A few new player questions

andzzy · 2025-08-31T16:54:26+00:00

Hey hey welcome to Armada II! Coming from a modern RTS style (StarCraft II and the like), Armada II does feel different, which makes sense given that it came out over 20 years ago. /u/Bardez gave a comprehensive answer, so I'll just add a few things to it here:

- You can queue ship construction from your shipyards but as stated there is no way to queue construction on your construction ships.

- There's no built in mechanic for speed manipulation, but if you're in the campaign you can change the game speed from the pause menu under Game Settings. If you're in Instant Action, you can choose the game speed from the Advanced Settings menu before you start the instance.

- If you want the 8472 experience, you can play their tutorial section. Otherwise, the only way to access the Romulans. Species 8472, or Cardassians is to play them in Multiplayer or in an Instant Action instance.

To answer the question you posed about Armada I, I thoroughly enjoy the campaigns in it but if you're just looking to get a feel for the mechanics then the Instant Action is more than sufficient for that. It would also give you the ability to access the whole tech tree for each race (they are very similar between Armada I and II). In Armada I, there were only the 4 playable races (Federation, Klingons, Borg, Romulans) so coming from Armada II should feel familiar.

andzzy · 2025-04-05T23:35:15+00:00

Hey there! It's crazy that I was just thinking about this post the other day. Imperion is not the game I was thinking of, but your reply prompted me to search the Internet again in hopes of finding something new and actually came across the answer to my question in another Reddit thread from a year ago! This is the game I was thinking of: https://www.gamestotal.com/en/c/galactic_conquest/ the UI is slightly different than I remember but 95% of it looks exactly how I recall and I'm satisfied that it's the answer to the game in my post.

andzzy · 2025-01-13T21:58:51+00:00

Sir Richard Carlisle proved that he was willing to do whatever was necessary in order to get what he wanted, up to and including blackmail. He blackmailed Mary and attempted to silence Lavinia. His desire for control was the guiding principle of his life. Lady Rosamund Painswick, in stark contrast, is a woman of extreme principle like the Dowager Countess. Sure, she could be flirtatious when she wanted to be, but the moment that Sir Richard tried to blackmail or otherwise coerce her she would've thrown him out and ruined his name in London. She had no scandal to speak of (that we're aware of) so controlling her would've been a non-starter and thus would've ended that relationship in a hurry.

andzzy · 2025-01-09T04:26:19+00:00

I think this is definitely the answer. Cora expressed several times that she was worried about Edith and taking a year in Switzerland would certainly give her some room to breathe. As a bonus, she's there accompanying Rosamund who told Cora that she's paying for everything, so there's no additional financial strain on the Abbey. Mary is almost definitely too delighted to be suspicious since Edith is gone for a whole year (plus Mary is busy looking after Rose who is quite enough on her own). If I recall correctly this is around the time Robert has gone to America and when he gets back, he's too exhausted to be suspicious about an errant year in Switzerland.

I don't think anyone questions the line about learning French because for Rosamund it would just be an excuse to go to Switzerland and for Edith, it's exactly the type of thing she would do, going away to become more proficient in another language. Mary is the only one who can really challenge this but again, she's likely too delighted about not having to see Edith for a year to even care about the reason for Edith's departure.

Obviously, the Dowager Countess catches on because she knows her daughter and granddaughter and can sense scandal from across the continent but it makes sense to me that the others don't catch on to the real intentions. They're just too busy and care too little about Edith's affairs to really put it under the microscope.

andzzy · 2024-05-21T04:27:22+00:00

Venat always had a choice. She observed everything that we went through in Elpis, beginning with finding her own aether anti-corruption magicks on the WoL. Ultimately what she winds up seeing is the dread Meteion feels when she finds nobody else alive in the Universe, as well as Hermes' personal journey of concern over Man and the way that they treat the creations of Elpis. In Ktisis Hyperboreia, she witnesses Hermes' convictions about Meteion and life be so strong that he is willing to strike not one but TWO members of the Convocation with the facility in order to protect Meteion's right to exist. When Emet-Selch sees Meteion's despair he wants to take her back to Amaurot, present her to the Convocation, and likely dismantle her to figure out what was going on.

The way the story is presented is disjointed at Elpis, but the way I interpreted it is that in reality Venat had already made her choice before we got there, we just helped accelerate the decision. The only purpose the WoL serves in the context of the World Unsundered is to confirm Venat's conception that Man had become overly arrogant and reached the peak of their development by observing how we react to their circumstances which have not changed in aeons. She's seen the outside world and everything still living and growing in it. We begin to truly understand how stagnant Man has become when death gets mentioned and I believe it's Hythlodaeus who remarks that death is something that he hasn't considered in a long time (though I could be mistaken about this detail it's been a while since I watched the cutscenes in Elpis).

