Hey Everyone

I contacted Bob Smith the Managing Director of Ntronium Games and he gladly answered a small Q&A on their upcoming game Armada 2526. Armada 2526 is going to be coming out very shortly and it will please a lot of fans of the games like Masters of Orion and of course Armada 2525.

This game has a lot of features and is worth checking out Armada 2526 on Ntronium Games website for more info here: http://www.ntronium.com/Armada2526%20Home.html

Check the bottom of the article for some screenshots... enjoy the read.

How long has Ntronium Games been around and how big is the development team?

I started working on this project almost 3 years ago, but didn't hire anyone until February last year. The dev team is myselft, and three artists.

Why did you choose to use a turn based instead of real time strategy gameplay?

I wanted to capture the spirit of Armada 2526 in a more up to date game, so that dictated a turn based game. It also remains a very popular genre, but not so popular that a small studio can't compete. I don't have the resources to compete with Starcraft.

What is the max amount of star systems and alien races Armada 2526 can support in a game at one time?

And what is the average game length?

There are 12 different races, but multiple players can have the same race. The built in limit is a little over a 100 players, but in practice the game doesn't cope well with that many, so 50 might be a more practical limit.

If you want you can have thousands of star systens, but be prepared for slow turn times. The recommended scenario has a couple of hundred, and produces a game that's plenty long enough. If you're very aggressive you might win it in around 12 hours of play.

However, you can set scenarios up with any size map, or number of players, so the game can be much shorter or much longer, depending on how you like it.

Does Armada 2526 support LAN/MP play or is it just single player/hot-seat style play?

The initial relase only supports hotseat. However, the game system was specifically designed to work well for mp, so it may well be added in future. I will just say though, that while everyone always says how important multi-player is, we know from Total War that 90% of purchasers never even registeed to play on line, let alone become regular players, hence the decision to concentrate on the single player game first.

The diplomacy system seems like a great area of the game. How crucial is diplomacy in the game? Could you ignore it all together and do well? Are there options to buy information or send a spy to gather info on other races?

Certainly you can ignore it if you want, but it'll make things much harder. The A.I. is pretty chatty, and if you won't deal with it, it will start to dislike you. You can trade the usual things, including information.

The research tree in Armada 2526 looks great, will a player also have the ability to steal technology secrets from other races?

Not currently, but you can trade tach.

On the battle system. Will the player be able to save sets of orders to use again? Will you be able to show weaknesses in your enemies defenses because of ship technology (ie: upgraded sensors)?

No, that would only make sense if you were fighting the same battle over and over, which would be tedious.

Will players be able to use a sensor probe to just send off into space to different systems to gather data?

Scouting out sysems is an important part of the game. You can use whatever ships you have, but there aren't any named "sensor probe"

How is space travel done in the Armada 2526, jumpgates/warping?

To start with you just travel point to point between any two stars. Later as your technology improves you can use wormholes to jump accross large distances, and then you can build teleports on your colonies, that allow ships to jump quickly between them.

Will players be able to mod Armada 2526 to add new races, ships, systems and technologies?

The game is very moddable. You can easily add new ships and races. Almost all the data files are in standard formats. In fact I'm looking forward to seeing what modders can do with it.

When do you expect to ship Armada 2526 to the masses? And will there be a demo?

Currently no plans for a demo. It will be released before the end of the month.

Does Ntronium Games have any plans for content patches or expansion packs?

Yes. Once complex strategy games get into the hands of thousand of players, there are always issues that arise, and I fully expect to be issuing patches to address them. Beyond that, I have plenty of ideas for expansions, but no definite plans.