star trek armada hd

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• Gaming and Modifications
• Armada Modding and Discussion

[Help]   Playing Star Trek Armada 2 in modern HD resolutions eg 1080p

• Thread starter Blake00
• Start date 20 Dec 2019

Cadet Senior

• 20 Dec 2019

Hi guys, I've been having no luck getting Armada 2 to run just in simple HD 1920x1080 resolution. When I used the Armada 1 1.3.0 fan patch on that game I got all the lovely newer resolution options yet the popular Armada 2 1.2.5 fan patch doesn't seem to do that and I'm stuck with old smaller resolutions up to 1280x960. I've been hunting through many forums for help on this issue and I can see a few posts here and there but no working solutions. So I'm guessing either no one cares OR the game just doesn't like my built in Intel graphics chip and nearly everyone else out there with better graphics cards are getting more options lol. Is that whats happening here? Are you guys all getting access to HD resolutions in Armada 2? Seems so strange that the fan patch for Armada 1 upgrades the graphics options yet the Armada 2 one doesn't I saw an old thread on the Fleet Ops forums about them making a separate patch that allowed modern resolutions in original armada 2 but the thread went dead years ago. I saw advice over on armada fleet command about editing the prf file to be 1920 1080 instead of 1280 960 but as soon as I started the game it reverts it back to default 800x600 so that doesn't work. I have Armada Fleet Ops which is great for multiplayer and I've even tried the Armada 2 Classic project and Upgrade project mods for Fleet Ops that puts the A2 campaign in there however I've seen people posting about various bugs/glitches and I couldn't get the intro video working either. After playing Armada 1 campaign in HD I really want to play Armada 2's campaign in HD and would rather do it in the original game if I can!  

Cadet Freshman

• 23 Oct 2020

Thats an interessting question. Is there a solution for this problem? I wanted to stream stock Armada 2 with OBS but I never had luck with that either. I always supected the screen resolution is the main problem for OBS.  

I know just enough to be a danger to myself

I did the Upgrade Project mod for FO and I would be interested and appreciative if you know of any bugs to send them my way. Also, I believe I removed the intro videos to save download size. Those files added a lot of extra size. I think they are the .bik files. You can take them from stock A2 or the Classic mod and put them back in if you wanted to.  

I allways thought that A1 and A2 are working with the same engin. By that I mean you can find some thinks left from A1 in A2 for example ships and stations. Isn't there a config file you can edit somewhere in the game? That trick works with Elite Force so I was hoping it would work with A2 too.  

Lutz said: I allways thought that A1 and A2 are working with the same engin. By that I mean you can find some thinks left from A1 in A2 for example ships and stations. Isn't there a config file you can edit somewhere in the game? That trick works with Elite Force so I was hoping it would work with A2 too. Click to expand...

Hm, interes ting. Did you tried a NO CD patch? With one my reselution is in real 4:3, without it is wierdly stretch. I allways hoped that the NO CD patch had something fixed...  

Stretching of old 90s 4:3 resolutions is not the problem (things like that can be adjusted in video card and screen settings). We just want 1920 x 1080 which is 16:9 and the game doesn't allow that resolution. Can't select it, can't force it in config files, and no fan patch addresses it. It's just so weird that this problem exists. Why fix A1's resolutions but not A2's...  

My idea was that the NO CD patch would fix the problem, that resetts the config file too.  

Star Trek: Armada (Windows)

• My Abandonware

Star Trek: Armada

Windows - 2000

Download extras files Manual and patch available

Description of Star Trek: Armada

When it comes to space operas like  Star Trek  or  Babylon 5  you can have all the square-jawed heroes, but what you really need to give a show that extra edge is some really nasty baddies.  Bablyon 5  pulled this off well, featuring the evil Shadows, with their jet black ships and sneaky plots. And the entertainingly off-kilter  Lexx 's central antagonist was a strange shadowy lifeform who initially ruled a rather macabre universe dominating empire (which Star Wars' Imperial Empire had nothing on) and later became a sort of half machine creature who succeeded in destroying the entire universe piece by piece.

But the creators of  Star Trek: The Next Generation  must claim the prize for creating the best evil baddies ever - the Borg. The Borg are half human, half mechanical and uglier than the Daleks ever were. Except that is, for Voyager's Seven of Nine who has been shorn of most of her robotic appendages and appears to be the only member of the Voyager crew with a with access to unlimited supplies of lycra and special Borg 'implants' which probably contravene every Starfleet clothing regulation. Still, she's more a blip than an emerging trend amongst the Borg, and the rest of the Borg remain thoroughly nasty, their nastiness rating boosted by the fact that they spend most of their free time mercilessly assimilating all species they come across, turning them into Borg drones and stripping them of their individuality.

And if that wasn't worrying enough, they're virtually unstoppable. They're so nasty, in fact, that I suspect at least half of all the people who bought  Star Trek: Armada  bought it just for the chance to play as the Borg. After all, everyone knows that the when it comes to lethal weaponry and bottom-kicking ships, bad is best.

Powered down

Unfortunately, those looking forward to assimilating the universe in one fell swoop may be a little disappointed upon picking up  Star Trek: Armada , for a couple of reasons. The first of the reasons is that the Borg campaigns, like those of the other races, slot neatly into the storyline. This is an interesting approach in itself but does have the downside that you can't do anything that would alter the storyline. You can't assimilate the Enterprise for example, or assimilate the Earth and rule the galaxy (on a permanent basis, at least). Having the bad guys win is apparently not on the cards - the Federation always manage to save the day. Secondly, as David Finn points out in his pretty comprehensive review, the Borg in  Armada  are rather weak compared to their counterparts in the  Star Trek: First Contact  movie and the  ST:NG .

In the series, the Borg cube dwarfed the Enterprise and the only way the Federation could defeat the Borg was by running around like headless chickens for 40 minutes and then coming up with some techo-gibberish to miraculously disable and or destroy them. In  Star Trek: Armada  however, each cube is about the same size as the Enterprise and about as strong. The series and movie Borg ships also had the ability to remodulate their shields thereby negating any phaser damage they may have received - this too has been taken out of the game, despite the fact that the Borg ships, when ordered to move, often say 'remodulating shields'. 'Resistance is futile?' - resistance is too flipping easy, more like. Oh, how cruel it is to have your plans for galactic domination crushed...

On the plus side, you do still get a variety of Borg weaponry that you can use against your foes, such as the combined holding beam and assimilator attached to the Borg Cube that can grab and assimilate the crew of any ship, even if their shields are up. Other races can take over ships too, but they have to wait till their opponents' shields are low - but it's still worth doing as there's something ego-boosting, especially in multiplayer mode, about nicking your enemy's ships and then using them to take out their own. It's one of the rather nice touches that makes  Star Trek Armada  such a promising game when you first pick it up.

Other nice (or 'neat' if you're an American) touches include the multiplayer game which features a skirmish mode so you can take on AI opponents in lieu of kicking arse on-line and getting some practice in. Plus, should you go about setting up your own multiplayer game you can customise pretty much everything in the game - including whether or not the Ferengi put in an appearance. When this race is in the game they'll fly around the game area and nick any crewless derelicts, hauling them away before you can re-crew and rescue them.

At least in theory that's the way it's supposed to happen - in truth, I witnessed a rather monumental Ferengi bug not once but twice while playing  Star Trek: Armada . Not only did a Ferengi ship manage to capture one of my ships that was fully crewed with Borg, having recently been assimilated, but on traversing an asteroid belt the Ferengi ship cleared the belt okay but my ship got stuck behind an asteroid, so the Ferengi's blue tractor beam stretched, and stretched, and stretched. Until, no - my ship didn't escape, the ship was mysteriously pulled through a solid asteroid and taken off the map.