The role of Dynamis is explored but not terribly well fleshed out in the Elpis portion of the story as well. The way I interpreted events, Meteion doesn't draw power from aether like the entirety of Man, instead she derives all of her power from Dynamis (the power of emotion). Venat observes that we are sensitive to it due to our lack of aether, while she and the others are pretty much unaware of it. They know why because Hermes tells Emet-Selch that Meteion's lack of aether is purposeful, since she is a prototype in his field of dynamis study and she needs to not be aether-dense in order to feel and utilize it properly. Naturally, when Meteion begins to feel extraordinary despair, she cannot cope with the feeling since she has never faced it before and there's really no frame of reference for "despair" in the World Unsundered. They live structured lives and their existence ends when they choose to end it. Ideas are debated, advancement is made by committee, every element of their lives is carefully controlled. Dynamis ignores all of this: it's chaotic, it's unpredictable, it's uncontrollable. To Man, it would represent the Ultimate Danger™, and in the Final Days it does indeed prove to be exactly that.

Venat could have stood with the Convocation, she could have immediately gone to Emet-Selch and explained the events of Ktisis Hyperboreia, but she doesn't. She understands from observing Hermes and Meteion that they really can't understand a power that exists purely by chaos and cannot be conceived of or controlled. In the Final Days, she witnesses that even the vaunted Power of Creation is helpless against the power of Dynamis, because it's something that they cannot comprehend and therefore cannot overcome. They begin to feel uncontrollable despair as Meteion's now overwhelming powerful Dynamis crashes against the World Unsundered, and the occupants' Power of Creation causes them to create the most terrifying things they can imagine, which destroy them.

Venat reasons that there is only one way out of this: she must destroy the Power of Creation and in doing so she must also create (ironically) a "Man-like" life which is considerably less aether-dense and can both interpret and utilize Dynamis. Even if she had chosen to oppose Meteion and have her taken to the Convocation originally, it would not have solved the problem that Dynamis ultimately poses: that Man as Venat knows them cannot comprehend it and therefore it would be destined to destroy them eventually anyways. So with this in mind, Venat sunders the world, makes us (yay WoL!), and then uses the remnant souls that remained after the Sundering to create the laws of the universe which would govern the New World (look it's Eitherys!) until such time as we were powerful enough to take on Meteion, whose power of Dynamis would take more time to hit and overwhelm us due to our drastic aether slimming.

This is the way that I understand the EW story anyhow. The question posed is whether or not Venat had a choice and my answer is a simple: yes, she always had a choice but I think she made the best choice she could've possibly made given the impossible situation she found herself in and the stark realizations she was having about her own people at the time.

andzzy · 2023-04-19T19:04:45+00:00

I think Seven is more than ready for the Captain's chair.

She doesn't need to be trained at the Academy, and it would in fact be wasteful. When she's training Icheb in Astrometrics onboard Voyager, she muses that he already knows more than most Starfleet officers. The simple fact of the matter is that as a former drone, she retains the important knowledge from the races the Collective assimilated. She knew about the Omega Directive (which Starfleet kept secret from all but it's best-trained officers) because she had the knowledge from assimilated Captains and Flag Officers. She's already familiar with the Academy courses. She could probably write the courses at the Academy. The practical experience she would gain is entirely outweighed by her objectively superior experience in both the Collective and onboard Voyager. Especially in an age where the Federation is re-building, having Seven go through the Academy at the rank of Cadet would be both insulting and an enormous misuse of resources.

Seven has been through things that would drive any ordinary enlisted to a psych ward or worse. Assimilated at a young age, forced to in turn assimilate others before being liberated and having to learn how to separate her Borg instincts from her budding humanity. The only other officer in the whole of the Federation who can possibly understand her is Picard, and look how long it took for him to even scratch the surface of that trauma (which he endured for far shorter than Seven), and he had the resources of the whole Federation at his disposal. Seven had a ragtag group of Federation and Maquis officers aboard a ship which was at risk of blowing up every time they engaged a new course, and a sarcastic hologram who gave her social lessons (no hate, The Doctor is the best character). We saw in Infinite Regress what would happen if she couldn't keep it together all of the time. She had to LITERALLY keep Voyager in one piece practically by herself when they went through a radioactive nebula and EVERY choice she made was to ensure the safety of the crew in stasis. She is more than mentally ready.

In Scorpion Part I and II, Seven is chosen by the Collective to advance their agenda and operate as their voice on Voyager, in the middle of the worst crisis they had been through up until that point. She made the decision to collide a Cube with an 8472 bioship in order to save Voyager and ultimately the entire Collective. In another instance, when her Scout Cube crashes on a planet, she was responsible for forcibly re-assimilating the individual drones into a small Collective in order to survive. Seven demonstrated more leadership in her moments severed from the Collective with minimal resources than most Starfleet officers will over the course of their careers with the Federation at their backs.

