menu that would appear with the A2 Classic Mod (or other sub mods that would have a single player menu), also enables written descriptions of the campaigns when hovering the mouse over the campaign buttons for the Roots campaigns (Fleet Ops engine change, so will transfer to any sub mods).
- Adds several defensive weapons platforms to the player's left flank in the mission "A Good Day To Die" to balance the mission.
- Background star fields in the stock Fleet Ops 4.0 sub mod are now less blurry.
Changelog of version 4.0.8:
- The AI now chooses resources moons in order of distance (instead of resource type) to decide where to build its expansions, giving it a more compact and logical base building posture, this can be overruled in the AIP files (Fleet Ops engine change, so will transfer to any sub mods).
- The Roots AI now builds mining stations at the two resource moons closest to its starting base.
- The stock Fleet Ops 4.0 sub mod's AI now expands in a more compact fashion: expanding to nearby moons first, this makes it better able to protect its territory and build up its bases more quickly.
- The sensor/weapons range mismatch for large ships has been reduced so large ships not on high movement autonomy will now return fire when attacked by a smaller ship at the edge of the larger ship's sensor range (Fleet Ops engine change, so will transfer to any sub mods).
- Improved response by mining freighters after using a an ability with classlabel "replaceweapon": they will now keep mining the same moon if they replaced themselves while near that moon, rather than going to the nearest mining station and mining from the nearest moon to that station (Fleet Ops engine change, so will transfer to any sub mods).
- Cloaked enemy ships revealed by a scout ship in Roots are now continuously visible (until they're out of range), rather than blinking in and out of vision intermittently.
- Fixes an issue where the map for the Free Borg mission "Adapt" was missing.
- The "Box" (default) and "Column" fleet formations in Roots now fill out their front rows first, presenting more forward-facing firepower for small fleets. They also put the more powerful ships at the front nearly always now.
EDIT: 3 May 2024 hotfix:
- Fixes an issue where individual ships on medium movement autonomy could still be lured away (kited) by enemies firing on them (Fleet Ops engine change, so will transfer to any sub mods).
- Further reduces attack range mismatches, especially involving the largest ships. This is partly a Fleet Ops engine change, and partly optimisation of shield bubble sizes, sensor ranges, and weapon ranges which are specific to the Roots mod itself.
- Federation, Klingon, Dominion, and Cardassian artillery ships in Roots now have the correct movement speed (from 135 to 150 map units per second).
Nice