i can see it now, fleets romulans and klingons with no cloaks wondering to each other.... is it fixed yet?

LOL

Like i said perma armastice.

Even though I would love a normal cloak, I for one would be fine with a cloak that only works when you are still (for traps). But if you have it working, like I said, that is great. A little cloak is better than no cloak.

Like i said it wont be perfect. just mainly cosmetic with an "armastice" type function, but its better than nothing at all.

Just a quick update guys. Shimmer, and i went over some balancing last night. I am impressed with what he has done so far. We both got a plan, and i think you guys are going to like it. If not then meh you dont have to play it

I am working on finishing up the non-canon Romulan lineup, and NO I am not going to tell you what they are hehehe.

Work on the new non-canon klingon lineups has started too.

The Breen, and Dominion are being merged into 1 faction. The are essencially part of the Dominion anyway. Tried like hell to make the breen its own faction, but it just aint happening. The Breen have too few ships, and the non canon units ive seen i wouldnt post on my frige as a 1st graders art. The Dominion can use these ships to fill some of its slots. So we will have only 5 playable factions. No this isnt an open door for the borg so get that idea out of your heads. 0.03 will only have 5 factions. Shimmer has a nasty surprise for ya with the pirates

0.03 is still going to be just a ships only release. The cosmetic cloak will be implemented so work will continue with the mod since the cloak was a major brick wall. Lord Tareq you have earned a place in the credits. I am STILL waiting for the patch 1.1 reference files so we can finish this release up.

Demo 0.04 will concentraite on the Research Trees, and Structures. Right now there are no research pre-req's for any ship in the mod. That will change in 0.04. It would also be nice if we had proper shipyards and stations too. That will be the priority in 0.04

About the Breen, they were only part of the Dominion in the armada 2 mod for the same reason. It will make it far easier not having to try to find enough Breen ships.

Though your current focus is finishing all of the ships for the 0.03 release, before you release it please let me know so I can send you the finished versions of my stations so you can see about adding a few stations to the release.

Do you need voice overs for the ships. I would be willing to do some stuff for that (klingons in particular). I just ame getting a little anoyed at hearing the TEC responses coming from a klingon. (just to tell you, I have no idea how to code those in, but I wouldn't mind doing some and even getting my friends to do some)

Also, do you have the Superweapons planned out yet or are you still taking sudgestions.

For balancing reason I hope there isnt a disadvantage for having this "cloak" since its not much of an advantage. Everyone will still see your ships but wont be able to attack them. So how is this an advantage? Basically all I can see this being useful for is for scouting and escaping a bad fight, which you can do pretty effectively even without this "cloaking".

I dont know if this is possible but wouldnt it make more sense if cloaking would make your ships invisible when jumping into gravity wells but once inside they would be treated just like any other ship?

That would be more inline with how it is in the series where cloaked ships were impossible to detect from far but once you get close enough you could detect signs of cloaked ships?

I found the 'cloak' to be fairly helpful. My scouts live 10 times longer and are able to scout most of the galaxy without needing replacements, as cloaked scouts should. With fleets it is handy to save your capital ships when in a tight spot, and best of all, when you cloak all your ships the AI will ignore your ships like they are invisible, giving you the opportunity to move your ships behind them, which has the advantage of their ships needing to turn first.

The AI uses the cloak surprisingly well, makes a fleet of B'rel & K'Tinga's quite nasty to face.

Thanks, I'm glad its useful to the mod.

if you want to contribute the sound bites in mp3 format i will take care of the rest, just zip them all up, i can easily convert them all and plug them in. I was going to do that soon, but i have to work on my pirate surprise for you

OK i am going to repeat this again.... There is much about Sins that is HARDCODED. Phase Jumping is one of them. We can modify the effect to a point, but that would mean ALL of the ships would do the same effect. not just "cloaked' ships.

If we could do cloaking while jumping it would already be done dont you think? We are lucky to have Lord Tareq's cloak despite the fact it is mostly a cosmetic deal. Im not going to get into any debates about this because there are plenty of pages here, and in other mod topics to read back that explains all the HARDCODED nonsense. If you dont understand this then you shouldnt be playing the mod, or operating a computer for that matter.

No superweapons. I was thinking of putting the mushroom starbase in the superweapon slot, but since entrenchment is comming i think ill save it for that.

If anyone wants to do voice overs thats great. Just make it sound "serious". The mod is about war, and its theme is dark. make your voices appropriete. No "rootbeer' bubbly federation voices..

I was gonna try doing Klingon first anyway, rather than federation (the Asari voice isn't to bad for them) and I wouldn't even bother changing the Dominion one until you are done (it really doesn't glare at you the way some do). The Klingons and Romulans are my top priority, with cardasians after them.

One thing, what manner of recorder should I use, I would think you wan't it to be farely clear, correct.

Whatever makes the best result for you. There is no priority on voices yet so take your time. I dont even have the Dominion in 0.03 yet.

FYI the entire mod was started all over again from scratch for 0.03, and every detail gone over for the new balancing. All of the existing ships are being worked over as well as the addition of new ships. There wont be any stations in 0.03. I want to focus on complete ship lineups this time. Like i did for the canon lineups in 0.02. The Federation, Klingons, and Romulans now have all 15 "combat" slots filled. The Cardassian, and Dominion still need some ships, but since i am merging the Breen into the Dominion faction they will be much easier to finish.

