12/12/2009
Sins of a Galactic Empire (SOGE) 1.0e release for Sins of a Solar Empire EntrenchmentA Star Wars total conversion mod for Sins of a Solar Empire12-12-2009TEAM=============================================Models, textures, ship stats: EvillejediAbilities and tons of debugging: Psychoak (It would have taken another year without this help)Swrebellion.com Web support and general debugging: Evaders Interface icons: OzwolfSW Music: PedroMany many beta testers, many who didn't do a damn thing thanks to those that gave us valuable feedback!Probably some other people I am missing, thanksCONTACT=============================================Development website http://warlords.swrebellion.comDevelopment forum http://warlords.swrebellion.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=593&sid=d9baa3b5114c49929088ca5b1506e866bug tracker http://warlords.swrebellion.com/mantis/view_all_bug_page.phpsins forum https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/331584INSTALLATION=============================================The zip file should be around 225mbExtract the contents of the zip file to your sins mod directory Example for windows XP C:\Documents\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Mods-Entrenchment v1.041\Example for Vista/win 7 C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Mods-Entrenchment v1.041\open the game and go into options and select the mod from the list of available mods and then activate it.THIS MOD HAS NOT BEEN TESTED WITH ANY OTHER MOD AND PROBABLY WILL NOT WORK WITH ANY OTHER MOD BECAUSE OF THE NUMBER OF FILES IT ELIMINATED TO BE STABLE.The mod should be working fine if the only races you can select are the star wars races. If this is not the case you have not properly installed the mod in your mods folder.NOTES=============================================This release is a compiled version of 1.0e, there are newer builds on the SVN, however these may be unstable or perform poorly, so download at your own riskIf you are in the beta test you will not need to download this file, simply update your SVN repository to get the latest versionThis release contains fully playable factions for the Rebel Alliance, Imperial Navy, Confederacy of Independent systems and Galactic RepublicThere are currently no star bases in the mod and the Civilian research has not been modified, it will be modified in the futureSince it is a total conversion this mod does not contain the stock races (advent, vasari, tech), this decision is driven by the hardcode limits imposed by ironclad and by eliminating them makes the mod much more stable. If you want the star wars races with the standard sins races check out Star Wars Requiem at http://sins.imperial.cc/If you would like to participate in the development of the mod we can definitely use your help! However we are looking for skilled individuals to do development of many detailed aspects of research/ability coding and 2d artwork and do not need general help. Please post on the development forum if you feel that you can help us.Please check the development website for updates on news, new content or official patchesIf you would like to participate in beta testing the mod you can post in the beta testing forum to get access, we are looking for testers that will provide detailed feedback of items they find in the game into our bug tracker.SOME STRATAGIES=============================================Planetary defenses are great starting elements to protect your planets, especially when upgraded, build lots of turrets!There are a few planet hardening upgrades in the defense research, these are crucial if you want your colonies to survive.Capital ships need to be protected before they gain a few levels, once they have a few levels they will become very potent.The ranges for weapons have been greatly extended. If you want more epic battles move your ships into closer range and many abilities and other weapons will be used by the vessels.Remember even Admiral Ackbar thought that it was suicide to move so close to the imperial star fleet!The Imperials focus on Heavy firepower, Ion weaponry and command and control. It is best to lead groups of star destroyers with a flag ship. The Empire does not have a low cost colonizer, but the gladiator and ISDs are very capable. The Executor really has no equal.The Alliance is focused on survivability, the mon calimari vessels may not have a lot of firepower, but they will be able to last the engagement. Mix the mon cal vessels with their other vessels for a mixed fleet and protect the Diplomatic vessels, they have excellent high level abilitiesThe CIS starts off weak, but has some extremely powerful abilities after a bit of research, build lots of trafed II's at the beginning and then progress to Lucrehulks with buzz droids.The republic is based off of mass production of its vessels, use support vessels to supplement homogenous fleets and Lead the fleets with a Jedi cruiser.KNOWN BUGS=============================================Some abilities may not work exactly as described, may have conditional issues or may be over/underpowered. This is being worked on and some of it requires Ironclad to release a new patchResearch costs have not been finalized, they will change in the futureSome ships may be unbalanced this will be addressed as we get specific bug reports some descriptions are too long and cause the text to spill out of the description box, this is especially true on lower resolution screens like laptop screens. We are working to fix thisOn some ships it may be possible to zoom in to the point that the models mesh disappears slightly this is being addressed.some vessels such as the subjugator and some fighters may have no texture or may have incomplete textures, this is being addressed in future versionsYwings are currently being displayed as bwings, this will be fixed soonSome abilities or effects may require work, this is especially true of abilities like SprintSome icons are being reworked and will require some adjustmentsFighters fly through ships and bounce around, this is something that needs to be fixed by ironclad, it is an engine issue.The AI likes to spam some ships, right now there is no fix for this.Compatibility =============================================Entrenchment 1.041+ (until ironclad breaks it again)model files and textures are compatible with older versions of Sins, however Ironclad made many changes to the SINS code that require 1.041, if you want to backport the mod to a previous version feel free, but it is a tremendous amount of workDownload Links=============================================
http://www.filefront.com/15122655/SOGE1.0e.zip
Edit: Answered by Eville.
