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RSS3: Trek Authentic
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ODF Replacement by Mr. Matt (aka Matt-el-G)

E-mail: matthew.lever@dsl.pipex.com
MSN: mattelgreato@hotmail.com

Cheesy/crappy Flash Website (incomplete as of writing): http://uk.geocities.com/armada2_by_matt/

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Acknowledgements:
http://www.ditl.org/ - the starship comparisons, all focusing around the generic '1000' Galaxy-class rating, helped me scale the ships as accurately as possible, as well as providing details on the exact shield and weapon strengths.

This is a completely new edition of RSS, started with fresh-install .odfs. It does not include anybody else's .odfs, though various modders have contributed various ideas for previous mods which remain here.

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Introduction/Brief Description:

RescaledShips&Stations3 is a completely new version of the RSS series. For those who don't know/care, RSS is an attempt at making Armada 2 as canon as possible, with a mod as small as possible. There are no new ships, textures or anything else in here. Just .odfs. This makes it 56k-friendly :).

Unlike previous versions, this one has been started from scratch. As such there are a few noticeable differences.

Those who are looking for something to balance out their game for purely game play reasons should look over there *points at green elephant*. The only races that are remotely balanced are the Cardassians, Klingons, Romulans and Federation. Bring the Borg or Species 8472 into play and you've got all hell breaking loose. This is for those who want a more Trekky experience. There has been some attempt to balance them out, but complaints that the Borg and 8472 weren't strong enough in previous versions has led me to forgo most balancing. While 8472 and Borg ships do cost a significant amount and take a while longer to build, it is not nearly enough to truly balance them, and they don't cost as much in time and resources to build as they once did in previous RSS.

For instance, I have tested the relative strengths of the heavy ships in comparison to each other. A Sovereign-class could defeat pretty much anything one-on-one, bar cubes and 8472 battleships which require varying numbers depending on what your tactics are.

I was going to include a pretty Starship Listings in .doc format, but as it added 200+kb, and I doubt anybody does anything with it, I haven't bothered. I did make some notes during my testing, however, while pitting certain ships against each other. You should note when reading these a few special conditions. As I couldn't possibly keep recreating the battle with AI, I had to use CTRL + A and keep re-adding the ships from different races. As I was controlling them myself, there was a delay in starting but I countered this by having them stay out of weapons range at the beginning. For each match the results come from a 'best of three' method. Here are a few results:

-The Sovereign-class could defeat three Warbirds, but was overpowered by four.
-The Sovereign-class could defeat two Negh'Vars, but was overpowered by three.
-The Sovereign-class could defeat three Keldons, but was overpowered by four (barely).
-The Negh'Var-class could defeat one Warbird, but was overpowered by two (barely).
-The Negh'Var-class could defeat two Keldons, but was overpowered by three.
-The Warbird-class could defeat one Keldon (outright), but was overpowered by two (barely).
-The Galaxy-class could defeat a Warbird one-on-one (just about).
-The Negh'Var-class could defeat a Galaxy-class one-on-one.
-The Galaxy-class could defeat a Keldon one-on-one.

Negh'Vars required to destroy a standard Borg Cube: on average, 8
Sovereigns required to destroy a standard Borg Cube: on average, 7
Warbirds required to destroy a standard Borg Cube: on average, 13/14
Keldons required to destroy a standard Borg Cube: didn't bother measuring, I guess more than 17.

Could an 8472 battleship defeat a Borg cube? YES! But not TOO easily...



The more pedantic people out there may notice that some of the .odf files I have included aren't modified. Well, maybe not. I just grabbed the whole folder to make sure I didn't miss anything. There isn't really that much that I missed out, so the extra few text files shouldn't be too bad on the file size, at least, not for the sake of ensuring a complete mod.

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Installation Instructions:

Using the WinZip Wizard or other .zip-compatible software, extract the RSS3 zip somewhere.
Open 'My Computer', and follow this folder path (or wherever your Armada 2 game is installed). Note, 'HD' equals whichever disk number your A2 is installed on:

HD:\Program Files\Activision\Star Trek Armada II\

In the mod, you should find the folder 'odf'. Drop that into your Armada 2 folder, and it should be ready to use.

I'd advise that before you copy the mod across, you first zip up the existing ODF folder and store it somewhere for safekeeping. I have made a point of not modifying the existing shipyard files. They will be a little weak compared to the new ships as a result, but when coupled with the fact that there are no techtree files in this mod, it means that you won't have any added ships overwritten. If you want to go into the .odf for that particular shipyard and beef up its shields a little, be my guest. If you're not sure how, send me the shipyard and I'll do it for you (or preferably tell you how). A word to the wise; the Romulan advanced shipyard IS included in this mod, as I had to increase its size to allow the Romulan Warbird fit. I wouldn't advise overwriting it afterwards, unless you know how to add in a ScaleSOD line, as it will look rather stupid and could even crash your game. Again, if you have ships installed on this shipyard, tell me what they are and I'll send you a personalised Advanced Shipyard file to include these extra ships while still being the right size (or, again, tell you how).

Testbed:

This mod was made and successfully tested on the following system spec:

Clean Install Armada 2 V1.1
2Ghz '2400+' AMD Athlon XP
512MB DDR-400 RAM
128MB-DDR GeForce 4 Ti4200 AGP 8x
Soundblaser Audigy Soundcard
20GB 5400RPM Quantum Fireball Hard Drive, 120GM 7200RPM Western Digital 'Caviar' Hard Disk
40X CD-Rom
Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer 3
Microsoft Natural Multimedia Keyboard
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition SP1


I ran this mod with details on full on the above spec with no trouble at 1024 X 768 resolution, on a personal map (which may be released soon if I can frickin' fix the starting points).


