Anyone think the pirates would be good if they were changed to nausicaans and or Orions?

they'd be great as the orion syndicate.

Myfist that LCARS is OUTSTANDING!. I certainly couldnt have pulled that off. Keep it up!

SoA 2 uses duplicates of certain brush files for the extra factions so be careful when you incorporate TSOP. Double, and triple check everything. BTW what happened to the warp effect texture? and why are the cardassian ship textures screwed up yet again? I lost count on how many times over i fixed those ship textures. I will fix it one more time, but that will be the last time. Stop overwriting new files with old stuff on sync guys. Check your stuff before you upload. This is important. We need to make sure we have an error free dev build. Check your work thrice over before you upload.

The original plan was to have the Orion Syndicate as the pirates.

Glad you like it. Just wait to see the goodies I have in store.

As for the textures, for now I am only working on files I created, look for _m0d. Once I have all the old elements like the button all replaced that file name will be used for my new file so for now there is 2 of all the UI textures. Have not yet touched any other textures other than Backdrops and background buttons and the whole window folder.

I got only one word for that LCARS myfist and that is WOW Great Job keep up the Awesome work

Hey guys. It's been a long time. I just found this forum. I have a couple of models for you if you want them. An upgraded, modified B'Rel and a K'Tinga. The ST team at Relic forums is using them for HW2 and I don't know about conversion, face count, or what type of materials are usable... I just thought I'd offer.

Glad to see you guys are still promoting ST.

herbyguitar AKA: Charvell

CHARVELL!! Glad to see you! PM me when you get the chance

0.4.6E Patch for Entrenchment.

The Dominion have a new starbase.

And it's really cool!!!  I like the design!  The only bad thing I noticed is it's using the federation HUD icons...  other than that it's perfect!!! 

so to install the upgrade we just put the new files in the existing coorosponding folders?

also in case anyone is interested I've made a map of star trek space for this mod. Its on my moddb account.

can you please email it to me or share your mod db account thanks in advance.  Also about the patch , the ui is under major reconstruction that is why there are no new icons for her yet. All in due time.

thanks jay

my moddb account is the same name as this account name but here's a link

http://www.moddb.com/members/davidt0504/addons

I've been a star trek fan since I was 4 years old, I'd get in from school around 1700ish, put some food on the stove and TNG would be on BBC2 at 1800, so I was so happy to find a mod for a solid RTS that actually had a feel of star trek. So thank you to all the contributers so far, its given me a nice pastime in these cold days where I can't drive anywhere for fear of running off the road!

I'm giving bits and bobs a look-see to see if I can help out a little, no promises since I left my previous mod team (a team that worked on Battlefield 2) since I was putting too much time in to gaming when I'm preparing to go to university to study nursing. I'll post up some bits I've been working on after xmas, e.g. been playing around with making a more realistic map where controlling systems isn't as annoying as currently in SINS.

anyway, just wanted to show my support for you guys, Live Long and Prosper.

P.S. The Dom starbase made me wet myself with happiness.

OMG   You guys just completely blew me away!!!

I downloaded the newest patch yesterday, and I've got a great game going... 4 players, FFA, each race but no BORG this time. Just a good romp with the Klinks Dom and Rommies...   Me as Federation.  And now 4 hours into it everything has been awesome!  I like the new militias, and so far each race seems very well balanced.  It's been an ass-kicking good game.

But then I researched Section 31, or whatever the culture spying ability is called, and looking ahead I spotted a well fortified Dominion held planet... I zoomed in to take a look at what I was dealing with... and there it was...  sitting off next to the new Dominion starbase... a Dominion trading post!!!

Think a Dominion Trading post is no big deal?  Well think again my friends... I'm not saying what it is...go and get a game going and look for yourselves...  I guerentee your jaw will drop and you'll absolutely love the MOD team... again!!!

Thanks for the really cool surprise guys!!!!

Hmm...

That surprise actually came with 0.4.3E.  What do you think of that work around to the entity file shortcomings?

Assuming I didn't break something, the next update for entrenchment will occur when I get me a rommie counterpart.  In the meantime, I'd like feedback on the rebellion revamp and existing defensive setups.

Oh... opps...  hehe.  I guess I was so focused on the Borg then I missed it.  But as strange as it might seem, I finally got a little bored of the Borg and decided to start a game without them.  This has been much more fun and the first time I really sat back and let the other races catch up so it would be a real FFA...  Now the Dominion is like they should be, a real pain in the ass!!!

I guess everything is cool with the defenses...  but if I co-ordinate everything I can still rip thru most of the AI's defensive buildups.  Do the big 8th level superweapons work?  Things like the N-cannon, whatever they happened to be named in the mod?  They're the only thing I wonder about... I get everything researched and make one, but they don't seem to do much.