Hey guys now that I have played the game more I feel like I can post some minor quibbles...
WHY ARE GRAVITY WELLS SO BIG!!!??? I mean I even tried making a mod map with smaller wells and they still grew mammoth.. It takes FOREVER to get around them... and if your 2 planets away and some sends 4 dreadnaughts early game you can't get to your planet before it's bombed the piss out of even with 6000 health.... It's just really annoying to have such big wells...
Also ship discriptions could use some tweaking.. sometimes it's hard to tell which frigate is for colonizing till after you build it.. or which one is the anti fighter frigate etc... same with cruisers too.. like the abilities they come with aren't listed on the production icon.
I think pirates are too underpowered
Oh well that's my gripes... but as I said still a fantastic games.. but yeah the gravity well thing seriously BITES!!!
I like the huge grav wells. :shrugs:
Edit;
Would it be too much to ask for the names of the music tracks used? I can identify only some of them... I'm in the process of using the OST music for my own personal use.
nah i don't really have a problem with the huge gravity wells, they're just the right size to stop ships getting to one side from the other while my venators blast the crap out of them . There is not one thing about this mod that i would change, i love every bit of it . Thanks to every one on the team!
Venators FTW!!!
Also, will the "Jedi Interceptor" (Eta-2 Actis) be put in the mod? I think it would be perfect for use on the Jedi Venator.
As Evill stated, the large gravity wells mean that you have to start actually planning your choke points and defenses. You can't just charge off, leaving a planet undefended and hope to save it if the nearest fleet is 2-3 planets away. It's not feasible and it actually plays more like Star Wars should. Battles were won regularly in the books because reinforcement fleets were too far away to arrive in time. Fleets aren't instantly callable for support unless they're in a neighbouring system at least.
My first full game quickly saw my priority list on planets change. My colonization efforts slowed slightly when I took a planet that had unknown neighbours, as I would leave my fleet guarding it until a defensive screen was established. This saw my build focus shift slightly, with defenses prioritised directly after mines. Even then, I would regularly leave a star destroyer and some frigates as a patrol fleet to at least help deter/slow down bad guys and give my nearest main fleet a chance to come to the rescue.
Yeah OZ I started doing the same thing... It just becomes very annoying in LARGE systems when it takes forever to explore... and your scouts are almost useless cause they can't make it across the gravity wells fast enough... Hmm I mean I see the Fluff reasons now... I don't have knowledge on the Star Wars fluff .... But it also stretchs out game play I have constantly moving the game speed back and forther between 8 to hurry things up and then slowing it to normal so I can watch the cool battles..
Yeah, the scouts dying before escaping is an annoying thing, but I consider it just another strategy piece where bad guys wouldn't allow scouts to just stooge around in their own backyard and keep escaping
I need input on ability leveling, lots of it. Which ones are too cheesy, which ones get to cheesy, which ones don't get cheesy enough. General like and dislike of the typical power curve would be nice to know too. Balancing out target increases and such isn't easy as the utility varies depending on targets actually in range, many other aspects are equally irregular. As I don't have thousands of hours to play test everything into the ground myself, you guinnea pigs need to do it.
Question about the SSD in the mod, it seems like it doesnt do the amount of damage it says it does. It seems, for me anyway, to be shooting a whole lot but taking a really long time to actually kill stuff. