This is the "Release" topic for the SoA 2 mod. Candidate for Mod Database's 2008 Mod of the Year.
SoA 2 0.03b adds the unified Dominion (with Cardassian, and Breen units) as a playable faction. It is the second part of the 0.03 series. You do not need 0.03a3 to play it. The 0.03b is complete. Delete any previous version of the mod and replace with the new version. This is still a "Ships Only" Release. Structures, Defenses, Research, and Ability's are schedualed for the 0.04 update.
The SoA 2 "Work in progress" topic is here https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/173883 All News, and updates will be posted there. Any non known issue bugs post over there.
Here is the Mod Database page. You can download the mod from here. http://www.moddb.com/mods/star-trek-sacrifice-of-angels-2 If the download is not there yet. It is still processing. Keep checking. It takes a while for ModDB to process new files
Here is an alternate download link for 0.03b. The link will be removed when ModDB has the file up. http://files.filefront.com/SoA+2+003bzip/;12933985;/fileinfo.html
SoA 2 0.03b "The Second Dominion War" is the second of a two part release of 0.03. All four main factions are playable. We merged Manshooters Volumetric Explosions mod into SoA 2. While still a demo we are no longer going to use the term, because SoA 2 is starting to shape up into a full blown total conversion.
You MUST be running Sins version 1.1, 1.11, or 1.12 to play the mod. It will NOT WORK ON ENTRENCHMENT! or any other Sins beta. It also will not work on any versions of Sins before version 1.1
Read the Readme file for important installation instructions.
If you have an older version of SoA 2 just delete it from your mods folder, and replace it with the new version.
For best results install the SoA 2 mod on a clean install of latest update of Sins of a Solar Empire (version 1.12 as of this release).
Before you run the game for the first time after a clean install of Sins. Delete the "Ironclad Games" folder in c:\documents and settings\"your user name"\local settings\application data\. For Vista users its C:\Users\"your user name"\AppData\Local\. BACK UP any other mods, and screenshots BEFORE you do this. This will ensure there are no stray older version, and/or beta files are in your sins installation.
Disable "Ship Mesh Highlight Filter" in your options\effects Otherwise you will see some wierd lighting problems with modded ships. We have not had time to adapt the modded ships to use this feature yet.
Disable any and all Team Color settings. There is a bug in how Sins renders team color in 1.1. It affects both the mod, and the default sins models. The Team Colors bleed through on the entire mesh. Both vanilla game ships, and modded ships are affected by this. Ironclad switched the specular, and team color shaders with the 1.1+ updates, but it seems like they failed to implement the code to render them correctly. Turn team color on and off to see for yourself. The mod doesnt use team colors anyway so you do not need this feature enabled. Ill post a bug report about this later.
The mod has been tested only on the US English version of sins. Other languages may, or may not work. If you are using a language other than English rename the "English.str" file in the mods strings folder to whatever language you are useing. Example: "German.str" if you are using the German language version.
Future planned updates:
SoA 2 0.04 will concentraite on adding all of the factions proper Research trees, Ability's, Structures, Defenses, and balance tweaks if needed.
SoA 2 0.05 will be the final spit, and polish of the mod before going into the final version. Anything that we couldnt get to do in the previous versions will be done here. Model, and texture tweaks, effects, sounds, more balancing, etc. will be all be refined if needed.
Enjoy the latest release of SoA 2
Major Stress,
Darkshimmer,
Trekmods,
Digital Underground.
ACK! Delete this reply.
Make sure you archive your 1.09 game b4 you uninstall in case you want to go back to it. Do what Tenhunter said, then before you run sins go into your documents and settings\username\local settings\application data\ and delete the "ironclad games" folder. BACK UP any mods, and screen shots before you do this.
This will give you a totally clean install of Sins. You will have to redo your settings in the options
There are no reference files for the 1.09 beta otherwise i would have released the mod for that version as well.
Where do I find the "show prerelease" highlighted button?
This is a top quality peice of work.....
You & your team should be quite proud of yourselves...
Adm. Cobbs
Does anyone know where the "show pre-release updates" button is on the impulse screen? I know its probably right in front of my face, but I can't seem to find it!
Click the blue orb in the top left
ok i got it to work now the ai is not moving only build at there homeworld but not expanding
i played klingon versus cardassians on hard in 3 systems map am i doing something wrong?
FYI, the Cardassians do not expand at this time, there is something up in the coding we think. We are investigating it.
ok the dominion AI works just fine just played 2 hours that the only bug i found good job SoA2 team
The Cardassian AI is bugged. It will build only 1 ship and not expand. Ive been trying to figure out why since it uses tech as a foundation. The klingons also use tech as a foundation, and they build like crazy. so i have no clue whats going on. We are on it tho.
Major just got a chance to sit down and play a few rounds and see what you mean by it isn't balanced. I enjoyed every bit of it!