The Rebellion... now that was a neat little trick!!!  Here I was getting a nice, heavily defened front line planet set up... and next thing I know I lost a central planet to rebels...  what???   How the hell did that happen?  I had no idea they were jumping in, and it really threw me a curve ball at first...  which was so cool!  I like when something unexpected like that happens, it makes for a much more exciting game.  Now you can't just pay attention to the enemy, you have to keep an eye on the home planets as well...  and you can't get away with defending just the ones up front... you have to defend everyone or risk losing one.  I think the only thing I'd modify is adding a cap ship in the later rebel raids... if it's possible without breaking the AI... really toughen it up a bit!

The only thing I can think of, off hand, is can you guys add a starbase to the pirate bases?  Doesn't matter what kind, the Orion would probably steal whatever they could get, but for some reason the normal TEC base comes to mind... seems kinda Orionish... ... but a starbase always adds some more fun to taking down the pirates.

Greetings everyone,

just wanted to drop a line and let everyone know what is going on with the soa2 team and the dip build. The UI is still undergoing a massive rebuild and my hat is off to myfist as he is doing a outstanding job on the lcars setup.   Also psychoak and myself have been busy hunting down alot of little bugs with the ai.  To be honest we have all the game crashing bugs worked out , now we are just focusing on the small error or glitches. All 4000 of them. None the less everyone can expect a new year with a new SOA2 for dip. At least thats our goal. Know on to address some more important things.  Elladan has been busy working on models for us. Everyone can see he work in the newest entrenchment patch. That darling of a dom starbase is his work.   He also has started the Romulan starbase and is making great progress with it.  We hope all enjoy the holidays and as always

LIVE LONG AND PROSPER. (\B):vulcan:(\B)

JAY AND TEAM

The culture gun for the Fed's (I can't remember what it's actually called, as I renamed it in the string to Isolytic Cannon) works as a ship neutraliser - It's the only weapon I had that allowed me to push on against the Borg without losing valuable capital ships. It temporarily knocks their ships offline, as well as destroying smaller ships and damaging larger ones.

Play as the Dominion, you should find them even more amusing.

Super weapons are... meh.  I haven't really figured out what I want to do with that mechanic.  I think they're moohoo myself.

The Fed's is horrific, total bullshit, that it can even turn the tide against the Borg says it all...  One of these days when I'm feeling creative again, I'll take another look at them.  For now I'm being lazy and ignoring them.

The Borg shouldn't detract from FFA play in Diplomacy like they do with Entrenchment.  The racial bents and upgrade potential gives us a lot of wiggle room.  Basically, the Borg are going to hate their guts, and be hated by everyone in return.  An alliance will take an act of God, cease fires will probably be a little more attainable.

Fooling around with the new version.

Like the new Dominion Starbase.

Speaking of Starbases, that's a huge drop in firepower and staying power, especially on SB defenses with a 75% reduction in shields.  Not even +3 defenses and +2 Regenerative Shielding makes them any tougher.  Maybe their firepower is fine, but the serious drop in SB staying power makes it look that much worse.

Feds... just tired of seeing stuff of Cruiser size or even Capital Ships getting disabled and dragged halfway across the map.  Amusing seeing Neghvars and Dominion Battleships / Enslavers getting disabled by Tractor Beam spams and never really getting much shots off.  This problem persisted with the previous version.  I would've commented on it earlier but I was playing around with the other factions also (haven't tried Romulans yet).  But the Tractor Beam spam is horrid.

"

Super weapons are... meh.  I haven't really figured out what I want to do with that mechanic.  I think they're moohoo myself."

To an extent they are kinda naf tbh, that they work against the borg is the main problem, though if they are to be included it would be good if their use is more standardised and rationalised, e.g. a enhanced coms station (using the current relay's mesh) that can spread culture remotely, or just an enhanced sensor station that can give information on other systems (again, can use the same mesh) would be useful and realistic within the Star Trek universe (e.g. the Dominion specifically had one such important installation that was captured by the Federation)

BTW I've been thinking of ways to differentiate the teams more, heres one idea I've come up with

Federation - Radically decrease their planet bombing capability (or even remove it for the feds since civilian casualties are a larger concern for the feds), instread rely on abilities to take over planets like the ability of the Ambassador class, that ability could be given to teh Shelly and constellation, and could be worth replacing the tractor beam on the nebula. This change would be pretty good since 1) fits more with star trek 2) means that there is one team that is severely hamstrung at planet conquest if it hasn't brought its x, y and z <- making x, y and z priority targets if you are defending your planet i.e. increasing the tactical depth

I've actually thought about working that into warp detection, but that's all you can do with it really.  There aren't any functions to limit the vision stuff to nearby planets.  We could do within the same solar system, but a large single star map is pretty hosed there.