The reason i am sticking with the 15 ship lineup if you dont remember is that while i can add more than 15 ships. The UI itself doesnt support more than 15 units. With the 1.1 patch there are still only 15 slots available in the UI. Despite the additional cap ship slots in game. It is possible to work around this, but it will add ridiculous amounts of extra redundant textures. Unless Ironclad is kind enough to release UI template textures with the grid coordinates on them for reference i cant see how it is possible to add more UI slots. regardless we are only using the original 15 slots. I think that is plenty of units.

Demo 0.04 which is in planning now that we have a cloak will focus on the Research Trees, and Structures. With the new balancing ships like the Sovereign, Defiant, and Enslaver will be early game enders without any research pre-req's. Which you will see in 0.03. The AI feds will hand your ass to you if you dont hit them hard, and early. The research tree's will be the final fine tune of the mod balancing.

Concept: I have been thinking, and I have decided to redo the shipyards and add an ability hardpoint, this will be so they can be given the repair ability, so their will be no need for the repair station. By combining many of the single purpose stations together, it opens up room for more defence stations or even more UI slots that could be used for ships, unless I am mistaken.

I never really liked giving up resource income for increased fleet supply. I don't think it is possible, but it would be nice to use the armada 2 trade station as a "resupply station" that increases the fleet supply. And once the expansion comes out the star base could also add fleet supply. But this is only if the game allows it.

Hobo no offence, but this is the wrong topic to talk about your 3rd party station add on.

Hobo, abilities like the repair buff can be added to both frigate and cap factories. I should know, i merged the targeting radar ability with some Gauss guns

Enough of that though, Stress will get mad.

Speaking of merging, is it possible to get the Federation game and Strings files? I would like to merge them with another mod.

just a little tinkerer asking a titan for some stuff

please dont hurt me

dont worry about the LCARS,ships firing through hulls,etc. just need

Ships

Fed. reaserch Files (using vanilla reaserch, logistics ,and tactical buildings)

String, mesh, and Entity Files.

SILENCE!!....... I KILL YOU!

The releasing any files early except to in house mod developers which so far is just Myself, and Shimmer is NOT going to happen..... Dont ask again >

I figure ill let the cat out of the bag for this one... New klingon.

This is the D-4 Predator. Yes she does look like the john Eaves concept 22nd century battle cruiser doesnt she?. She is. However she is using the FASA D-4 stats. The FASA D-4 is just a scaled down Ktinga. Figure some good use should come of Atrahasis's model.

just giving you guys a warning now i have figured out a few things for the pirates and phase 1 of the testing has been completed, phase 2 will be implimented in .03 patch, phase 3 will be in the demo release

i would strongly advise against coming to the pirate base without a fairly large fleet!

you have offically been warned!

Dang that D-4 is sweet lookin. Makes me want to play as Klingons

there's advantages to play klingons, stronger hulls, harder hitting torps moderate disruptor power, but disadvantages, ships are slower, weaker shields, requires more metal to build

dont forget the suicide runs

After some more extensive testing on the cloak, the autocastvalue on hulldamage needs to be around 0.7 or 0.8. instead of the 0.3 in the original settings I posted here. (meaning the AI will start using it when a ship has taken 70% or 80% hulldamage) Otherwise the AI keeps using it the moment its up, making frigates with the cloak super resilient. If they only use it when almost destroyed, it won't be as impacting on a battle.

I've had a fleet of 12 Warbirds destroyed by 35 K'tinga's because of the AI's abuse of the ability (with only 8 or 9 K'tinga's destroyed). Turning the auto-cast off by default means the AI will rarely if ever use the cloak, so thats not an option either.

Alternatively it could be made so a frigate-class ship can only use the cloak once or at most twice before its antimatter runs out, which also prevents the AI from continually using it.

I think the later should be done rather than the former, factions with more powerful ships should have less Anti-Mater to balance it more and make it seem more usefull to the smaller ships.

Also, I have my 'cast' assemlbed for the voices. I have a Klingon voice, a Federation voice, and the Romulan (maybee cardasian) voice. Admitedly, I didn't get Ms. Roddenberry to do the starfleet computer, but rest assured it will be a real femal person.

You have to remember that everything in 0.03 "the great expansion" is being changed. New ships, The shield points, the hull hit points, and the amount of weapon/damage values for all ships. Darkshimmer is taking care of all that. Hes our balance guy, and like the cylons hes got a plan.

The AI probably should just use cloak to try to escape if at all possible. Im not even sure where any value would be set to make the AI do that. I have not had the chance to test the mods new "cloak" yet.  Another thing you can do is up the antimatter cost of using the cloak. Make it to where you have to plan the use of the cloak carefully. It is after all supposed to eat up lots of power. Most of the "frigates", and i use that term loosely, because we have cruisers in some frigate slots dont have any ability's so i dont see why increasing the antimatter cost should be an issue. There should be x amount of time through antimatter that a cloak can operate.

I need a "tractor beam" ability  hint hint people get your code monkey on. It should grab a ship, stop it from moving, and prevent phase jumping. We will take care of the effect. I just need the ability.

Lord Tareq give me a PM please we need to talk.

The voice acting is a low priority right now. However if you got something you think is worth while then send it our way.

Remember there is no more Breen faction. They are now one with the Dominion. So nothing needs to be done for the Breen anymore except balancing the ships already in the mod.

Muahahaha we got a nasty surprise for ya >