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Known Bugs:

There are none that I know of. I have thoroughly tested everything this time around. I have pitted each starship against the rest in various one-on-one fights, a time consuming process to say the least, and no bugs have occurred. I have built everything, and used everything. It all seems fine. E-mail me if you do encounter anything.

There are a couple of things that won't crash your game, but may annoy if you're not prepared for them. First, starbases. A few starbases (and the Romulan Advanced Shipyard) have been scaled up in size. They take up more room. This in itself is not a problem. However, a word to the wise; if you are building a starbase near a moon for defensive purposes, keep it at least two grid squares away, or the mining ships will have trouble orbiting the moon. And also keep the Romulan Advanced Shipyard's exit clear, as Warbirds are quite large and may require some extra room to come out smoothly.

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Disclaimer:


If this mod completely screws up your system, or contains a virus, its not my fault and I take absolutely no responsibility for it. You download at your own risk. I have tested all the files inside for viruses and stability and found them to be fine, if you don't blame a faulty download or something, not me. In fact, we have a common saying on Gaming Forums; blame teh Sheep. So there you are. If it messes around with your computer, it's Sheepeep's fault.


THIS MOD IS NOT MADE, DISTRIBUTED, OR SUPPORTED BY Activision
TM & (C) INTERPLAY & PARAMOUNT PICTURES.

Copyright notices:

Star Trek and Armada 2 (and the various logo devices used in them) are copyright Paramount Pictures, as are the characters, related images, and sound from the productions.

This mod took me hours to make, not the coding, but the balancing of it. You can modify it for your own use by all means, but if you make a change to it that you intend to put up for download, I would like you to ask me first, and maybe show me what you've done so I can learn something...

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What Teh Mod Doeseth:

RSS3 takes raw figures from the ditl.org and inputs them into the .odf files of the canon ships and weapons in ST:A2. For those who don't know, the .odf file controls things like hitpoints, shield recharge rates, and even names. And the weapons .odf files control how much damage they do, and how fast they can fire.

For example; on ditl.org, the Galaxy-class is given a starting strength index of 1,000, for everything. So in Armada 2, the hull armour and shields are changed to 1,000 hitpoints, and her phasers and photon torpedoes are changed to deal out 100 hitpoints of damage (lowered by ten to increase duelling times). And all other ships are altered according to their own strength indices, and it should create a more canon environment.

Unlike previous versions of RSS, RSS3 does not attempt to give each ship a canon NUMBER of weapons. Instead, it tries to give their weapons a relatively canon DAMAGE infliction capability. For example, as above, the Galaxy-class starship now has phasers capable of 100 hitpoints of damage, and photons capable of 100 hitpoints of damage. Some weapons have had to have been scaled down from their canon values as they would have made the game totally unplayable; for example the Akira-class torpedo system does only half the damage it could in reality. Consider it representative canon, instead of visual.

Also, it addresses a few niggles I had with the original ships in A2:

-Almost all warp-capable ships have tractor beams and auto-destruct capabilities, as they would in reality.
-All Klingon ships bar a couple have cloaking abilities.
-Almost all Borg combat ships have regeneration and transwarp, and at least doubled special energy reserves to compensate for these new abilities. Also, transwarp has been given a longer range to accommodate even the largest of custom maps.
-Species 8472 have phenomenally powerful weapons systems. An 8472 battleship is now fully capable of disabling and destroying a Borg cube, which is fully capable of withstanding an attack by 6 Sovereign-class ships. More indeed, if you make use of regeneration. So you can imagine how powerful they are.
-Cardassian ships have rather unfortunate battle capabilities, as true to life. You may now find that a Galor-class can only successfully face any other battleship in a pack of three (as they would in Trek). On their own, they are only a match for some smaller ships. However, they require fewer officers, resources and less time to construct, so you can easily outnumber the enemy. In addition, the Galor and Keldon have been physically scaled down in size to more accurate levels.
-The Romulan Warbird is now almost twice the size of a Galaxy-class.
-The Negh'Var-class warship has been increased in size slightly.
-The Bird of Prey has been increased in size slightly, to almost half the size of a Galaxy-class starship, and is now a K'Vort-class (roughly).
-The Vor'Cha-class attack cruiser has been increased in size, to become slightly shorter than a Galaxy-class.
-All Starbases besides the Borg Nexus and 8472 Mothership have been increased to more accurate sizes.
-Borg cubes, and a couple of others, are now vastly superior to the standard races' ships. A standard cube can disable a Sovereign-class in just a few volleys. All Borg shields on all ships now absorb ALL damage until they are drained completely, in an attempt to demonstrate their adaptive capabilities. For in real life (relative term), once a Borg ship adapts to a weapon, there is no known force capable of penetrating their adaptive shield. Unfortunately A2's very nature makes it backwards (it starts off indestructible and then becomes vulnerable), and I don't know how you could change it.


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Contents of Mod

In this mod, you should find the following:

-ODF Files: All ship, station, weapon and special weapon odfs should be included.
-This readme (if this is not here, you must be psychic to find out if it should be)
-A small pie
-Two elephant feet

If the first two are not included, first, re-download them (your download may have been corrupted). Second, post something on the comments section. If you get no help there, e-mail me (with a clearly TITLED e-mail so I don't throw it away as junk). I will send you the files you need, or the whole zip file, or tell you what you may have done wrong, if anything.
If the latter two are not included, bug FileTrekker continuously until he either gives them to you, or loses what's left of his mind and lies on the floor mooing repeatedly.



Finally, if for some bizarre reason you want a file detailing the ships both in canon and Armada 2 terms, contact me and I'll finish up the Word document I started, which turned out to be too big for my goals.


P.S. Sorry for the size of this readme, I just wanted to cover everything :D