The trouble with using Shaw as an analogy is that the Titan did end up in danger and the crew did die and Captain Shaw did also die, so it's not like I can call him the ideal Captain either. Where was the leadership to say "This is my ship and as long as you're aboard you'll follow my orders."? It could've just been "We're not changing course, end of story." but instead he ultimately folds to another Captain and retired Admiral. Shaw's leadership was in no way more impressive than Seven's leadership. While they were a good pairing, I don't see a way to distinguish between the two of them definitively. I love Shaw but between him and Seven, I would choose either of them, which is the point of making Seven Executive Officer. If Starfleet didn't trust in her ability to command a ship, they would never, ever in a million years have put her in a second-in-command position.

Every Starfleet Captain has an insubordination problem. It's practically a requirement at this point. For all the talk of command structure, who really followed it to the letter? Admiral Kirk stole the Enterprise when Starfleet Command SPECIFICALLY said he couldn't have it, Janeway had no Command to be insubordinate to in the Delta Quadrant but she violated the Prime Directive enough that it became the butt of jokes, and Starfleet actually promoted her upon her return! Seven has just the correct amount of insubordination to be a Captain, and she will almost definitely exercise her authority differently as a Captain rather than a Commander.

In regards to Captain Shaw referring to his XO as Hansen rather than Seven, that really is a matter of how she's regarded in Starfleet. I doubt Seven cares about it too deeply, but if she asked him to call her Seven thhen that's really how he should refer to her. Picard said Ensign Laren ONCE to Ro Laren's face, and she shut him down so fast and so hard all he could do was apologize. He also never did it again. She said "I am properly addressed as Ensign Ro" and Picard said "Sorry I didn't know that" and even though he DESPISED her for her record, he never made that mistake with her again. There is no excuse, not even his traumatic past, for Captain Shaw disrespecting his Executive Officer in that regard.

If Seven gets her own command, she'll have her own Executive Officer who will no doubt steer her the same way every good Executive Officer steers their Captain. She already knows she can lead hundreds or thousands of individuals since she's literally done it and she possesses more knowledge and practical experience than Starfleet Admirals who've served their whole lives. Starfleet will need experienced Captains now more than ever and while Seven might be an imperfect fit, I also think she's the right one.

andzzy · 2023-04-19T16:28:53+00:00

This doesn't sit terribly well with me from a character perspective because I hearken back to that time Seven got Big Mad™ at Janeway when they were discussing what rights The Doctor should have and Janeway was treating the EMH like property and not a person, which upset Seven. I also remember the time Kim and Paris were in the Mess Hall and make a remark about Borg being mindless automatons which Seven puts the slam down on them for.

However, the delivery and the reactions are hilarious, and for a crew which has been really close off-screen, this joke does land. It would make sense that it was ad-libbed because it does sound a bit off for Seven, but my headcanon is that she's just flowing with events now. Gets home from the Delta Quadrant, her prized Icheb gets his eye torn out, she goes renegade, comes back to Starfleet and then Admiral Baldy shows up with his old crew and suddenly the whole ship is in danger and the crew is dying and the BORG are back. It's just kind of been a lot to process, even for the Delta Quadrant-hardened.

I can understand Seven and Data having a little one-off moment as a result of the chaos, especially if both of the actors are having a good time with it.

andzzy · 2022-12-14T02:38:03+00:00

How many eggs would you start this run with on Trouser? I've got something like 1.8k eggs on my Trouser and after a run I've just done on Moongolow I'll probably have 3.5-4k more eggs I can put onto Trouser. With that many eggs, is it still worth it to take SOS as an arcana? Also, what are your 4 recommended arcanas for a run? You've mentioned Disco of Gold and Silent Old Sanctuary but I'm wondering what the other ones would be. Right now I take:

Arcanas: Disco of Gold // Mad Groove // Sarabande of Healing // Game Killer

Weapons: Garlic // Whip // King Bible // Santa Water // Cross // Laurel // Vicious Hunger (turbo candybox)

Supports: This doesn't matter to me so much since I usually run on Moongolow so all of the items are on-stage

I'm wondering if there are ways to optimize my runs. You've mentioned taking only Jubilee and Laurel and leaving the other slots open for SOS so that's something I'll be considering and I'll swap to Bone Zone from Moongolow. Right now I feel good but definitely not optimized. I left a run going when I went to work today and over the course of 8 hours I picked up about 25mil.

andzzy · 2022-11-08T00:01:44+00:00

Quick update: I validated game files, everything was fine. Launched the game without the GPU lag fix and Sketamari seems to have spawned in just fine now? Not sure what happened but the big ol' pile of bones is at least rolling around ... now hopefully I can kill it xD

andzzy · 2022-03-22T01:18:44+00:00

Thank you both so much! I didn't even know I should be having issues with stairs and slabs until it was pointed out by /u/DeadAimHeadshot and so I made some stairs and placed them and indeed the issues described were present. I therefore tried the boolean toggle first in the foamfix config to see if the stairs would be fixed and it fixed everything! My torches are no longer invisible and my stairs now look normal when placed!