An unimproved Dominion Starbase has about 500dps, higher than Feds(320) and Klingons(400).  There are four targets per bank so it's not as weak as the numbers say.  The weapon upgrades give a further 80%, so 900dps ignoring tech improvements.  The Klingons are only a little higher than that, and the Feds much lower.  Where durability is concerned, the Klingon Starbase has 40 shield points per second restored and 21k max shield points for three upgrades.  The Dominion Starbase only gets 5000 shield points with those three upgrades, and 1.6 per second restored.  Regenerative Shields on the other hand can run continuously, restoring 100 per second.  At 69% mitigation, you can completely absorb 300dps in actual damage, which is typically over twice that in ship stats, a fleet of 10 wont even be noticed.  In combination with the other ability, which vastly outstrips the others in damage potential, small raiding parties are rapidly dispatched without accomplishing anything.

It's impervious to a much larger force than the other sides can handle on their own, the trade off is that it gets smoked a lot faster against large fleets.  This is true of their defensive structures as well, a theme of their defenses.  Severely punishing against what would be a problem for other sides, but when there's enough firepower to ignore their shield regeneration, they last half as long.

The Starbase is an all or nothing proposition.  If you want a fortress with massive damage potential, you have to spend four upgrades on those abilities, you can't just jack weapons and toughness up and use the other three points on support.  If you do, you've got one hell of a monster though.  Opening Salvo gives it a damage potential of over 2kdps, dishing a maximum of 100,800 damage per shot.  If the thing came with 21k shields, the Borg would be the only side able to drop it.

Er... what?  Tractor Repulsion, the awesome one, and the frigate version of the normal tractor beam, only work on frigates.  Capital slot ships can only be tractor beam spammed by their counterparts.  Even the level 3 capital version is only a 12 second effect with a 60 second cooldown, the frigate version is 8 and 90.  It's hardly something to continuously disable the enemy with.  Now, tractor repulsion is awesome, but even it's only working 50% of the time, and does a two second interrupt, not a lasting disable that can prevent firing of weapons.  It's on a ship that blows up so fast you hardly notice them too, dies faster than their scout ship does.

Are you butt raping smaller fleets or what?

Okay, toyed around with my new game using 0.4.6.E some more.  Still playing Dominion.

Regarding the Starbase issue, with even Lv3 defense upgrade, Dominion Starbases at most get only 7.2k  shield strength.  The Shield Mitigation nowhere even gets worthy enough to compensate for that kind of shortfall.  The Regenerative Shield upgrade at Max Lv2, the shields still collapse every quickly.

I notice Klingon and Federation Starbases are still at 21k+ Shield Strength.  Compare that to Dominion SBs, who are 7k, that is a HUGE, drastic difference.  If the poor defenses are compensated by Utility or much higher Firepower, then it'd be good.  But there's no utility at all and the firepower is nowhere useful for such poor defenses.  The Torpedo area attack and Regen Shielding I know are continously draining Anti-Matter.  But it doesn't kill anything any quicker judging by the swarms of Mirandas and B'Rels still swarming around, and it doesn't help with longevity since the shields drop ridiculously fast.

18 targets, 5600 damage per target over 16 seconds.  100,800 damage.  If there is a swarm of Mirandas, 18 of them just died.  It's a bad, bad kitty.  That's Unicomplex level weaponry for the first 20 seconds of a battle.

Maximum possible damage output of a Federation Starbase in the first 20 seconds?  A fifth that.  The average over the entire length of the cycle is still twice what the Feds can do.  The Klingons are in much better shape(especially since I was a tard and left the damage to self off the overload ability), but there is no comparison between damage potential here, that Starbase dishes it.

Good point, I suspected that giving such a intel gathering device and then limiting the range at which it works wouldn't have been possible; instead it may be acceptable to give the enhanced sensor station the ability to target no more than 1-3 systems at a time to see whats going on there. I'm pretty sure it can be done since there is the mechanic already ingame of gaining intel on planets hwere you have culture. So what could be done is give hte station a tiny remote culture bonus similar to what it can do now, then use the culture-intel dynamic to allow the planet to be viewable.

Re tractor beam spam - I would have to agree with it. Tractor beams are a power intensive device, I don't see it likely to be used in a widescale combat situation.

I would suggest that most of the ships that use tractor beams be modified, so that they work as currently however they entail penalties to the ship that is using them, less speed, weapon cooldown increased and perhaps even shield mitigation. The idea being that the tractor beam is being used against the user and power is being drained. This turns the tractor beam from a spam weapon to a more specialised tool usable only by the more pursuit-orientated ships so that you can intentionally catch the ships you want. <- combining this ability with the ships that are capable of an in system warp would be more fun.

Also another suggestion,

Is it possible to decrease the chance to hit against all small and fast ships like the b'rel/fighers/dominator/defiant etc?

The smaller less powerful ships do tend to get forgotten as teh game progresses, and it would be nice to bring them more forward, being hard to hit seems to be the optimal solution. However I'm unsure how it should be accomplished exactly since I'm not sure if the buff can be applied to the target ship rather than the attacker (which would then affect its performance against all ships, which isn't desirable) if it can be applied to fighters it would be good too, as I find they are very easily destroyed. An ability called 'evasive manouvres' might be a thought as well.