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.
I 've extracted the rar file, and copied it into the folder but I only get minidumps.
Sorry, doublepost.....
This is why i dont support the merging of other mods with SoA 2. Even if it is a 3rd party add on. There may be something missed that can cause a crash, or something bad to happen, and ill have absolutely no clue what it is. Not that i dont appreciate the efforts. Its good to see others starting to learn to mod, but we dont need all of these "Its Broken!" post on "my" mod thread for "Your" add-on. If your 3rd party add-on breaks it. Then you the maker of the add on need to support it, because i dont have the time, or the patience to do it for you. I have way too much on my plate as it is.
In the future any, and all 3rd party add-ons for SoA 2 need to start a new topic in the forum.
So, this looks awesome. Once the balance issues are done and everything is finished, this will be amazing. Even in the unfinished state its awesome to see.
Hehe, I also like sisqo's new feminine voice. : )
If only Stress could kidnap Patrick Stewart and William Shatner, and force them to do voiceovers.
Then we'd really see if Shatner could act to save his life....
then we need all the actors who have ever played the Cardassian, Romulans,breen,etc......
Stress will get too lazy (or implode from awsomeness intake)
*NEED A DISPENSER HERE*
The real trekkers (with time on their hands) could pull their DVDs out of the different series, and record the clips of the voices. I'd do it if I was at home (where I/my Dad have TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voy on DVD) and had the patience.
When are the Winter Olympics being held in HELL? (for both shat and stewart voice acting, and shat acting period)
I am kind of against using recordings from the shows for voice acting unless they are of good quality, and all the background garbage is removed. Lets see how far we can stretch this before the cease and desist letters start showing up Id rather hear Siskos voice in the mod than JANEWAY! Dont send sound bytes of her please. TBH it would be better if unknowns did the voice acting. The mod is supposed to be dark and about war. Some of the Federation voice acting in games makes me sick. Think of Quark, and Garaks analogy about "Root Beer".
On another note.. The 1.1 patch is taking its sweet time to get here.... A little too long i might add. I am not sure what is still broken in 1.1 that is holding it up. I havnt been testing it, because you cant have two installs of sins in the same computer. Where i am going with this is that if 1.1 aint out before i am done with the 0.02 demo update then its getting released for 1.05.
You can, but its a pain to setup and run.
As for the beta, there's the general strike group bug, some bugs with abilities - hysteria to name one - a number of balance issues - light carriers are the new black, as in, they go with everything, especially advent carriers with the 3 strike groups each ...
Having said that, current version (.038) has been out for a while, and there haven't been many new bugs recently, so hopefully it shant be too long.
Yea i already knew about the new carrier spam in progress.. Err, i mean the extra strike groups, and the flaks inability to deal with them. That is balance, but what about engine, and graphic bugs? were they all fixed? I havnt noticed anything broken the few times i checked.
I have not noticed any graphics/engine bugs in your latest update of the demo.
Loved the UIs, BTW.
And come on folks, please let's keep it on topic! Talking about how you modded the mod and so forth, isn't really being productive to the conversation.
Nothing's broken. The Sins devs just want us to stop modding for a while because we are making them look bad. And all that needs to be done for carrier spam is turn off focus fire for flak frigates plus maybe a small boost to fire rate. Not focusing on one target makes them especially deadly with guns in all fire arcs.
Discounting balance issues, all that comes to mind is fleets dropping/trading ships, hysteria not ending, and possibly another couple of minor ability bugs i cant recall right now.
Ok now for the madness behind the method.. Umm... Err ok the method behind my madness, and a little rant to go with it.
Some people seem to be confused as to why i picked the foundations for each of the factions. When you look at how the klingons and cardies behave you will start to make sense of it all. Both those factions from all the lore on the shows live like they are in a constant state of war. Hence they need the economy to fuel that war machine.. Blammo, they got Tech as their foundation. What you say? Since when are the klingons economist? If they werent economist then they wouldnt have survived as long as they have. Granted the bulk of thier economy is through conquest, and pillaging, but thats another story. In game what it means the ability to build, and replace ships quickly. Niether faction fits Tech at all except for that aspect. once i can replace the rest of the structures, UI, and voices then you wont know they are using a tech foundation at all.
