Hello there. They call me the Starfleet Kid. And this is my first mod.

If you're reading this, then my attempt to upload this hero ship for Star Trek Armada II has been successful. Nothing here --absolutely nothing-- is original.
I took Deemon's Nebula-class, some support from Major A Payne, SupaStarAsh, and DarkColdParanoia, and a wishful thought that'd been lingering in my head for a very long time, and put them all together to give you this, the hero ship USS Endeavour NCC-71805.

A few words about USS Endeavour:

The Nebula-class Starfleet vessel USS Endeavour was present at the Battle of Wolf 359. She was the only ship to survive, despite some thirty-nine vessels being
lost. She served in Captain Picard's armada (no pun intended) during the Klingon Civil War, and she also fought the Borg at the Battle of Sector 001 (you can see
her in First Contact --she's the Nebula-class starship pounding Picard's intended co-ordinates). According to a throwaway line in Scorpion Part 1, she's commanded
by Captain Amisov. And, well.... having seen through some, what, five separate conflicts in which the Federation was entangled, including two separate Borg
incursions, she's been a favourite background starship of mine for some time now. I don't believe in luck myself, but those who do might consider the USS Endeavour
to be a "lucky ship".

A few words about the ship:

I created this ship as a crude but effective modification of the Nebula-class starship created by (I think) Deemon. I got this ship from SupaStarAsh's Apocalypse residuals.
The USS Endeavour has a weapons complement in its .ODF designated entirely from stock weapons --standard Nebula-class torpedoes, repair teams and tractor beam,
self-destruct and battleship-level phasers. However, it also includes a weapon entirely of my design.

Everyone remembers "Best of Both Worlds". It's the reason I'm a Star Trek fan. And I've wondered--- why doesn't the Galaxy-class starship in-game include that fantastic
deflector-dish assault weapon that Geordi and Riker tried using, without effect, against Locutus' cube?

So I made one. Everything involved in that is from stock textures, too-- I used the Borg colony beam as a base for the dish weapon. The button is, I realize, an Ambassador-
class type of deflector. But I think it looks better against the red "offensive" button background.

Anyway. Let's get the modding started. Note that this WILL NOT override your standard Nebula-class starship (if you use Deemon's already) thanks to Major A Payne.

Copy the following files to the following sub-directories in your copy of Armada:

fdev.odf ------------------------------------- \odf\ships
fdev.SOD ----------------------------------- \SOD
gbfdish.tga, NEB03.tga, NEB04.tga ---- \textures\RGB
fdev.bmp ----------------------------------- \bitmaps\AdmiralsLog\ShipImages\
fdish.odf, gfdish.odf ---------------------- \odf\special_weapons

If you don't like the deflector dish assault, you can remove it from your .odf-- it doesn't offend me. If you REALLY like it and want to add it to a Galaxy-class starship,
the Deemon / SSA Galaxy-class starship hardpoint for the deflector dish is either "hp08" or "hp21". Add it to your "fgalaxy.odf" as a special weapon and ENGAGE!

Regarding the techtree and sprites stuff:

You'll need to include the following lines in your tech1.tt file under the Federation section:

fdev.odf 0 // battleship (uss endeavour)

And, under the "special weapons" section:

gfdish.odf 0 // deflector dish of doom

I don't know how to make wireframes, so I just used the stock wireframes for a Nebula-class starship. Major A Payne did some WONDERFUL alternate versions of the
Nebula class starship, with different weapons pods, for his recent Borg Incursion: Vital Responses release. But USS Endeavour is the same kind of Nebula-class starship
as the one already included in the game. So you can get around it that way.

In your gui_global.spr file, take the entry for "fspecial" and copy/paste it, replacing the words "fspecialw#" where # means 1-5 with "fdevw#". Or just copy this:

fdevw1 fedwireframe02 0 144 48 48
fdevw2 fedwireframe02 48 144 48 48
fdevw3 fedwireframe02 96 144 48 48
fdevw4 fedwireframe02 144 144 48 48
fdevw5 fedwireframe02 192 144 48 48

And if you want to do some sort of "temporal loop hero ship reconstruction" Section 31 trick, add the following for a build button:

b_fdev gbfspecial 0 0 64 64

You'll NEED to add the following line for the deflector dish weapon:

b_gfdish gbfdish 0 0 64 64

Other than that.... I hope it works.

If it doesn't work or something, let me know. By modifying your copy of Armada II with this stuff, you're taking matters into your own hands, and that's not my fault.

If you use this ship as a hero, you may want to edit \odf\other\fed.odf so that USS Endeavour is a starting unit.

If you want to use this ship in a mod or something, please just let me know that you intend to, and mention me somewhere down the list.

This wasn't that hard to do once I learned how-- and for that I'm indebted to Major A Payne, who is both a gentleman and the finest Armada II modder I've ever known
and downloaded stuff from. Jealous? You bet I am.

But, again-- Star Trek Armada II was put together by Activision, MadDoc and lots of people with more lawyers than I have. None of anything I've done here is guaranteed
to be any good, and I openly admit I didn't do 90% of it. I read the whole "giving credit" section three times in order to make sure I did it right, so here's hoping.

Live long and..... something. ;)