No it has always been the other way around according to trek lore. Shields have always been tougher than armour. There were many scenes especially yesterdays enterprise. Once the klingon shields went down the ship was instapopped. However thats according to the show. Following canon stats in the mod doesnt work as 0.03a2 proved. In 0.03a3, and 0.03b we are bending some of the rules to make the game more enjoyable.

You have to remember as i have mentioned in the past that we havent got to the research yet. It will be covered in 0.04, and more race specific research buff/debuffs will be dealt with there. Along with ship ability's so the elites can level.

Im going to go over a basic research list with Shimmer, but he will be the primary one to perform this as i may be out of the picture a while due to a temporary internet blackout.

I trust your words when you said you corrected the credits, and they will be on the next update. But apparently you didn't take it serious. The Feklhr-cl.dds in 0.03a3 still remains incorrect credit.

When things comes regarding to credits and permissions, I thought you should be more careful about that.

This is a difficult decision, as I was honored when I saw my works been used in other mod.  But now I only feel ignored. Please REMOVE MY RETEXTURE from your mod. You may keep the stock SFC3 model. The usage of my Fek'lhr Class retexture by SOA2 is NOT ALLOWED anymore.

Wow... so much to say,

     First off, the majority of people are right, THIS IS AN INCREDIBLE MOD & we are all lucky to be playing it.

I'd like to take the time to thank Major Stress & Darkshimmer for the endless hours spent refining, tweaking and perfecting this mod out of a love of for Star Trek and Sins.  When i think of the sheer amount of time they have invested bringing the mod this far, it only cements my opinion that its people like them who should be making the licensed ST games and getting paid for it.

I would also like to say that I really enjoyed the Sovies new "burst fire" torps., I thought they really completed the sovies weapon profile.

In short, I love every direction this mod is taking and with such a staggering list of accomplishments so far, its hard to imagine how great the future updates are going to be.

KUDOS!

Hey guys how do I edit these files? I tried to open a capital ship file to edit some parts of it but a message came up asking what program created the file. So I said notepad and the file came up as giberish. How can I proberly edit it?

Also I have an idea for Borg pirates.

How about you guys make it so that the Borg *say a light ship like a sphere or two* go on a raid but only if the bounty is like 10000? Or they will become a race you can make their ships cost a lot of supply points so you can only have a few of each like make a cube cost so much you can only get one of them.

Because all the Borg attacks I've seen in the show are single ships like a cube taking on an entire fleet.

Feedback: Amazing job on this latest version. Everything is balanced perfectly the battles are seem to be very similar to the shows battles, fast but not rediculously fast. The Romulans are amazing. Defiant is still weaker then I would prefer it be . The Akira kicks ass but not too much ass which makes it perfect.

I’ve played my first game of the SoA and WOW!!

The intro is First Class, the ships are beautiful, and the setup has LOTS of ST flavor. VERY NICELY DONE!! I intend on playing this quite a bit more. This game is like Birth of the Federation 10 years later!

Based on my limited experience I have a few observations:

*  The ships are lethal. My Sovereign (my freebee ship) simply wiped out the rebel defenders, and killed the roaming Klink Cap. My slightly superior fleet of Feds eliminated a somewhat smaller Klink fleet with no difficulty. Lesson: numbers and fleets are everything, and fleets and ships die fast.

*  Ships take up lots of slots, so you absolutely have to get your numbers up ASAP. My first impression is that the little frigs are kind of pointless in battle – one shot and they pop.

* All ships are very expensive, but the mins and crystal are not proportional. I had lots of surplus mins and cryst. The AI and I ended up selling so much that the crystal and min market was constantly crashing. As soon as the market rose I’d sell again. So, my mineral and crystal mines were my main cash generators, especially while my planets were developing. Also, mines were a fairly low priority.

*  I think its cool that the Miranda can set up mines in areas with no planets! I found this out by accident, and it makes the ships very useful explorers. They can even make a shot at taking out lightly defended rebel locations.

*  I had a harder time getting my economy going since the Feds use the Vesari tech tree. I'm used to TEC. Kind of strange - I always thought of the Feds as more like the TEC.