Buggy of Borg

And the above bug wasn't the only one I ran into either - even with the Beta Patch installed I ran into a number of others, some minor, some major. The worst one was on the fourth Federation mission - after destroying all the Borg vessels and bases I found myself unable to complete the mission as there was one green dot on the map. This dot turned out to be nothing at all - not a ship, not a Borg base, just a strange dot that could not be destroyed, so I ended up skipping the mission as have dozens and even hundreds of people if the strategic newsgroups are anything to go by. Shipping a product with this many bugs just isn't on and it's especially annoying as  Star Trek: Armada  had the potential to be a real corker.

In strategic terms too,  Armada  is a little under par - it could have done with a little more unit tweaking and unit variety. Granted, the differing special abilities of the ships do add some variety to the game but they don't disguise the fact that each side has pretty much the same basic types of ships and units. In  Total Annihilation  - a comparison that's especially valid since  Armada  is just a 2D strategy game in space - no single unit could kick the electronic cack out of every other one. You could blitz Big Bertha guns with aircraft, manufacture anti-aircraft units that could take out flying vehicles and use smaller craft to take out the giant stomping robots and tanks.

But in  Star Trek: Armada  - even when you have the 'director's cut' mode turned on which means ships turn and zoom around in combat - you need only to manufacture six or so of the big units such as the large Enterprise starships or the Borg Cubes to be able to take out pretty much everything in your path. Even a swarm of fighters doesn't stand much chance against a heavily armed starship - although you'd think the fighters would move too fast for the bigger ships to be able to get a lock on them. Still, no-one said Sci-fi had to be realistic. Or indeed that  Star Trek: Armada  had to be an entertaining and bugless game, more's the shame.

The real telling point is that if it wasn't for the  Star Trek  licence,  Armada  probably wouldn't have even made it to market. As it stands,  Star Trek: Armada  does, as David Finn states, feel like a rushed product. In fact, it feels like the production team were working on it happily, making good progress, when someone in marketing decided they needed it released next month, and they shipped it way ahead of time. 

Star Trek: Armada  could have been a good game, but as it stands it's just a case of big name, shame about the game.

Review By GamesDomain

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Captures and snapshots.

Comments and reviews

darkness 2021-03-14 0 point

when you go to the pearly gates there will be two orion slave girls ther to escort you in and the cheers are alwas for you you made an old soldier very happy

indus49 2021-03-04 0 point

Does anyone know where saved game files are stored? I'm trying to move this game to another machine, but I cannot find the save data. I checked in %appdata%/roaming - no activision or armada folder there. Checked in my save games, and in the Armada "Save" folder (same directory as the game itself) - NADA!

gamerhawks 2021-02-27 1 point

patch 1.2 says it cant verify the location of the game please help it wont update

assimilated 2020-10-31 0 point

beware that this game crashes immediately on startup (after the splash screen) if you have dual monitors connected - or at least it did for me.

phoenix 2020-09-19 -3 points

same problem here as armada 2 only 2 files available BIN and CUE files no actual game file this sucks guess i need to keep looking else were for these great games :(

Classicgamer23 2020-08-31 3 points

If phoenix ever reads this, the Armada.mdf and Armada.mds are fake CD images. You need to mount them with a program like WinCDEmu, its a free program that will allow you to mount the images. With the images mounted you should be able to start the executable file if you have one.

phoenix 2020-08-24 1 point

well this sucks i downloaded all the files but cant even get the game to do anything ive extracted it all but all i get r files " Armada.mds " and " Armada.mdf " but there is no option to play the game cant install the patches as the patches cant find the game files guess im just gonna have to go and find the CD version again :(

Bafits 2020-07-16 -6 points

old-games.com Both Armada 1 and 2 are available here... Go to Armadafiles.com for Mods and Addons... It's worth paying a few bucks to get this game to run with no hassle... I don't know what it is about myabandonware, but it's such a hassle to get anything to work properly when downloading from here...

madeingermany 2020-04-05 -1 point

On Win 10 with this fix, I did not need any special compatibility settings: https://github.com/elishacloud/dxwrapper/wiki/Star-Trek-Armada-1 (Installed the provided 1.2 and 1.3 patches first)

ARTURO A.VELA ok 2020-02-21 3 points

I just miss playing star trek armada

Retr0Gamer1971 2019-11-10 1 point

Thank you! I have been looking for this game for YEARS. It is wonderful that you guys have this!