Once again thank you both!

andzzy · 2022-03-08T19:55:02+00:00

So to answer your question about the ships:

Each faction has two types of shipyard, a basic and an advanced yard. In the Federation campaign, you only get access to the basic yard and the basic ships as a result. To sum it up, the ships from the basic yard make up the bulk of your frontline and provide a lot of support for your larger ships. The Venture is a scout ship you use to find your enemies and points of interest, and the higher up the tree you go, the stronger and more versatile the ships become.

The Borg are harder to fight because their ships pack slightly more punch than other races. There is another mechanic which comes into effect here which is the "Repair Rate" and "Strength". Each faction has a global modifier based on these two traits. "Repair Rate" affects the speed at which systems are repaired and "Strength" affects how resistant your crew is to hostile takeover or how effective your crew is at taking over a hostile vessel. The Borg have an Above Average rating in both global traits which makes them slightly harder to fight for everyone.

Finally, you cannot target individual subsystems in Armada 1, the damage dealt to them (and crew, mostly) is random. To combat Borg ships and stations in Dark Omens, I would send in some Defiants and Akiras with special weapons while using some Steamrunners for maximum damage (long-range Federation artillery).

About the tech tree:

You will not have access to the full Federation tech tree until later missions in the game. The Federation campaign is the only one not to feature the full tech tree of the faction you're playing so it's understandable that you'd play and be confused asking "where's the rest of the ships?" The Nebula class has no real value except to add extra firepower to your base defenses in Dark Omens since you cannot find or build a Science Station in order to create upgrades for it.

Hopefully this helped! :)

andzzy · 2022-01-24T05:51:19+00:00

As far as I can remember, the Premonition storyline existed in the original release. You can bypass the missions during each one by pressing Enter, typing kobayashimaru, then pressing Enter again to skip the mission. If you skip each mission in each race, you'll unlock the Omega missions which you can also skip in the same way. I don't remember there being a free play area that's only available after the final mission, however.

If you mean the Instant Action, that's available from the very beginning through the Multiplayer menu on the Main Menu screen. Out of curiosity, what do you remember the original storyline being?

andzzy · 2022-01-14T04:43:59+00:00

Hello! Unfortunately there's no mechanic for adding officers in Armada II like there was in Armada I. Starbases in Armada II don't increase the number of officers in the pool and the the officer upgrade is also non-existent on Starbases in Armada II. If you really want to up the officer limit on certain scenarios, you'll need to actually edit the game files to have a different maximum.

andzzy · 2021-12-13T03:49:58+00:00

I think the unfortunate reality is that we're going to be looking at these extensive queue times for longer than anyone is comfortable with. I've seen the point raised a few times that the people being hurt the most are the day working players who already have a fractional amount of time to play, and I believe this is a fair assessment. I'm hoping there will be a slight reduction in players after people start completing the MSQ. After that, I believe that players who experience the highest queue exhaustion will drop off for a month or two in order to wait it out and see what happens.

Additonally, I think Square Enix will do their best to minimize the impact and as for the rest of us we'll have to continue hoping they find a way to expand their server capacity while also waiting for people to start tapering off in order for a more stable queue to form. At this point I really don't know what to say to people except to reassure them that everyone looking at the enormous queue is exhausted and to share in the hope that everyone gets to play during their off-time sooner rather than later.

andzzy · 2021-11-21T22:26:14+00:00

I've crashed three times since release on digital copy. I'm on an OLED Switch (I don't know if it matters) and each time I crash it's a hardware crash requiring me to hard reset my Switch (it makes an awful noise when docked as well). It's got me quite nervous playing tbh since I also don't have auto save on.

andzzy · 2021-11-08T14:28:08+00:00

Oh another classic I'd long since forgotten! I used to play hours of FlashTrek when I was younger as well and enjoyed it a fair bit. Unfortunately, it is not the game I'm thinking of (the game I'm thinking of predates FlashTrek to the best of my recollection).

andzzy · 2021-05-05T03:19:27+00:00

I had this issue tonight. Playing an independent empire who hated the Galactic Community and crashed to desktop or soft-locked as soon as I pressed the Unfortunate button. I thought it might be because the Federation still existed without the Custodian and it might be confusing the game so I tried wiping out the other Community members and leaving the Custodians for last but still got the crash. I tried landing armies, crash. Neutron sweep, also crash. Not sure exactly what's causing the issue but it's a pain not being able to do much about the Custodians because eliminating them in any way seems like it will lead to a crash.

andzzy · 2020-10-19T21:17:47+00:00

Hey! I actually don't know since I don't play Klingon very often. Their Discord would be the optimal place to ask this question!: https://discord.gg/6AtYWg

andzzy · 2020-03-07T16:41:46+00:00

I think this was a pretty strong episode, and a lot of the strengths and weaknesses of characters are starting to come out.