*  It is easy to expand too quickly. The Caps take out the rebels very quickly (one shot per ship), so I’ll have more planets before they generate money. I could have easily cleared half the map, colonized, and then have my economy implode.

*  Pirates are dangerous since they are made up of real ships (most of mine were a mixture of Feds and Klinks), and in enough numbers that you have to have a fleet of equal size or you’re dead. Likewise, they deal out so much damage that static defenses are pointless. They damage stuff so fast that repair bays, turrets, and fighters simply cannot keep up. If you don’t have a fleet of equivalent size then just run away. Most of the pirates I saw didn’t have siege ships so all they did is whack orbitals.

So, now for more fun…

HydroAC

I've been playing for a while today and wondered if you knew that some of the frigates required more supply than some cruisers(excelsior=21 steamrunner=18 while defiant= 19 and akira= 17).  Is this how it is supposed to be?  I find frigates aren't used really at all in the mid to late game. 

Other than that everythings great.

Alright Fun Facts about fighting the Pirate base and the Borg.

1st Attempt:  Alright so i finished off the computer i was playing against, just so i could focus on taking out the pirate base.  I maxed out my pop, built roughly 30 intrepids, 30 akiras, and 30 defiants... 12 soverigns...3 galaxy's...and 1 nebula for fun

What i was up against:  When i finally got around to attacking the pirate base they had amassed a fleet of around 80+ ships (35 akiras, 25 vorchas, and then a mixed variety of the rest) plus the borg cube of course.

So I jump in... my fleet crushes the poor pirates that happen to be sitting on the edge, but in my game the majority of the pirate fleet is on the right (from my perspective) while the borg come in from the left.  Quickly any ships that came in with the borg die, leaving the borg to hold the left flank...while the 60 other ships take my the right flank of my fleet. 

After a few minutes the pirate fleet shrinks while the borg cube holds strong (their regeneration is crazy!).  But, with most of the pirate fleet most likely attacking cap ships, my fleet can hold strong long enough to decimate the right.  Once their right flank falls (with surprisingly most of my fleet still in tact) only the cube remains.  Only then with the full might of my fleet am i able to begin working down the cube.  The cube attempts to regenerate...but it simply shoots to slow to survive against 70+ ships including 12 sovies still left alive (1 a level 10) and so it falls. 

Overall in my battle i lost 1 galaxy, my nebula... and roughly 10-15 of my starting 90 mix... turns out to be pretty easy.... so i think to myself...how big a difference do the sovies make???

Sooo, i replay the game (saved right before i go in) and send in the 90 ships only leaving the cap ships and the fleet engages as it did before.  This time with no juggernauts to take the punishment my fleet amasses heavy casualities and doesnt hold as well on the left flank (the borg)... Despite this they are still able to take out the pirate fleet with roughly 50-60% of the fleet still remaining (at least 15 of each still left to go against the borg:  Intrepids, akiras, defiants).  But once they engage I quickly realize its a lost cause, they cause a good amount of damage but against the regneration and the close to 2000 damage their numbers soon drop to the point where the borg have adapated.

With my fleet of 90 ships gone and only the borg remaining, i decide to send in the 16 cap ships (12 sovies... 1 lvl 10 the rest lvl 4, 3 galaxies, 1 lvl 7, and 1 lvl 7 nebula).  They engage the borg.  After a minute or so i notice that even all their combined fire power cant overcome that armor and regeneration...but its not all lost as the sovies and galaxies shields hold....for now.  So noticing I would have time (and the built up money) i decide to build the backup fleet to save the cap ships.  I manage to get to a point (where a run out of money) that there are 38 defiants with 15 or so akiras that join the fight with now remaining 6 sovies.  Over the course of the next few minutes a vicious battle ensues as i think I finally have enough to take down the borg threat.  I get their hull down around 5500, when i notice the sovies have mostly gone, and the borg has moved to taking out the less armored akiras and defiants.... One by one my fleet begins to dimish while the borg regeneration starts to take over and make the 30 ships or so still left irrelevant. 