Kurt 2019-10-26 -1 point

I've having issues where it says i don't have the CD in when i try to launch the game...

BebeOso 2019-10-13 5 points

Ok. So many thanks to LECK for getting this working, for me. It's still a buggy mess and crashes 7/10 in the menus, but once in, playing the game is no problem. The big issue that I seem to have, is that once you've finished the fourth chapter for each faction, that's it. That's as far as the game will allow me to go. It happened for the Federation, so I thought 'Fine, I'll move on'. Did it for all the others. Absolutely no idea why. Tried using a code to move on, but all it seems to do is take me back to the main menu. Then when I try to open up a factions missions, game crashes out. Very bizarre.

Wolfcall 2019-08-14 -1 point

I haven't been able to find patch 1.3 ANYWHERE!!!

Warthog 2019-08-13 -6 points

Error "Unable to verify location of Star Trek Armada" Any hints to fix this?

Nanox 2019-04-09 -5 points

So I mounted the .mds file and this still ask for a cd... what do i do?

KrisC1337 2019-03-06 1 point

it didnt work for me... did everything and tries to load. Get a black screen and then a loading cursor, then it closes and windows compatibility pops up. Ran compatibility as well and no difference.

franco 2019-03-02 -1 point

hello, can this game run in windows 8.1?

Leck 2019-02-09 4 points

i figure i would answer the question everyone seems to have because i was trying to get this to work for 10 years and finally did. i cannot take most of the credit, even though i have some additional comments beyond just giving links. these are instructions how to get armada1 to work on windows 10. on windows 7 you can simply install patch 1.2 and it should work. i believe windows vista only needs patch 1.1, and on windows xp and 98 this game should run natively without modification. first thing is you need the iso or cd of the game (you need the game). both should work the same way. if you have an iso, you need software to simulate a physical cd (or you can burn a physical cd is another option). the best free software for different purposes changes from year to year so i suggest 'virtual clonedrive' in 2019 as the best free software to mount iso files. any mounting software will do. open the cd in your file explorer (double click on the cd drive) and run the "setup.exe" . after armada is finished installing you can install a mappack into your addons folder. here is a link to get patches and maps http://armadafiles.com/files/armada. if you don't want to bother with the mappack, skip this step. you might be able to add maps later, i'm not sure. install patch 1.2. then install patch 1.3. then get the "armada-fix" file from https://github.com/elishacloud/dxwrapper/wiki/Star-Trek-Armada-1 and follow the instructions on this page (if this link is broken simply copy the 3 files in the armada-fix into your main armada directory. if you don't have access to "armada-fix" i am saving these files for decades, so you can contact me directly and i can send them to you) you should be able to play single player at this point. i was unable to find a way to get out of 640x480 resolution or mute sound, but the game is still perfectly playable in this way on windows 10. i had to alt+tab out and back in to see anything but a black screen every time i started the game, but that's a small price to pay to play a game i've been trying to get to work for over 10 years. i have a method i am going to try to get multiplayer to work i have not tried yet. it should work. it involves using the "stvssw" mod and using tunneling software to connect 2 computers. again i'm not going to write this here because this method is more complicated than just getting the game to work, and i haven't even tested it yet. ----- my website www.Lecksite.com

TJ 2019-02-04 -6 points

Okay, I have no idea what to do with the ISO files. Why can't you just have the whole game file without having some silly ISO file? I don't like installing multiple apps to get one game "unlocked".

Jonnief83 2019-01-03 -2 points

I was trying to change the ini file but i have noticed it is locked tight, any ideas ?