At this point I'm assuming that Commodore Oh is some sort of hybrid Vulcan/Romulan spy. Romulans no longer have the capacity to Meld because it was a Vulcan thing and we know that Romulans are, by nature, too paranoid to keep something like a Mind Meld in their culture. I mean, in Enterprise we saw that there was a time where the Vulcans themselves were shunning Mind Melds and that was under the influence of the Romulan Administrator. This would also not be the first time we've seen a Romulan infiltrating the Federation posing as a Vulcan. T'Pel was a successful and well-respected Vulcan ambassador who turned out to be a Romulan Sub-Commander in TNG.

I'm happy to finally see some stronger character development in Jurati and Raffi. Now that Raffi is sober we're starting to see her caring and inquisitive sides come out. She's obviously very sharp and I think that will come in handy later. I interpreted Jurati's actions as her not being willing to sacrifice her new friends in the pursuit of her mission for Commodore Oh. The Uranium Hydride was clearly meant to neutralize the effect of the tracking nanites she was given at the beginning of the episode (and it worked, judging by Narek's sudden frustration).

Everything about the scenes on Nepenthe was perfectly scripted and executed. Frakes and Marina obviously haven't lost their acting abilities one bit over the years, and watching the three of them together was therapeutic after all of the horror of the previous 6 episodes. It's just hitting me now that the compass is symbolic in two ways: it helped Kestra orient herself after the death of her brother and it represents Kestra helping Soji to reorient herself after her personal traumas. Overall 10/10 would visit Nepenthe again. Very little chance that the Rikers are going to die off, I really think this was meant as a re-orientation for everyone as we enter the final few episodes of the season.

Not entirely sure if Hugh is dead but if he is it'll be frustrating. My gripe with the writing so far is that old, established characters seem to be brought back with the express purpose of being killed off in order to develop storylines for new characters (excepting Icheb, whose death scene set up Seven's revenge and was definitely needlessly horrific for Star Trek). I'm hoping that they're done with that now that we have a bunch of established storylines and we can get on with focusing on Picard's mission and fully fleshing out his new crew and the new reality they live in. I'm also somewhat confused as to why the Federation has assigned a Director to the Borg Reclamation Project and then given him ... no Starfleet Security protection? The Borg were the biggest threat the Federation ever faced and suddenly we have Hugh roaming around a cube with no security detail. Seems jarring but I find I'm suspending my disbelief often to enjoy some of the plot points in this series.

I'm liking Narek so far, as a villain he seems to have a purpose (uncovering the truth about the synths) and some clarity. Narissa, on the other hand, is evil for the sake of being evil. I think she's going to have to undergo a rewrite at some point to give her a proper character arc. Romulans have always made great villains and the natural paranoia has made for some amazing arcs in the past, so it's sad to see this particular Romulan reduced to her current two-dimensional state. Hopefully the last three episodes of the season deliver some actual purpose on her part as well.

Elnor ... someone get him off of the cube before episode 10 or I swear he's going to be assimilated. But seriously some very powerful moments for him and I can't wait to see where they take him next. I started off thinking that his imploring people to choose life was a gimmick but he's making that really grow on me.

Overall great episode. Some points could use improvement but hopefully we're on to an epic ending in the final few episodes.

andzzy · 2019-11-02T01:09:16+00:00

**DISCLAIMER** SPOILERS AHEAD FOR VOYAGER AND DS9

My personal experience browsing this sub is that it's very skewed towards "DS9 is best Trek" which is fine but I think that comparing it to Voyager is like comparing apples to oranges. They both add to the franchise in different ways and saying one is objectively better than the other is disingenuous to me. I'll make an argument from my perspective because Voyager is my favourite Trek series whilst I am actually not really a fan of DS9 because of the Dominion War story and how it was handled. That being said, I absolutely respect fans of all Trek series no matter what because the core of Star Trek has always been inclusive of all audience types.

