I'll make this as easy as possable.

#1. (This is for Rom and klingon ships that are cloaked) Example; I have my small fleet of 9 parked over say a fed planet, cloaked but not doing anything. the Feds send a few of there own there. Now in BOTF 1 you either have to fight, hail, or run. In BOTF2 can we not just sit there as long as we can not be seen?

#2. Example; I end up stealing a Cardiassion ship and now it is in my fleet. would I be able to "refit" it with a cloaking device? Or (as I view them) just own a piece of excess junk that I scrap then build another ship of my own race?

#3. How many ships will I be able to move in a group? Will it be the 9 like in BOTF1 or will we as players be able to say move up to 20 ships in a group?

#4. Will there be some control over abnormal events such as the crystaline enity appearing at the same time as the borg and wiping out 3/4 of my foes before I even get a real good chance to battle them hard. I have had this happen quite a bit in BOTF1, So I shut off random events.

Except on Tuesdays or when the councilor is in a snotty mood.
Thanks, that clears it up for me.

Azhdeen nailed it. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Eh, cloaked ships in BOTF1 was an **insane** advantage simply because you always went first, no matter what.

Cloaked Romulan Scout Mark 1 versus a 9 Soverigns and 9 Defiants. Probable outcome - utter destruction of the small low-tech vessel.
Actual outcome - a free turn to ride home from 18 of the most advanced starships in the galaxy.

With human players, this means that the romulan player can always control the initial stages of battle regardless of what he or she is up against. And even if you could detect the cloaked ship (having a high enough sensor level would light up cloaked ships on the map), they still got to go on a free turn.

First strike is a great advantage for the Romulans. But part of the fun is the ability to overcome other race's advantages. But in BOTF1, there was no way to do that except to simply build a bigger fleet than the Romulans. Any battle the Romulans felt like actually engaging in meant that you're going to loose a chunk of your initial fleet with no recourse. That's not fun, that's annoying (well, unless you play Romulan 24-7 and thus always want that advantage).

Now, if someone surpases your cloaking technology with better sensors (and removes your advantage), you should probably do something about it (and research some better cloaking tech).

It sounds like there is a lot of thought going into the new game. I am sure it will be a load of fun when all the details are worked out. This reminds me of the first Roman episode. The Balance of Terror remains among my most favorite Star Trek episodes.



This is when we first got to not see cloaking at work.

I actually do not know of this tactic. If you put a transport and a colony ship in the same taskforce, teraforming is promised to take just 1 turn on ANY planet? What tech level are you starting at?

How does it effect the colonization order? Do more people get deployed on the system for a faster head-start?

I can't speak for the other games, but terraforming in Star Trek: Supremacy won't work the same way it did in BOTF. You can find more information about it in .

@Azhdeen

This is possible because the terraforming ability a colony ship is linked to its "Industry" characteristic. Microprose didn't think to code in a specific "Terraforming" characteristic for colony ships. The Industry of a Colony Ship I is 150 and Colony Ship IIs have 300, meaning they can get through 150 or 300 of the terraforming count of a planet per turn. And, of course, if you put more than on colony ship in a task force, their Industry combines so they can work on the planet faster. Now with the Transports able to build Outposts and Starbases (which have a high industry cost) in a few turns, they have a high Industry characteristic. So if you combine one with a colony ship, their combined Industry is enough to terraform any single planet in a single turn. Even a Cship I and a Transport I have enough combined Industry to take on any planet in the game in a single turn.

Hope this isn't too confusing for people, I have a tendancy to ramble

Eh, transport ships should not be able to contribute to the teraforming of a planet. What does a bunch of marines and military engineers know about ecosystems? That looks more like a bug to me than anything. Personally, I would have gotten the Raid out and squashed it fast. Then again, the game has a fair amount of bugs anyways so *shrugs*

Oh, it's definately a bug. Thanks to rushed coding by Microprose. Like how most other bugs in the game were caused. Rushed coding and not enough testing.
Oh well, it's still BOTF and I still like it!

Yeah, it is a bug, Azhdeen, but it's a bug that's become part of the fabric of BOTF now. BOTF just wouldn't be BOTF without its bugs.