Thatonethere 2018-12-27 1 point

I remember playing this game with my dad. Had some flashbacks to it over Christmas hoping it holds up to my memories

Aserez 2018-12-08 1 point

When I was playing this as a teenager i found the full conversion star wars mod which was the absolute BEST. Loved it but my old pc could never handle it, now my new old pc can run it in its sleep!

Cao 2018-11-03 0 point

I used to play this game NON-stop, I got so many mods and played online as often as I could. It's too bad it's tricky to get working, I was kind of hoping somebody would have modified it so that it works on WIndows 10 by now. There are ways to get it to work, sure, but it's a pain in the arse...unless I'm missing something? Oh and I should say I still have my favorite old mod which I don't mind sharing (if they're not online anymore): AresV3, and some maps to go with it: 8fallen, 6war, 3contact.

Tinker 2018-10-06 0 point

i have always used Deamontools lite for both making ISO image files of disks i currently have and mounting ISO files as well. it is totally free and work likes a champ! it is also a great way to get those old CD games into a nice digital form so that you dont have to worry about the disk getting lost. https://www.daemon-tools.cc/downloads#page

Ace86 2018-09-23 1 point

You'll have to make sure it's iso and not msb then you'll just use the file view and on the top left of the window is a mount option.

PC_Junkie_17 2018-07-10 1 point

i remember playing this game when i was 10 years old. this game is what got me into science and the star trek universe in the first place. its nice to see it preserved.

Vocaloidrocket 2018-06-05 -16 points

How do i get the ISO version to work on windows 10? i literally cant find anything anywhere to help me.

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Category: Mods

Star Trek: Armada II Review

It probably won't completely satisfy those who enjoyed the first Star Trek: Armada, though with that caveat aside, it can still be recommended.

By Greg Kasavin on May 30, 2003 at 4:07PM PDT

Released in early 2000, Star Trek: Armada was a well-built, graphically impressive real-time strategy game that let you command the famous ships of the Star Trek: The Next Generation television series. The game wasn't overly complicated as real-time strategy games go--the object was to quickly try to gather enough resources to field a large fleet of starships powerful enough to dispose of all the enemy forces. Still, Armada was paced well, had some tactical depth, and was essentially fun to play. Some Star Trek fans felt its fairly simple gameplay didn't do justice to the source material, but most found Armada to be a refreshing change from the typically lackluster Star Trek games that had come before it.

At any rate, there was certainly room for a good sequel. Some sequels simply expand on the concepts of the original game--they introduce new graphics and a few new features. Other sequels are more ambitious in nature, and Star Trek: Armada II is one of these. You can't tell just on first impression--the look and basic design of the game remain largely identical to its predecessor. However, a number of new complexities have been introduced in Armada II, which make it seem more compelling than the first game from a strategic standpoint. Unfortunately, in practice not all of these new features are successful. In fact, if you enjoyed the original Armada, you might find yourself nostalgic for that game while playing Armada II.

Armada II is the first product from Mad Doc Software, a company founded by one of the key individuals behind some of Activision's successful real-time strategy games, including Dark Reign, Battlezone, and the original Star Trek: Armada. On paper, Armada II sounds like a perfect sequel. In addition to the Federation, Klingon, Romulan, and Borg playable factions from the first game, Armada II also lets you play as the cruel Cardassians and the enigmatic yet decidedly hostile Species 8472, though these two are only available in the skirmish and multiplayer modes. New ships and technologies have been added to each of the returning factions. There's a new, linear campaign consisting of 30 single-player missions--10 for the Federation, 10 for the Klingons, and 10 for the Borg. New tactical options are available--ships can be set into a number of formations, and battles now play out in true 3D space. By comparison, in the original Armada, battles took place on what was essentially a flat 2D playing field. Armada II also adds more layers to the original game's resource model.

Not all of Armada II's gameplay additions are effective, even if they sound attractive. For example, the ability to move your ships in a true 3D environment is just the sort of feature that some of Armada's fans hoped to see in a sequel. Unfortunately, the ability to do battle in true 3D space is really of negligible benefit to the game and actually introduces some new problems to how it plays. Though you can zoom the camera in for a close-up view of your ships, you'll spend the vast majority of your time with Armada II looking at your fleet from a top-down perspective, much like you'd find in most any real-time strategy game. Thus having the ability to move ships "up" and "down" relative to this perspective can be a tricky affair. It's easy enough to do--you use the Shift key, much like in the popular outer-space strategy game Homeworld, to set a destination for your ships along the Z-axis.

The problem is, at a glance, you can't really tell what's where. What looks like space debris might actually be a fleet of powerful starships too far "down" for you to notice. Meanwhile, ships sent all the way "up" can fill the screen. This can be used to devious effect in multiplayer matches--the relative sizes of your units can be carefully concealed by moving them along the Z-axis, so that even at resolutions exceeding 1024x768, it can be very difficult to tell what sorts of ships you're dealing with. There's a "tactical" view mode that lets you see the action from more of a side angle, which gives a better sense of relative distances between ships, but this view is otherwise disorienting and mostly just adds some cinematic flair to the action. It's not an ideal perspective for actually playing the game. At any rate, the addition of the Z-axis may indeed add a new level of strategy to the combat, but since much of the strategy revolves around taking advantage of flaws in the game's default perspective to trick human opponents, it's not the kind of depth that's entirely welcomed.

In any case, battles just don't last long in Armada II. For one thing, you'll find yourself bringing more ships to the fray than you did in the original game. In Armada, a well-balanced fleet of about a dozen ships could easily sweep across the map. In Armada II, most ships are produced very quickly, but also seem to get destroyed more easily, which means you'll use greater numbers of them. It also means you'll probably ignore the weaker ships and try to work your way up to the stronger, sturdier ones as quickly as possible. This isn't really satisfying--the first Armada gave a pretty good sense that you were indeed commanding powerful starships. When one of your bigger vessels was destroyed, that was a real blow to your force. In Armada II, ships are more expendable. Considering that most of Star Trek is about the drama that takes place aboard these vessels, the idea that they can be thrown wave after wave to their deaths seems misguided.

Armada II's ships fire and turn very quickly--they seem to have little mass--and their jerky motions further diminish the sense that they're actually huge spacecraft with hundreds or thousands of crewmembers aboard. Ships apparently take damage differently depending on their facing, but in practice this doesn't seem to mean much--a few ships bearing down on a single target can usually decimate it in no time, regardless of what direction it's pointed in.

Armada II lets most ships travel at warp speed, another new feature. They'll seem to elongate and will travel at a much faster rate across the map. In this state, ships are more vulnerable and their line of sight is reduced. It's a nice way of balancing out an ability that you'd expect most any Star Trek vessel to have. In practice, it's great for when you need to quickly reinforce a fleet engaged in battle or defend a vulnerable base. Maps in Armada II can be quite large, so being able to traverse them at high speeds is a relief. Actually, warp speed gives you a lot of leeway that you don't get in other real-time strategy games, where you need to have your units in the right place at the right time.

Warp speed isn't the only new feature that makes Armada II's combat seem rather forgiving. Since the pacing of Armada II's battles is much quicker than before, the designers added some options for allowing units to autonomously fire their special weapons. The special weapons in the original Armada worked just like those in games such as Warcraft II or Starcraft. Basically, you could spend resources to research special weapons for your individual ship classes, and then you'd need to manually trigger the attack when the time was right. Some have criticized this approach over the years--the idea being that manual dexterity shouldn't be a factor in a strategy game. At any rate, by giving you the option to let your ships fire off their special weapons autonomously, Armada II makes this hot topic a nonissue. In doing so, it penalizes those players who actually like the challenge of having to manually use these attacks, since the computer will always be quicker on the draw. Then again, the computer will also be prone to wasting the attacks on insignificant targets. Overall, much like the addition of the Z-axis, the option for greater unit autonomy in Armada II is something that's not quite successful in practice. It feels like a compromise, because it is one.