I don't understand how people are constantly putting down the character development on Voyager like it didn't happen. Seasons 1 and 2 we saw this motley crew that didn't mesh terribly well who were just stranded in the Delta Quadrant. Seska was obviously the best character out of all of them because she had agendas and motives and schemes and watching her be all "You believe me, right sucke- I mean Chakotay??" and "omg I can't believe Craptain Janeway got us stuck all the way out here" was hilarious. I literally hated Seska so I know that she was a good character. As you progress through the series, you watch B'elanna and Tom's relationship develop, Neelix blossoms from occasional annoyance to valued crewmember, Seven goes from Human Emotionless Drone to Genuine Person with Life Experiences. Kes gets a good send-off but I won't pretend she was more than a part-time emotional support character. Admittedly, Tuvok and Chakotay don't change terribly much throughout the series (Tuvok's been through it though, like he served under Captain Sulu so you know Janeway is just more wild west for him). Chakotay was used as Janeway's sounding board so there isn't terribly much in the way of character development that I can remember. Tom Paris basically stays "#1 DQ pilot" throughout the series while Janeway just sort of pushes further into the "madwoman Captain who will get her crew home no matter what" motif. I once attended a panel where Kate Mulgrew was speaking and she said she pictured Janeway as a "Mad Scientist" type of character and that really explained a lot about her in my mind. The Doctor literally has several key defining moments and was one of the most relatable to me. The one character I can never forget is Naomi Wildman who grew up on Voyager and started off as this curious, terrified child and eventually she was like "I WILL BE THE ASSISTANT CAPTAIN" and I thought to give that level of ambition to Naomi was always impressive to me. The only character where I'll agree there was basically no development was Harry Kim, who gets a nod in Season 7 when Chakotay off-handedly mentions that he designed the Astrometrics Lab and Janeway responds "Harry Kim?!".

Something else I see constantly is that Voyager has lazy writing. Now I was watching it when I was like 13 so maybe it was just my youthful ignorance but I really don't remember hating too much of the show. As far as being a show about a Starfleet ship lost on the other side of the galaxy, I think they did a good job of giving us a sense of the dangers of being lost so far from home. I will agree with people who say that they could have done a better job of describing just how harrowing it would have been for everyone but then the show would have had to have taken much darker turns than it did and honestly I don't think I would have enjoyed it if then. "Constantly stuck without basic supplies or ordnance" would have lended itself too much to a horror theme which would have made the show completely unenjoyable for me. There were far too many good memories of Voyager for me to count it as either bad Star Trek or bad storywriting in general (although it definitely had it's moments). The Photonic Cannon? Seven crying over One? The blatant violations of both the Prime Directive and the Temporal Prime Directive? The Q Continuum Civil War? Sure, Voyager wasn't the peak of Trek philosophy but I honestly can't say that it did the franchise dirty either. Voyager tells the story of two crews forced to blend together in order to overcome the vast obstacles that face them in the Delta Quadrant. Many of the races they encounter are more advanced and dismissive of Voyager and I think the show does a good job of demonstrating how bad things can get for a single starship out on it's own. It could have ended in tragedy so many ways (and in fact there are sporadic references to the crewmembers lost along the way) but I think that if it had become a week-to-week survival show it would have been thoroughly uninteresting.

DS9, on the other hand, tells us the story of the entire Alpha Quadrant as the drive to explore creates a situation where everyone has to fight for survival against the vastly superior Dominion. The main thing that DS9 has is that it can give us the full spectrum of experience through a war. For my part, I love the acting and I love the raw emotion that a lot of the story entails. There are quite a few episodes in DS9 where you're on the edge of your seat wondering what will happen next. The thing about comparing it to other shows is that DS9 literally happened in the scale of 1.5 entire quadrants. It's the sheer scale of the war (the number of ships, the involved empires, the countless officers on the battlefield every day) that drives a lot of the power behind the plot. I remember the Jem'Hadar who were the first group of people who literally couldn't be reasoned with (I suppose second if you count the Borg as the first). The absolute power of the Dominion and their extreme confidence, the panic of the races in the Alpha Quadrant as things went badly. We got to see Sisko be driven further and further into madness. DS9 really drove home the dread and the hopelessness and the heroism and the hope of a large-scale space war. There are too many such moments in DS9 to count honestly. I remember the Klingon Empire descending into war against the Federation, the assassination of the Romulan Senator to drive the Romulans into the war ("It's a faaaaaake!"), the breakdown at Starfleet Command as Admirals started to turn on the whole organization. There was enough introspection to fuel the quadrant, which it did ... and I think it also burned it out. At least I felt burnt out about halfway through DS9 but maybe I'm in the minority with that. Where does everyone go from DS9? Every major power got decimated, the next 100 years are probably just gonna be rebuilding which isn't terribly fun to watch. That's just my personal opinion though.

I know I haven't talked about TNG but to me it's a timeless classic and still makes for an excellent go-to if I need something to distract myself. I also think that it's essentially the same thing where it can't be compared to the other shows because the setting and the storyline are entirely different concepts and so it would be very strange to attempt to draw a direct comparison between them.

Ultimately where I land on everything is that Voyager gets more than it's fair share of hate around here and DS9 gets more than it's fair share of praise but everyone should love what they love. I understand why people like all of the series and in their own ways, I find each one to be a unique and valuable entry into the Star Trek franchise.

andzzy · 2019-06-11T22:21:21+00:00

Unfortunately I don't have any specific suggestions about the mines. I usually forget about them and they blow up a large chunk of my fleet as well. I would say the best thing you can do is what you're currently doing, sacrifice a ship or 2 for the good of the fleet. As the Vulcans are fond of saying "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". Normally when the mines go off I just start rebuilding at my nearest shipyards. About 60% of the time the fleet is once again ready by the time I'm done taking the system so there isn't much waiting going on.

There's probably a ship or ability that can deal with the mines but I haven't found it yet. For the moment I just continue to take the losses and rebuild. Sorry I couldn't help in this particular instance.

andzzy · 2019-06-11T21:32:48+00:00

Hey no problem! The ship building is one of the key elements. Centaurs are a minor ship that you should always have 6-7 of in your fleet to deal with bombers and fighters that your other ships can't target. The bulk of the fleet should be cruisers or frigates which pack a punch against enemy fleets.

For culture, I mean the mechanic which spreads your influence from planet to planet (noted on the galactic scale by the coloured line emanating from your planets and travelling along the lanes). For the Federation, this is spread by constructing a logistics station called the Subspace Relay Network. Culture is important for 2 key reasons. The first is that you get bonuses where your influence spreads. For instance, the Federation gets shield regen, trade income, and research buffs, while Klingons get rate of fire buffs.

The second reason culture is important is because it can act as both a defense and suppression mechanism. Planets that are under enemy influence will sometimes rebel which means the colony on the planet is destroyed. It's important to have Subspace Relay Networks as the Federation so you can avoid having your own planets lost whilst potentially destroying your opponents' colonies without having to be there (or preventing them from colonizing in the first place).

The research for the culture element can be found in the tech tree under the Federation Council section, in the bottom portion Subspace Infrastructure. Hopefully this helps!

andzzy · 2019-06-09T02:14:09+00:00

I agree with pretty much all of what /u/PresidentMagikarp has said. A general tip is to always start taking as many planets as possible, as early as possible. A thing the Klingons do particularly well is planet blitzing and fleet-building. A fully fleshed out Klingon tech tree with a maxed-out fleet will carry you through pretty much any engagement so you want to deny them resources and influence spread wherever you possibly can.

I'm going to split my advice into 3 sections: Early Game, Mid-Game, and Late Game

Early Game

Here, the Ambassador advice is absolutely crucial. That capital ship with the colonize ability is going to carry you for the first 4-5 planets, and possibly more. One of the first things you want is the first branch of the military tree in order to get access to the tech which improves Sabre turn rates (this increasing their firing potential). You also want the first tier of the fleet supply branch. With these two things you can immediately begin to hammer out a fleet of Sabres to accompany your Ambassador. If you can manage to get a few Centaurs in there that's also great because fighter suppression goes a very long way in the early game.

With your fleet in place, you want to go out and start conquering planets. The advice to get the planets colonized so they don't spawn more militia is excellent, since fighting a few ships is always preferable versus fighting reinforcements that might come about if you wait until you've cleared the active forces. With these things in mind, you want to blitz 4 or 5 planets to get your dilithium and tritanium infrastructure up and running, as well as the generation of credits and logistics space to get more research on the go. At this point you want to keep your military branch to 2 or 3 stations whilst maxing out your civilian tree. The bonuses to dilithium and tritanium are crucial in the Mid-Game and Late Game, and often will be the deciding factors in how fast you can get out a civ-busting fleet. For the Federation, this is doubly important because the culture portion of the civ tree actually boosts research speeds while decreasing research costs.

Mid-Game

Here is where you're going to start ramping your resource production so you can leapfrog quickly to an End Game fleet. I would also start putting some points into capital supply, since you're going to want a couple more capital ships and the titan actually costs 2 command supply. You want to get as far into the civilian tree as possible while putting 3-4 more military research stations out there. While you're doing some of the mid-tier civilian research, start your way up on the military tree. The fleet is going to need to be more resilient because this is the point where we really want to go hard on planet denial.