The AI issues are one of the reasons i NEED a CODER. I cant code if my life depended on it. However i can alter existing stuff.Which is what i basically did in creating the factions, and ship entitys. Used existing ones as a foundation. Then i only added the relevent info to get the Trek ships ingame. Nothing else was touched. The Player, and Ship entity's are still in text format so if anyone wants to look at them with wordpad, and see if i missed anything feel free to do so.
Beware of the Breen. They have only one weak ship, but it is a multirole ship. If you let them they can swarm you badly, and overwhelm with sheer force of numbers. This was intentional. A Galaxy class can swat a Breen ship down very quickly, but try to swat 200+ Breen MWPG's down with a small fleet I was hoping the Dominion would act the same way, but they do attack with good sized forces. I dont understand why the Cardassian faction does nothing. Its the only faction that is bugged that way. I didnt alter any of the sins AI files at all.
The intended typical game for the demo is 6 players on a multi star random large map. With you playing as the Federation, and the Klingons, and Romulans as your Allies. You can chose to have the Dominion, Cardassian, and Breen factions as allied to each other, or on thier own. It doesnt matter. This way you can re-live the battles of the Dominion War. The only bad thing about random multi star maps is enemys may spawn in the same system you are in.
You can also chose to make it a free for all, and watch the fireworks for all except the cardassians for now. If you want to see the cardies in action, play as them.
Neither can anyone else because we're not allowed to. The only thing we can do is tweak the entities
Is there anything funky about the Cardassians? The early-game AI is quite picky and it needs a capital ship to do anything. If one is way out of scope to get, it will get stuck.
I'll get my game reverted back to 1.05 over the weekend and give it a shot, see if I can get it started off.
I like this mod. I was wondering Major Stress if you were planning to use any of Uzis planets from sins plus? Can't wait to see the K'vort!! Another thing. My friends and I wouldnt mind playing this mod with just the cannon ships. Ever consider making a version of the finished mod with just canon ships?
I test It On ironclad MP, It seems It is working MultiPlayer!!
I Love it!! I Hope U Get The Borg In!
Thumbs Up major Stress
@Major Stress - Congrats. I look forward to trying this out.
Thanks for all the support
Many more ships both canon, and non-canon are planned for the full mod. Along with proper Trek style structures. My plan from day was was not to replace the vanilla gameplay of Sins, but to enhance, and augment the existing game play.
IC just announced the 1st expansion for sins which implements starbases into the game. So now the debate will be to add them to the current mod, or wait for the expansion and see if they can fit better there.
The cardies have 2 "elite" units (which use the capital ship entity) so yes they do have capital ships. which is odd because the Klingons only have one, and it uses the same Tech foundation. One of the cardie caps has colonize ability too. The cardie cap ships are 1/2 the price, and fleet cap of other factions, but are much weaker as far as firepower. They are meant to be expendable attrition units. Which makes the AI not building the hell out of them even more confusing.
Couldn't you make fleet supply represent crew? Then the Galaxy Class would take 1,000 fleet supply. Then you could make fleet supply to about 50,000 at highest supply tech.
Romulan ship prices are too high compared to the Klingons. I was playing with my gf she was playing Romulan I was playing Klingon non elite vorchas cost a small fraction of what non elite dederix's cost and their stats are pretty similair.
This is what Stress means when he says "This mod is not intended to be balanced."
Didnt i mention on the SoA2 thread, and in the demo read me that the demo is NOT balanced?
I know the prices dont match the firepower. I know some factions are way weaker than the others, I know many ships stats aren't correct. This is only a DEMO. Meaning a demonstration. A very rough one at that. All of the balance issues and stats will be fixed for the full mod. In the mean time if you dont like the current prices, or ship stats feel free to edit them to your liking. I did leave the modded ships entity's in text format. Knock yourselves out
I intended the Tal'Shiar D'Deridex price to be high. It is supposed to be a huge ship after all (the model needs re-scaling it is half the size it should be). You also need to take into account when it levels up. All of its stats go up too.
The vorchas should have only 40ish pulse damage compared to the dderidex's 100ish pulse damage. Then again these are just rough stats that will be changed soon.
Most of the elite units are using default sins prices. The price of the ship that was replaced by the mod ship. There are only a few exceptions right now. They are also using the same hull and shield points of the ship it replaced. Again this will all change.
Thanks I will make some changes to the entity files. I know this is a demo I just remember reading you say we were gonna be your guinea pigs. Love what youve done so far its great. I cant wait for the full mod. I just wish I didn't have to wait till then for the k'vort >.> Gonna see if I can add in some of Uzis planet types and change the names to class m etc.. I dunno how to do this yet but I'll try and learn.
I'm UL the mod now to one of my sites. I'll post the DL link here when finished.
anyone wanna try the major stress awesome mod online??
i will check back often maybe we could meet at impulse chat on #sins channel if anyone
is up for this
OK. I have the file UL to FP at the following URL:
http://www.fileplanet.com/hosteddl.aspx?/hst/s/p/spartan/mods/SoA_2_Demo.zip
If people are having issues let me know and I'll put it on another server or two if needed.
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