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Star Trek Armada Revisited
by Jim "Twitch" TittleGame Title: Star Trek Armada
Version: Release Version
Category: Space Combat Simulation
Publisher: Activision
Release Date: Released
Min.Spec: P 200 MHz, 32 MB RAM, Win 95/98, 28.8 modem for multiplayer
Rec'd. Spec: P 266 MHz, 64 MB RAM, Win 95/98, 28.8 modem for multiplayer
Downloads: Star Trek Armada Website
Links: [Star Trek Armada Review] [Star Trek: conQuest Review] [STAMODS]
Article Type: Update
Article Date: February 7th, 2001
Super-size Cube In Action
There is no greater compliment to a combat simulation than "live long and prosper," as Mr. Spock would say. Activision's Star Trek Armada strategy "board-style" game has done this.
Since reviewed last year, it has continued to gain a following. Why? For one simple reason- it was designed with consumer add-ons in mind. Don't we all wish all combat sims were?! We all want a sim or game that is not old after a few months. We want to get our money's worth, right?
Fan sites abound and there are more mods for it than the past three popular flight sims combined. All the cool things we yearn for in something like European Air War or CFS II are there- the ability to add ships, change color and texture, modify armament and armor, increase the A.I.'s smarts and run it on modest hardware! Best of all, the price is probably reduced at the retail level now.
Multiplayer
The downside is that Armada suffers from the same problem that many combat sims do- online play synch faults. And like other historical, era-based sims there is a campaign in the STA community to petition Activision for a patch to fix things. While up to eight players can meet online and play, the experience is not always up to speed, literally. Many "clans" have been established, just like flight sim squadrons, to meet and do battle online.
I feel the main strength is not online combat, though hardcore on-liners will disagree. I think the greatest feature is that you can use up to seven positions against the computer all by yourself. You can truly stack the deck against yourself and make it hard to survive. You can have allies or take on everyone (all other A.I. teams) solo just as you can online. As with all hosted online gaming all players must have the same version and mods as the others or you cannot play.
In historical sims it's you against the same enemy with the same allies. In Armada you can use the "instant action" feature and be the Federation fighting the Klingons one time and be allies the next. You can be the Borg with Romulan allies and take on six assorted Klingon and Federation teams. The scenarios are extensive. This is the best quality of the game since you can use all the new maps you make or download plus all the modifications.
What's New
New Shapes & Textures
Did you like that cool Borg Cube? How about a Super Cube four times the mass and 10,000 drones? Wish you could have commanded the Premonition in the original game? You can. Sela's bigger Romulan Warbird was cool. You can have it to command and new Romulan ships as well. Thought the Klingon battleship was a bit weak? There are new, stronger ones now. Voyager exists. Wireframes and textures have been created. There are many new stations and facilities and you can command Ferengi, Cardassian, and Dominion vessels. All the other race's ships can be integrated if you desire.
The original shapes were done with Soft Image, very expensive professional software for creating images. The fanaticism actually made quite a few people buy S.I. for about $2,500! But Activision released a free utility called Storm 3D that allows the user to modify existing shapes into whatever they wish. All video cards are not compatible with it but there are so many add-ons in existence that no one could use all of them, though it is possible to do.
The great part is that THERE IS NO LIMIT to how many ships or structures, in any configuration, that you may bring into play. Everyone pined for huge air fleets doing battle in WW II sims. In STA it is a regular feature to see a couple hundred ships slugging it out. And the A.I. has been tweaked to make your ally fight well on his own. The computer now may launch assaults of three-dozen ships against your base making for a lively defense.
Activision released a map editor that allows one to create his own arena of construction and destruction with more than a dozen varied star backgrounds. Your creativity is only limited by you imagination as you lay out star base starting points and objects. You can even put derelict ships on the map that you can recover and use.
Activision has also released for download all the pertinent files needed for modification of each ship and weapon so there's no need to pull them off the disc and re-save the read-only files and convert to read.
Find Storm 3D, the map editor, links and the 1.1 Armada update patch at http://www.activision.com. I find many more people with problems here than at any site. The message board is loaded with problem questions.
Toys
Find It At STAMODS
In my opinion, the premier fan site is STAMODS at http://www.mindlessgames.com/stamods/, where you can find ALL the modifications, mod tutorials, clan links, a message board and assistance. On this site one can find several hundred downloads. Certainly many are a different take on the same theme of each modder's version of a ship or station, but the variety is there. There are mods for just one race or for all races combined.
Found at STAMODS is the excellent Battle Station Version 4, which is the newest and best, complete revamp of Armada. Included are extra ships, stations, and weapons with all new shapes and sounds. The proper, additional buttons are included with the new shapes of the component on them.
Voice tracks for BSV4 feature Captain Janeway, Captain Sisko, the Borg Queen and many more from the different TV series.
There are sites devoted to maps such as http://www.geocities.com/tfa_maps/ and http://www.geocities.com/the_newq/ArmadaMaps/armadamaps.html. There you can upload your creations and download new ones that others have made. It keeps the variety wide.
Star Wars Shipyard
Voyager & Star Wars Battleship
One may even incorporate some of the Star Wars ships into Armada. A more complete add-on is coming but single ships can be used now. The Tie fighter, Millennium Falcon, Imperial Star Destroyer, and more, can be integrated.
Crashes
As with other software titles, Armada can suffer from crashes. As stated, some message boards are rife with problems. I personally have not had too much trouble with it on even a PII 300MhZ with 96MB RAM and my old 32MB video card. I've learned through the years that you can easily bog down a computer with mindless pop-up icons and TSRs that you hardly use sapping resources from your hardware. I use a free utility called Enditall that many of you use. It is available free at http://www.zdnet.com and shuts down ALL background programs whereas you can't via any other method. I can get 94% free system resources that way.
Most faults pan out to be a weak video card, TSRs running, old device drivers, and old Direct X versions. Some folks have simply downloaded Windows file updates to cure things. Keep things updated on a lean and mean machine and problems will be greatly reduced. This helps for all software titles.
Modding
New Borg Base
The great thing about STA is that all the files of importance are written in plain English. This makes for Homer Simpson easy modding. I mean THIS simple:
// Rescale the sod
ScaleSOD = 1.25f
This would make the ship 25% larger. If you want to add some armament to one ship from another you can simply cut and paste.
// Uitritium Burst
weapon3 = "gutribm"
weaponHardpoints3 = "hp09" "hp10"
This would add the powerful Borg Uitritium weapon to any Borg ship you want. Change the #3 to the next weapon # in sequence in your ship's file and you're done!
By mimicking standard files you can invent all new weapons since there are many animations, which can be changed in color and size. Weapons and ships can be used on any side with the same concept of cut and paste in a few other files. You can give your ships cloaking and transwarp capability.
Textures are fun to experiment with. Texture from one ship or station may look good over the wire frame of another. I use a cheesy program that came with my scanner so you don't need Photoshop. Don't forget, there are downloadable tutorials and message board sections devoted to assistance.
Sounds are even in the universal .WAV format so you can even make your own sound effects. You can record music and use it as a background theme in addition to the original. If you don’t like a particular sound effect you can replace it with another's or modify it with the Windows .WAV editing program.
Sometimes users have as much fun making modifications to sims/games as actually playing. You can take me to task for Armada being "unreal." But nothing else will give you as much fun in constructing, battling and modding, as does Armada.
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