The changes to the resource model of Armada II are better than the changes to the tactical combat. The original game featured one basic resource you had to gather--dilithium--plus crew, which constantly regenerated and essentially limited the rate at which you could produce ships. Armada II adds the resources of metal and latinum to the mix. Metal is used in conjunction with dilithium to make ships but mostly to make new facilities. It's mined from planets, and most of the factions do this by constructing orbital mining facilities on planets found throughout each map. Latinum is a precious resource gathered from gold-colored nebulas and is mostly used for researching new technology. Also, planets can now be populated using colony ships, and this increases the rate at which you gain more crew. Not all races treat all the resources the same way. The Borg have no need for latinum. Species 8472 need only "bio-matter" and have no use for the basic resources the other races require. Most factions can now build a trading station facility, which can be used to buy or sell the various resources.

The more-complicated resource model in Armada II demands that you aggressively expand your territory to gain the funds you'll need to win. It's certainly a more interesting system than that of its predecessor, especially in how the demand for various resources varies somewhat for the different factions. However, once you weigh the resource gathering against the breakneck pacing of the combat, you'll find that the game really boils down to the resource gathering. You need to concentrate on gathering a lot of resources as quickly as possible and then building up a force that can sweep the map and crush the resource-gathering operations of your foes before they can do the same to you. The original Armada's resource system was simplistic--you just threw a few mining vessels at nearby sources of dilithium--but it let you concentrate on the tactical combat. The sequel's focus on resource gathering isn't necessarily the best direction it could have gone in.

Star Trek: Armada II's single-player campaigns are fairly conventional. There are usually multiple mission objectives in each scenario, and they're not always so basic as having to eliminate all the opposition. Though the Romulans, the Cardassians, and Species 8472 don't get their own campaigns, you'll run into them while playing as the other factions. Unfortunately, you might also run into a few bugs--the program shut down sporadically on our test systems, and strange things sometimes happened in the game, such as friendly units spontaneously firing on each other. Armada II features original voice-over from Patrick Stewart and a plot that should be satisfying to fans of the television series. These fans will also appreciate that Armada II sounds great--each of the game's six factions has its own well-done unit acknowledgments and music, although many of the sounds come straight from the original game, and the high-quality music plays in relatively short loops.

Armada II's instant action (or skirmish) and multiplayer modes let you play against up to seven human-controlled or computer-controlled opponents. Though three difficulty options are available, the computer doesn't pose much of a challenge regardless and merely seems to rally its forces quicker at the tougher settings. But it still can't seem to defend itself against a large, concentrated attack against its main base. Since base defenses are quite powerful in Armada II, beating the computer becomes a matter of quickly expanding, then setting up defenses, then biding your time until you've amassed a huge fleet.

Multiplayer Armada II has a built-in server browser through GameSpy, and you should be able to find enough competition. There are a few alternate multiplayer game modes, such as one that focuses on planet colonization and defense, but these are mostly just diversions to the core game. Both the skirmish and multiplayer modes are quite customizable--you can toggle on or off special weapons, warp speed, and more. In a telling gesture, you can also adjust the computer's build times and resource costs, effectively letting it buy things cheaper and make them faster than you can, in case you want to give it an edge to compensate for its basic lack of skill.

Armada II looks similar to its predecessor, but its predecessor's once-impressive graphics haven't aged well. The 3D ships look rather flat and can be very difficult to differentiate from one another when you're playing from the zoomed-out view. Armada II's maps are filled with colorful gaseous swirls that are a bit garish. Destroyed ships merely seem to split apart at the seams. The fog of war enshrouding each map is an ugly coat of solid gray. But perhaps the most frustrating aspect of Armada II's appearance is that an interface panel takes up about a third of the screen, even when you're playing at high resolutions. Some of the graphical effects still look great--phasers and photon torpedoes still light up the screen, and you can see little lights blinking on many of the ships. The six factions all look quite different from one to the next, too, and their respective spacecraft do look sufficiently similar to their television counterparts. But within each faction, it will take you some time to tell the differences between their ships and their structures. Fortunately or not, most of the factions are roughly similar in the sorts of ships and structures they have available. For instance, every side now has an "artillery" ship, capable of long-range bombardment. In Armada, only half of the factions had access to these extremely powerful units.

