Tal'Vares, Romulan Heavy Cruiser
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Tal'Vares Details
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Based on the reliable fighter used 80 years ago, the ship design was seen as a suitable
candidate for a new Romulan Cruiser. Designed to be the Romulans couter of the Vor'Cha and
Akira, she has good manoverability, shields, hull and quick firing weapons. Unfortuneately,
in simulations, she was not able to take out a Vor'Cha outright, but two could easily defeat
one. Their prmary function is to patrol the borders and to escort important or larger craft.
She has good length sensors, standard issue Romulan Cloaking Device and a moderate crew
defended by two new disruptors, capable of quick fire, punishing damage and faster movement
towards enemies.

In combat, she is best used to weaken the enemies shields on improtant units before a heavier
ship, more defended, can take it out completely. They are also used in groups of 4-7 in order
to take out heavier installations. With their quick speed and decent sensor coverage, they
strike effectively with minimal casualties.


Files Included
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Ship odf (rcruise4)
Custom Ship odf disruptors (rc4, rc4o)
Admiral's Pic
Build Button
Wireframe
Textures
SOD

5 display pics

Credits
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Odf's - Joelteon7
Admiral's Pic - Joelteon7
Build Button, Wifre-frame - AXIN
Conversion - AXIN
Old Textures + Model - Taldren
Edited Textures - Joelteon7
Hp verification and addition - SupaStarAsh

The original Fighter version of this ship (named "Romulan Fighter") was originally
converted by AXIN from SFC for use in Armada. Credit goes to him for doing all that work
then and allowing me to edit this mod and publish this as the Tal'Vares cruiser.

Please note, the Tal'Vares and ROmulan Fighters are both useable in-game at the same time.

Installation Instructions
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1) Copy folder "Star Trek Armada II" into your main Activision directory. If it asks, accept
the offer to overwrite files, though there shouldn't be any.
This will put in place the majority of files needed, there are still a few more to do.

2) Next, right-click your "Star Trek Armada II" folder and un-check the Read-Only
tick box. Then select this to affect ALL folders within it. This allows you to edit the
required files!

3) After that, go into the "techtree" folder, then open the "tech1.tt" file. Open this in
"Word" or "Notepad". Scroll down to the Romulan ships section, then after the last
ship entry, add in this line:

rcruise4.odf 2 ryard.odf rresear2.odf // heavy cruiser (Tal�Vares Class)

This now means the ship will be buildable at the same time as the assault ship and the Raptor
Class artillery ship. We'll add this into the appropriate slot in the shipyard later.

Now, close and save "tech1.tt" and open "fulltech.tt". Scroll down until you find the entry,

rcolony.odf 0

Beneath that, copy in the line,

rcruise4.odf 0

This now means the ship is buildable in the main type of instant action skirmish and in the
free/unlimited tech mode.

4) As soon as you have done that, go back out into the main STA2 directory then go and open
"Sprites" folder. You want the file named "gui_global.spr". Again, open this in either "Word"
or "Notepad".

This is rather an annoying file to use, so, to speed things up, press "Ctrl + F" and search
for,

Borg Build Buttons

When you reach there, scroll up a little bit until you find,

b_rdestroy gbrdestroy 0 0 64 64

copy in underneath it, this line,

b_rcruise4 gbrfi 0 0 64 64

This now enables you to see the buildbutton in-game! To get the wireframe to work, you need
to search for,

rupgradew5

Underneath that, leave a line space then copy in this block,


rcruise4w1 rfiw 0 0 48 48
rcruise4w2 rfiw 48 0 48 48
rcruise4w3 rfiw 96 0 48 48
rcruise4w4 rfiw 144 0 48 48
rcruise4w5 rfiw 192 0 48 48

Then, close the file and save it. Congrats, now you have a fully blinking wireframe
installed :)

5) The final step is to get it installed to build. Obviously, this one is up to you, but it
would make sense to build it in the basic shipyard after the artillery ship. To do this, back
out again into the main STA2 directory then go into the "Odf" folder, than into the
"stations" folder. Look for the file named "ryard.odf" than open it up in "Word" or
"Notepad".

Scroll down the file until you find this,

//Construction Parameters
buildItem0 = "rscout"
buildItem1 = "rdestroy"
buildItem2 = "rcolony"
buildItem3 = "rcruise1"
buildItem4 = "rcruise3"
buildItem5 = "rassault"
buildItem6 = "rcruise2"

You'll notice this is the construction list. To get the Tal'Vares built, you want to add the
following line right beneath the,

buildItem6 = "rcruise2"

And, the line required is,

buildItem7 = "rcruise4"

Save and close the file and than that's it! You've fully installed the Tal'Vares, Romulan
Heavy Cruiser! Nice, huh?

Permissions
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This ship is useable without permission providing credit is given to:
Joelteon7 (that's me if you haven't worked it out already) for the Tal'Vares itself and
AXIN for the conversion from SFC to Armada 2 of the Romulan Fighter this is based off.

Gameplay Issues
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The ship has been fully tested in both tech1 and free tech modes without any problem. After
final testing, I reduced the crew from 275 down from 350 as I thought it would be too high
considering the Warbird has only 400 crew anyhow. So, the screenshots showing 350 crew are
only incorrect on that minor change.

Contact
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If you have any problems with the mod, wanna thank me for "making" this new cruiser (which I
won't object to :P) or have any general armada questions, please feel free to e-mail me at:

joelteon7 AT hotmail DOT com

Additionally, you can contact me on gamingforums under the username of...oh yes,

Joelteon7


Extra
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I hope you enjoy playing with this new Romulan ship. I thought the Romulans had too few ships
to choose from and I think this will help to bolster their size (even if it is based off a
fighter, it still has edited textures which will at least make it look different).

I recommend building this ship when you have access to the advanced shipyard and are looking
for a use into the basic shipyard. Hopefully, this will be reason to do so.

Most importantly, enjoy it and I hope you like it as much as me :)