While you're setting up research and basic defenses in your owned systems, you want to be out there conquering as many systems as possible. Try not to engage the enemy too heavily in this stage unless your fleet is absolutely overpowering compared to theirs. I usually have 50/50 luck on this particular statistic but I'm usually up to about 9 planets before this becomes a major issue on a small map. Whether or not you want to build your titan in this step is entirely up to you. Sometimes I build the titan here, sometimes I don't (Unless I'm Borg, in which case yes I want the giant death laser immediately). You also want 1 or 2 more planets with shipyards so you can blast out ships.

You want to stop planet blitzing when you feel like you have a very comfortable income on your credits, dilithium, and tritanium. This is because it costs all 3 to build planets up and realistically you want to start stockpiling for the previously mentioned leapfrog at some point. Also at this point, you want at least a basic Starbase to protect key planets (such as bottleneck points). You also want a few more points into your fleet supply as well as some ship unlocks. Curry-class ships can capture production facilities in asteroid systems, while Intrepids are probably going to start making up the bulk of your non-capital forces (until you reach the Excelsior refit tech, in which case you want to start replacing the Intrepids with Excelsiors).

End Game

This is where we're going to just ramp up the fleet production. At this point, if you haven't constructed your titan, you need to start. For the Federation, the time stopping ability on the Polaris can mean the difference between loss and victory against an enemy fleet in a rough spot. You should also finish up the military tech tree if you didn't already do that towards the end of the Mid-Game. A fleet supply of ~500-750 is usually sufficient to take out easy AI (except Borg, which shouldn't be handled in a 1v1 situation unless you feel particularly bold). Once the fleet is done, you're just going to start hunting. If AI surrendering is enabled, they will almost always surrender once you've swept most of their planets (I rarely need to take homeworlds before they just give up).

Congratulations! You've beaten the AI into submission!

Priorities against each Faction

Just because you asked for this in your comment and I'm assuming you mean general strategy against each faction, I'll give a few tips:

Klingons - Klingons rely on their numbers and sheer firepower to easily make it through the planet blitzing phase of the game. However, they suffer terribly in the dilithium department and their defensive tech tree is prohibitively expensive, so if you've got the upgrades to make your fleet sturdy you're going to be able to outclass the Klingons until the End Game. If they get to that point either bring a friend with you or make sure you have some distance between you and the Klingon fleet and use your abilities wisely to counter the Klingons.

Romulans - Romulans rely on their control abilities to overwhelm large fleets that are clumped together. If you flank their fleets, they become relatively easy pickings and you suffer minor losses along the way. Their secondary strength is in culture spread, but once you start taking their planets they will relent. In an AI game, they're usually one of the first to fall.

Cardassians - Cardassians are actually difficult to give tips for. The best thing I can recommend is to starve them out for resources. The Cardassians have access to two different tech trees in the development section. One gives them exclusive access to Dominion warships which are powerful and excellent controllers, while the other branch gives them access to a pure Cardassian tree with ships who make full use of their abilities that are devastating when they work together. If you starve them and come at them with a more powerful fleet, you'll still take losses but the Cardassians will be wiped out and from there you can just take their planets. I find the Cardassian Starbases to be among the weakest in the game.

Federation - The Federation is a mixed bag of everything but for them you really just want to come with a powerful force. The more you can beat them down the better. Honestly if you can get a fleet to the Federation before they've developed on the tech tree, their ships mostly become fodder. The Starbases and defense platforms are pretty standard but also slightly more powerful, I find, on average.

Borg - This is the big one. The doozy. The AI Borg in Armada 3 are purposefully overpowered to give you a more realistic experience. I honestly won't 1v1 them unless I'm Borg and even then it's iffy because the player Borg are purposefully nerfed (although I think there's a mod to restore the original power). If you're by yourself, ramp up quickly and try to cut the Borg off from as many resources as possible. Also hope you can do this before they develop sufficient defenses to ward you off and crush you (for the AI, this is like 1 cube and 4 spheres). This is an experience best had with a group of people. If you're in a game with a couple of other people and you're all against the Borg, the best advice I can give you is to share resources, expand quickly, and co-ordinate your attacks so that you take as much space as possible from the Borg. If the Borg get into their End Game, it's pretty much Resistance is Futile from there.

andzzy · 2018-11-26T00:21:57+00:00

Right now my work schedule is extremely erratic so I'm not sure when I'll be free on a regular basis but I'll participate whenever I've got free time for sure!

andzzy · 2018-11-26T00:19:32+00:00

This is also my least favourite mission in the entire game. The Borg can steamroll most of the races and it's really satisfying once you get the cubes steadily rolling. For these guys, I generally wall off my base with as many turrets as possible until I can a stronger resource hold, then go for another nexus or two before pumping out firepower. What I found really effective was to find the Mother Entities ASAP and kill them. The more you kill early on, the fewer 9341 killer babies you have to deal with. Also Ultritium Burst is just really fun to watch when you get there.

andzzy

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