I've looked around to see how this can be done, but not really found a substantive answer. Building a diverse fleet full of numerous races' vessels is easily my favorite part of BOTF and Armada, so I'm wondering if it's known how or even if other races' ships can be acquired. Obviously minor race ships can be acquired by peacefully annexing the minor race after they've built some ships, but what about the other powers? I see some hints that intelligence forces can sabotage and destroy other empires' ships, but I haven't seen anything actually saying whether you can steal. Also, does anyone know if the option of capturing a ship rather than destroying it in battle is possible? This is something I'd love to see. Too bad I can't just play as the Borg and assimilate everything.

Stealing enemy ships was possible in BOTF, so I imagine that it will also be possible in BOTF2. You're right though; to my knowledge this hasn't been mentioned before.

As for capturing them in battle, this has already been discussed in a thread, I just can't remember which one at the moment.

I think it was said that capturing ships would make the battle system too complicated, so the idea was scrapped. This doesn't mean it won't be in the game though, Gavin is a god of programming, afterall.

I would think the espionage/sabotage ship-stealing option would be available, but when I looked through some of the forums about intelligence networks it seemed to only mention destroying ships. Actually, I'd like to have the ability to order my forces NOT to destroy enemy ships--at least not intentionally--but only steal them. Of course, I'd more than believe that some of the ships would be destroyed by their own crews/empires before letting the ship be stolen.

With the battle capturing, I thought of two precedents for this: the Starfleet Command and Armada series. From the sounds of it--and this is a guess--I'm thinking that the battle scenario is going to be more like Command. Would it be possible--and I'm throwing this out for the programmers--to potentially use one of the same programs/scripts/whatever from one of those games and splice it into this one? Of course, both of the previous ones relied on marines or crew, but it almost sounds to me like the ships will already have this crew/officer type of set-up in order to be built. I'm not sure if the ship population will change or be relevant at all except for when resources are initially being allocated to build it, though. I certainly hope this will be an option, but I can also see it being flat-out impossible or WAAAAAAAY too much work.

Thinking of Armada, another aspect of ship stuff came to mind. Various nebulae killed off the crew of a starship without damaging the ship itself, leaving it free for salvage. Does anyone know if something like this might be included? My guess is that it's not, but I have seen some talk of various nebulae and random event effects.

We don't really know what's happening when it comes to intel in the game - the devs simply haven't explained it to us, other than "it's similar to BOTF but with more options".

As for Stellar Phenomena like Nebulae, these are gonna be huuuge in the game, possibly taking up multiple sectors. (If sectors are in, of course)

I don't know if "deadly Nebulae" (:lol:) could be programmed in, or whether it would be desirable from a programming point of view - if crew are killed off, then your ships are gonna need a crew counter, and it'll be just another stat that the game - and the player - will need to keep track of.

For more experienced players, this would be a good idea, but from the point of view of newbies, it would be even more confusing. This game isn't just aimed at the fans; it's also aimed at those who don't know that they like Trek games yet.

I know what Nebulas you mean though, i've got Armada 1 and still play it. Did you know that the green Nebulas recharge your shields and special energy?

Anyways, as i've said to many people before, the only way you'll get the answers you want, is direct from the devs themselves.

No we have little idea whats going on when it comes to intel. But what has been released (mainly a crucial screen shot) indicates that gav is implementimg something along the lines of what people have been asking for, thus a hughe improovement over the old system. In the old game as romulans or cardassians it was possible get such a rediculously good intel compared to other races that you could steal several ships or blow several up a turn. this constantly happened to me online even whan i devoted whole planets to intel, had no offensive intel and had several intel bonuses from minors. Its why i started asking for a better intel system about a year ago, because the old one was so imbalanced if it existed in the new game it wasnt going to be worth playing. I hope ship stealing and sabotage is still in the game but be wary of it leading to or being part of an intel imbalance.

loosing crew, maybe a skilled one or crew of an entire fleet would be depressing