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.
Hi!
I'm new to sins and stumbled upon this mod. Its already excellent and I enjoyed it very much so far.
Unfortunately, the effects for one of my favourite ships, the Defiant, were (imho) lacking. So I made some new for myself.
[URL=http://imageshack.us][/URL][URL=http://g.imageshack.us/g.php?h=166&i=screenshot0mr7.jpg][/URL]
This is the defiant blazing away with a Pulse Phaser /Quantum Torpedo salvo. I`m happy to provide the files to Major Stress if he wants them. I`m also willing to do additional effects if requested.
Those effects look really good. Will the mod require entrenchment after it is released?
I really like this demo and am going to love the Mod! That said I was playing as Fed last night and Doing quite well,or so i thought. Then along come the BREEN!!!!!!!! I first noticed them when some of my mechant ships seemed to be encountering a problem transiting through a wormhole system. I sent my 2nd Fleet{Ambassodor lvl3,7 Excelsiors,11 Mirandas,1 Centaur out to investigate. A BREEN CLOUD OF SHIPS blew me away almost before i could say............"Uh,Oh!
I will never say: Ahh,don't worry,just a few breen out there.
Do you think it would be possible to allow the Galaxy Class Starships to seperate the saucer section from the main section.
YES i want them PM me, and we will talk.
wow stress great idea taking up his offer, those fx are saweet
Dammit you replied before i finished my edit
Saucer separation was never intended in the mod. Sins doesnt support model animations. Nor would you have any kind of advantage if you could separate.. Breen cloud... "target that saucer... KILL the woman, and children". That was just a "look isnt this cool" plot item the trek writers used. Saucer sep was only used right in Generations where the saucer was used as a lifeboat.
Those effects look really good. Tho i have my own quantum effect, i can compare and use the best of what i have.
Saucer seperation was also used to that effect in the first-season episode Arsenal of Freedom, when LaForge seperated the ship to keep the civilians safe and took the stardrive section into battle. The only time the saucer was used in combat was in Best of Both Worlds when it was used as a diversion. So yeah, kinda sorta pointless in a game.
So is the Vor'Cha supposed to cost 200 credits, 400 metal, and 170 crystal, or did you leave a zero off of that credit cost? The AI spams the hell out of them.
Also, I suggest reducing the duration of beams to, at the very most, 1.5. Those 4-second Cardassian disruptors are kind of visually dull, and not at all in keeping with the canon. If you watch the battle scenes in Sacrifice of Angels, most phaser beams last less than a second. I toned them all down to a range between .5 seconds to 1 second, and the battles feel more energetic now. Give it a try and see what you think.
Awesome mod, absolutely brilliant. Unfortunately I experience a minidump CTD whenever I destroy a Klingon ship while playing the Romulans. which is fairly annoying.
hey Major Stress,
i was wondering if Cloaking will be in this mod at all? it would be a nice addition to the gameplay mechanics as well as Looking cool.
if you do, would i suggest using the phase cloaking from the vanilla phase faction. make it so that you can only use sublight engines but no weapons or phase jumping.
one moar thing,
i read up on the Dominion war and found out that both the soverign class and the Nova class (i.e. USS Equinox) were being used during the war. if you do redo the mod to allow more canon ships, id suggest to place the Nova Class in as the scout, seeing that the Miranda class being a scout is just too powerful, they're like freakin ninjas!
if you do, i will be happy to look up the specs on the Nova class for you! also i wish that i could help more, but i dont know sh** about modding..im noobish loke that
Done.
Cardassian Torpedo:
[URL=http://imageshack.us][/URL]
Thats all I could do with the limited reference (some blurry YouTube Video)
The 200 credit cost was a screwup. feel free to fix it. I have it fixed right now for the 0.02 release. It is supposed to be 2500 and use 40 squad cap. I think i got all the misstypes fixed in 0.02
The cardies spiral wave disruptor is supposed to last about 4 secs. It is close to a torpedo in damage. Look at the last battle when they turned on the Dominion. They used the hell out of it. I do agree about thier standard phasers, and will try to reduce the fire times, but the times must be close the sounds duration or wierd things start to happen. They do use torpedoes as well but i only seen them used ONCE by the combined Tal Shiar/Obsidian Order bombardment on the Founder homeworld.
What was read about the war and what was actually seen on screen are two different things. I am not a big fan of using ships from Voyager. I hated Voyager almost as much as Enterprise. I am an old school trekkie. I am reluctantly using the Intrepid just to fill an empty cruiser slot. Dont worry, from the PM's i get not very many here know s*** about modding Miranda is just a temporary scout. I got a canon ship to replace it.
If you read back some i said cloaking was a problem right now, and we are having trouble making one that works right while keeping ship movement enabled.
Bad news is all of my movment experiments for the Defiant met with abismal failure. Right now comming to a screeching halt to fight is the lesser of two evils. You dont wanna know what the other option looked like :/
@Major Stress or somebody who knows:
I need a picture of a Dominion torpedo. All I was able to gather was the Pulsed Polaron thingy.