That's not to say all of Armada II's factions are the same. All of them have unique technologies and several noteworthy twists. Likewise, though Armada II may not be an entirely successful game, some aspects of it are undeniably well done. For instance, those who played the original Armada might recall that the game didn't give a good sense of its units' relative sizes. Some Federation vessels were as large as Borg cubes, which are supposed to be much, much larger. In the sequel, the Borg get their dues--eight cubes can be assembled into a fusion cube, a truly enormous battle station bristling with high-powered weapons. Despite the addition of larger spacecraft such as these, the game's battles run smoothly on midrange to high-end systems, even when dozens of ships are firing and exploding onscreen. The gameplay does bog down if you view it from the tactical angle, though. It's also worth noting that Armada II simply has a lot of stuff in it. There are plenty of ships available to each faction, and all of them can gain one or more special abilities. Armada II basically plays well--its interface is easy to get used to and its controls are responsive--so figuring out the game's little details can be enjoyable.

The main problem with Armada II is that, in changing some of the original game's focus, it seems to lose sight of that game's goal to give you the sense that you're marshaling huge capital ships into battle. It's unfair to just criticize the developers for trying to enhance the complexity of the original game--that's exactly what many players clamored for, and to Mad Doc's credit, the new gameplay features added to Armada II are unconventional and basically interesting. Even so, Star Trek: Armada's own title gives a concise description of what it ought to be all about--controlling Star Trek's massive, memorable starships in outer-space wars against alien foes. Last year's Star Trek: Armada used a direct approach to good effect. The sequel is more ambitious, but ultimately doesn't fare quite as well. So it probably won't completely satisfy those who enjoyed the first Star Trek: Armada, though with that caveat aside, it can still be recommended. After all, Armada II is a good real-time strategy game by any other standards and should particularly appeal to Star Trek fans willing to suspend their disbelief a little more than usual.

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Star Trek™: Armada II

TM, ®, & © 2001 Paramount Pictures. All rights reserved. Star Trek and related marks are trademarks of Paramount Pictures. © 2001 Activision, Inc. and its affiliates. All rights reserved. Published and distributed by Activision Publishing, Inc. Activision is a registered trademark of Activision, Inc. and its affiliates. The ratings icon is a trademark of the Interactive Digital Software Association. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective owners. © 2021 CBS Studios Inc. STAR TREK and related marks and logos are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Please Note: Multiplayer is available only via TCP/IP LAN.

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Star Trek: Armada

Game description.

Star Trek: Armada is a real-time strategy video game developed and published in 2000 by Activision. The game’s look and feel is based primarily on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and features a few of its main characters and ships. Playable factions include the United Federation of Planets, the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Star Empire and the Borg. A sequel, Star Trek: Armada II , was released on November 16, 2001.

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Star Trek: Armada is no longer abandonware. You can now buy the game from:

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Additional files, patches and fixes

Star Trek: Armada Patch 1.2

Star Trek: Armada Patch 1.3

Star Trek: Armada Windows 10 Fix

Star Trek: Armada Windows Manual (English)

Star Trek: Armada Screenshots

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this is no loner abandonware it is sold on gog

Had to switch computers and basically start over. I’ve applied the patches and the fix, but unfortunately the most I get is the screen flickering and it turns off. I tried to mount it with daemon tools which does bring the splash screen, but no more beyond that. I’ve tried to set preferences to windowed mode and also tried compatibility settings but so far no success. I was able to get this to run on my old laptop but I can’t seem to make it work on this desktop.

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