So that was my fun fact about the borg... all together you might do extremely well...but dont be fooled they are quite powerful, I'm not sure what stress and shimmer will do with them but this at least was fun... i think you should just throw in some more cubes/spheres into the pirate mix (just as guardians of the base) to make attacking the base more and more interesting, espcially when you have other humans to play with (i play with 2 other people) just thinking about how cool it would be to fly in from 3 different warp points with maxed out fleets against the borg/pirate armada.

Anyway fun mod, keep up the good work guys!

Sooo, i replay the game (saved right before i go in) and send in the 90 ships only leaving the cap ships and the fleet engages as it did before.  This time with no juggernauts to take the punishment my fleet amasses heavy casualities and doesnt hold as well on the left flank (the borg)... Despite this they are still able to take out the pirate fleet with roughly 50-60% of the fleet still remaining (at least 15 of each still left to go against the borg:  Intrepids, akiras, defiants).  But once they engage I quickly realize its a lost cause, they cause a good amount of damage but against the regneration and the close to 2000 damage their numbers soon drop to the point where the borg have adapated.

With my fleet of 90 ships gone and only the borg remaining, i decide to send in the 16 cap ships (12 sovies... 1 lvl 10 the rest lvl 4, 3 galaxies, 1 lvl 7, and 1 lvl 7 nebula).  They engage the borg.  After a minute or so i notice that even all their combined fire power cant overcome that armor and regeneration...but its not all lost as the sovies and galaxies shields hold....for now.  So noticing I would have time (and the built up money) i decide to build the backup fleet to save the cap ships.  I manage to get to a point (where a run out of money) that there are 38 defiants with 15 or so akiras that join the fight with now remaining 6 sovies.  Over the course of the next few minutes a vicious battle ensues as i think I finally have enough to take down the borg threat.  I get their hull down around 5500, when i notice the sovies have mostly gone, and the borg has moved to taking out the less armored akiras and defiants.... One by one my fleet begins to dimish while the borg regeneration starts to take over and make the 30 ships or so still left irrelevant. 

So that was my fun fact about the borg... all together you might do extremely well...but dont be fooled they are quite powerful, I'm not sure what stress and shimmer will do with them but this at least was fun... i think you should just throw in some more cubes/spheres into the pirate mix (just as guardians of the base) to make attacking the base more and more interesting, espcially when you have other humans to play with (i play with 2 other people) just thinking about how cool it would be to fly in from 3 different warp points with maxed out fleets against the borg/pirate armada.

Anyway fun mod, keep up the good work guys!

More like triple posted Glad you enjoyed it

Have to agree with Ultimate, I think I do remember the D'deridex having a dorsal disrupter beam array.

That said, Since ships seldom attack from above or below, I don't think its necessary.

Even if Borg ships don't totally kill the AI, since pirates seem to hit one planet most of the time then leave, there is still a problem with having Borg in the strike fleets.

Say it takes you 1 hour 20 min or so to get around to dealing with the pirates. That's 5 raids, 1 borg ship per raid + interest (akiras, vorchas, or whatever). So about 50+ ships to deal with + 6 borg ships, even if you do manage to knock off the 50+ or so, you still have 6 Borg ships to deal with. After fighting the cube with a maxed fleet of 2500 fleet supply worth of ships, it takes about 4-7 min to kill the cube for me. Throw in the regen rate on their hull, and their weapon damage, I would guess at 3:30 or so mins you would no longer have the firepower necessary to keep their hull from healing for more than you are doing to them. Now imagine a fight with them after... 4 hours... that's one pirate base with more firepower than the death star lol.

I suppose you could possibly take it with help from your allies, but I only play with the AI for this mod (so far). The first time I asked them to help attack the pirate base, they said "We cannot help right now" what they meant " Ha ha ha... uh no." 2nd time they sent a Vorcha... I think you've scared the AI with your cubes Stress and Shimmer lol.

Sorry for raining on that parade because I thought it would be awesome to have borg come hit you every once in awhile but it could potentially turn the pirate base into an untakeable deathtrap.

D'deridex class ships have disruptors - they are seen firing in several episodes in The Next Generation and Deep Space 9 (such as The Die is Cast - one of my favourite episodes).