An additional picture of a Romulan disruptor beam would also be nice.
ah that would explain why the Klingon
Ah that would explain why the Klingon AI loved Vorcha then, playing a game of six, so all races, it was the ancient artifacts map, so 14 stars and 119 planets. Playing as the federation, love the models, I think that the doiminion and Cardassians ships could do with a retexture.
It took eight hours of play to finally win the map, all right the game was practically ended by the sixth hour when I wiped out the dominion fleet,
One heavily contested system which I controlled but it had wormholes directly connected to the Breen and the Cardassian systems. That was fun seeing a fleet the massive fleets they had prepared. There was one play where I sent a decent part of the fleet to engage the cardassians, and oh my Lord the destruction for my fleet it was annihilated. Then they attacked my main shipyards. Luckily for me there was a power cut and the save was ten minutes before the rout.
What I'm getting at it was so brilliant, I remember playing Armada and this was more of a challenge, do I keep my fleet together to ensure I win against the fleets I come across but with the wormholes leave myself exposed to an attack from behind.
Great Lord D
Want to bet??? Now that you have mentioned something that may be cool, I want to know!!!
Shame about the experiments failing...
Trying Danmans movement specs the ship still stops dead in its tracks despite setting mass, and speeds to insane numbers, and all decelerations to zero. Add to that the ship violently stutters back and forth. Like a disturbed version of break dancing. There is NO way i would leave the ship like that. It is NOT cool.
Well, chances are its either:
A: Mini-dump
or
B: Defiance as a fighter
C: Sins implodes, taking Major Stress's hard drive with it
Try D: None of the above, and the Defiants movement is left alone until the devs code in movement options in one of the expansions.
Ask an you shall recieve...
Still working on Dominion Torpedos
Thanks to CptJono and Major Stress for the pics. They're fine und sufficient. Expect new effects to come soon.
Edit: As a modthread without pics is fail, I'll post some of the newer effects.
Dominion Torpedo:
Dominion Pulse Polaron:
I know they look similar. They do in the series. Ingame they have different speed and behavior. Cant catch that in a screen.
I have taken the liberty of rebalancing the stats on all ships so they better reflect startrek canon. I've also modified the cost accordingly. I believe everything is alot more balanced now. I know the demo wasn'ty intended to be balanced, but the changes I made will allow everyone to have a more balanced game until the real deal is released by major stress
Change log:
- Rebalanced most ships to better fall in line with Star Trek canon, a warbird is now about equal to a Galaxy, Cardassian Keldor class is a great deal more powerful then the Galor, etc..etc..
- Every race has its own unique strength. these are:
* Romulans: highest armor, highest frontal damage
* Cardassians: Highest burst damage, cheapest ships
* Klingons: Highest overall weapon damage, second highest armor
* Federation: Highest shield values, increased shield regeneration rate, low armor values
* Breen: Highest hull regeneration
* Doninion: Their elite capital is the strongest ship in game.
- Hangars have been removed from all races.
- All large ships have gained he ability to colonize. All scout class vessels (Miranda for Federation, Dominator for Dominion, etc..) have gained the ability to scout and capture neutral structures. This means you will not need to use the sins ships. Alls sins scout ships have been removed.
- New & more suitable special abilities for the elite ships.
- Added a green beam weapon to the D'derix class Warbird and Valdore class Warbird as shown in the series/movie
- Added torpedo's to the the elite Galor class cruiser
- Slightly tweaked Defiant weapon graphics
- All Romulan ships and all Klingon Ships except the Vor'cha have been equiped with a the Amnesty ability to simulate their cloak. When activated, all nearby ships stop attacking for 60 seconds. Its abstract, but in my opinion better then nothing.
Download here:
http://www.2shared.com/file/3901087/d30e0cbc/GameInfo.html
note: its a rar file and contains the GameInfo folder. Simply extract this into your Mods/SoA 2 folder.
very nice work on the torpedos, they really look more like the actual ones. The older ones were more TNG style
to tareq: Nice idea, downloaded but did not test it yet. I just read your reply here and it sounds suitable. Nice thoughts !!!
Btw, do you have Sounds for commands yet ? (Move / Attack etc) If not i got all you need from Star-Trek Armada (except Breen ... ) and would also offer to put them into the mod for you ... only thing is, that i got a lot of work atm so i could just do that in about 6 weeks when i got holidays. Of course i could work on it a bit before, but the safest date would be around that holidays ...
Just reply or send me a PM if interested.
Greetings Croshy
Its not working for me. I extracted it into ther mod folder, went into mods and checked the soa2, the screen changed color abit, but then nothing. I can't select the new factions. and don't get the nifty intro Stress mentioned. : ( Still working at it to see what might be the problem. Any suggestions? I'm on version 1.05
K, nevermind its working now. I had the folder ina folder problem.
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