Dominion and Federation both use advents foundation because of the culture bonus's. Dominions culture though fear, and Feds unrivalled diplomacy.
Vasari for the Romulans, and Breen. The breen basically got Vasari so i wouldnt have to make an extra set of faction pics, and icons just for them. They arent THAT special Rommies got vasari for obvious reasons.. The cloaking which so far has been a failure. I dont know what i am doing wrong to make it not work.
As annoying as it is to hear a Klingon say "behold my creations", or all female jem hadar. There is a purpose behind the foundations, and so far it is working minus the few setbacks with ship movement, and cloaking.
Something annoyed me today. That happens alot (Points to his nick).... On modDB someone was dissing the fact that some weapons fired "wrong". Despite the documented known issue on my readme, and countless posts stating that it was a known hardcoded issue that nothing can be done about it. I felt like replying "If you dont like it feel free to make your own damn mod", but i refrained from that. I know trekkies can be the biggest bunch of nit pickers on earth. When modding SFC someone dissed one of my ships because a tiny light was the "wrong color" and showed grainy bad screen caps to prove it. What he didnt know was that i collect studio model photos, and i proved him wrong :/ Anyways back to the point. Which would you rather see? A ship with canon hardpoints that may missfire in the wrong direction through its own hull? or a ship with hardpoints that only fire forward (like armada)? I say ignore the missfires.
And the cloaking that the vasari scouts use has been no help in making an ST cloak? Not that I've ever played as a Vasari ...
Well, the cloak makes the ship completely unable to do anything. So its useless unless you want a Bird of Prey to just sit there and do nothing.
And yeah, its hardcoded like that.
what does the cloak do in sins, can you maove and phase jump while under cloak, are you allowed to fire.
The reasonI'm asking is that I haven't played at the Vasari yet.
All the cloak does is make the ship phased-out, invulnerable, and completely unable to do anything like move, fire, or use abilities. It just sits there, wasting antimatter and providing vision to the gravity well. You're better off having it scout than just sit there.
Yeah, phase shift is a pretty crappy cloak, I just tried it
How hardcoded are the rest of the abilities?
Not as badly. Phase cloak was really messed up though. I mean, people are PHASE jumping after all.
Would the Nebula class starship and the Constellation class be added to the federation fleet.
And correct me if i am wrong but is the Intrepid class in this eara as well.
Question for Stress... if I was interested in adding music to your mod on my computer (IE Klingon themes, Romulan themes ETC...) how would I go about doing it? (If you don't mind me doing it... just wanted some better Klingon tunes when I'm blowing the crap out of everything else around me
I guess that could be added, but the constellation was of an earlier era
The Soveriegn, and Steamrunner will be in. The only reason the Sov is in is because i put too damn much work into the model for it not to be in. Otherwise the Galaxy would be the heavy hitter. The Intrepid is from the era, but did not participate in the Dominion War. AFAIK only two Intrepid classes existed during that time. Voyager, and Bellaphron (spelling). Nebula is another toss up, while she was seen in passing in a fleet gathering at SB 375. She was not seen participating in any of the fighting. Again i dont want to hear the "just because it wasnt seen doesnt mean it didnt participate" excuse. Already 2 ships that did not participate are in, and i havnt finished with the models that DID participate yet.
It is easy to add music just look at the PlayerKlingon entity, and down near the bottom you will see a list of soundtracks they use. I would name the replacement music Tech 1, Tech Quiet, etc etc. If you use another name for the music it must be listed in the "SoundMusic.sounddata" file in the Game info folder, and in the player entity file. There are a limited number of sounds that can be added so be careful. All sound, and music files must be in .ogg format.
Right now i am working on finishing the canon ships for the non federation factions.
Speaking of limited amounts of sound: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/324241
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