Armada II Upgrade Project
Almost a year ago, in fact as one of my first uploads, I had the honour of putting up a non-mod. Well, it's a mod and it isn't...technically, it's an upgrade project, but a fantastic one.
That's what it is in short, but in long...
A project undertaken to create a better looking Armada 2, simple, you say? Perhaps, however, I haven't gone over pretty much every texture file in-game to try and make it look nicer and I'm willing to bet you haven't either. On-top of the previous 1.2.1 version, you can expect a few more ship/station textures replaced and weapons...and the background...and it still works online! Yup, the point of this modification is to be able to play a greatly enhanced, graphics-wise, version of Armada 2 to play on-line. The advantage more-so than that? Well, as it is only textures, your opponent doesn't need this (though it is recommended as it looks rather nice). It also comes in a handy .exe so you can just install it by a few clicks of your mouse. In fact, the only bad thing I can see is of the rather large download size, which is 5x larger than the previous version, of course it is all worth it, so if you're a 56ker, I'd stick with it.
To point out, the quality of the 1.2.1 upgrade a year ago was really quite something, so it's going to be pretty obvious that the upgrades in this pack are going to make it even better than the previous one. So, do you want to blow up the enemy with some new phasers and quantum torpedoes, or stare at the new backgrounds? Perhaps you'd like to see the newly lit planets or observe your Defiant's blasting the enemy starbase with a flurry of pulse phasers. The choice, is, of course, yours... ... ...of course I thoroughly recommended it! Download this now, or forever be missing out!
Armada II Upgrade project, Version 1.3.1 release notes and credits.
Contents
0. Credits
1. Installation
2. System Requirements
3. Online Multiplayer
4. Known Issues
5. Disclaimer
6. Contact
7. Distrubtion/Authorised download mirrors
8. Third party use
0 - Credits
Special thanks go out to the following people: -
Rake - Rakes weapon textures (armada one modification)
Rake generously allowed me to use his work as a starting point, the phasers and pulse phasers originally came from him.
Joulton 7 - Armada II modder & Armada II Files Administrator
Jolt produced the new romulan ship textures and has allowed me to include them. He's taking to playing A2 online a bit now, so if you see him ingame please take the time to show him where he's going wrong instead of just slaughtering him.
IKS (Imperial Klingon Spanner) - Armada II modder
IKS produced the new borg cube, tactical cube and the middle bit of Fusion Cube textures and he was kind enough to allow me to include them.
Chiletrek - Armada II modder
I also feel obliged to admit that I only realised how to do alpha maps on textures (used for lightmaps in A2) after Chiletrek was trying to explain something to another member of the community. Without reading his post I would probably still be none the wiser, and we would be with without either the textures, or the lightmaps.
Curtis -
Curtis is producing unit retextures. At the moment I have his Galaxy, Soverign, Iwo Jima, Chuq'Beh, Shadow and the Phoenix.
James Hastings-Trew -
James produced the planetry texture maps and made them available from his website which are free for use.
http://planetpixelemporium.com/planets.html
http://www.detonationfilms.com/
Detonation films offer a number of peices of free footage designed for video composition. The only thing used from the *many* pages of free stuff is the new explosion.
NASA
New backgrounds courtesy of NASA. They were all made from public sector material.
1 - Installation
Run Setup.exe and keep clicking on the next button. The installer should locate the copy of Armada 2 that is correctly registererd with Windows automaticially, but if you wish to install on another installation then you do have the option to change it.
2 - System Requirements
Armada II
Thats it. (actually, Armada II is not required, but it helps if you plan on using this in conjunction with A2)
Ok, Seriously the textures are mostly at the same resolution and color depth as the ones they are replacing so you shoudn't notice any performance difference even on a slower computer.
That having been said, there are a couple of files that are bigger in this release, specificially the backgrounds. This will not cause a problem on the majority of PC's, but it is recommended that you have at least a 16MB graphics card to run this.
As plenty of advance notice- A poll on Armada II Files has suggested that 90% of people have a computer with more than a 128MB graphics card. I do not beleive that many people have anything under a 64MB card, and I will be upping the mimumum requirement to that in the future.
3 - Online Multiplayer
As always, This won't affect your compatibility with Version 1.1
4 - Known Issues
None. Unfortunately, version 1.3.0 was released with an error that caused a crash in the game. This was tracked down to Chiletreks textures and the problem was dealt with. I have also fixed a problem relating to a corupt file that was causing the mbgred background to show as white.
If you had previously downloaded the 1.3.0 release then you need the 1.3.0 to 1.3.1 patch which is available from both Armada II files and the project homepage. (www.a2upgrades.net)
At this point I do not beleive there are any problems, however should you spot any (or just stuff you don't like) please report it and a fix will be made as soon as is humanly possible.
5 - Disclaimer
As required by the Armada 2 End User License Agreement: -
"THIS MATERIAL IS NOT MADE OR SUPPORTED BY ACTIVISION"
6 - Contact
Our website is located at www.a2upgrades.net
If you need to contact us please contact Freyr, the project leader at "freyr@a2upgrades.net"
- WARNING -
reccommending/mentioning (or asking to be added to) ICQ, AIM, YIM, MSN, ETC in an e-mail to Freyr is punishable by summary execution. If you are foolish to ask despite this warning then your email will more than likely result in your e-mail being deleted by automated anti spam measures without being read. This will happen regardless of what other content your email had and I do not read through my spam emails. What can I say? I get a lot of spam...
7 - Distrubtion/hosting
We are not likely to suffer any problems with running out of bandwidth, however if your interested in hosting this file or distrubiting it then please contact us.
[Legal Stuff]
Please do not distrubute this file in any form without prior permission by email. (unless its to a friend, clanmate etc.) Likewise, you have no authority to submit this file for hosting at another website and you are hereby forbidden from doing so.
The reasons for this are fairly simple.
1) Some sites have terms of service that are unacceptable and we don't wish to be subject to them.
2) We would prefer only having a couple of download mirrors because its considerably easier to update a smaller number of mirrors. We have had problems before where people have been downloading a year old version and reccommending that we change something that had already been done more than six months previously.
If you want to have this file on your downloads page then you may link to the file on our server (though linking to the downloads page would be appreciated) on the condition that you agree to update your page to link to the latest version when it is released.
[/Legal Stuff]
8 - Third party use
Lastly, the a2upgrades material can be reused in whole or part in Armada 2 Modifications on the condition that this readme is included in your mod.
If you decide to use our material we would appreciate a quick message on the a2upgrades.net forum or an email to "freyr@a2upgrades.net" letting us know that your using it so we can add it as news on our web site.
If you wish to edit files to suit your mod you may do so, in return we ask that you consider sharing your alterations with the Armada II community under the same conditions we make them available to you under, but you have no obligation to do so.
If your from another community (or any other entity) interested in using any of these textures then please contact the project leader as outlined in the contact information above.
| Version | 1.3.1 | Author | Freyr | Website | |
| Downloads | 4,029 | Size | 18.43 MB | Created | 2006-12-18 |
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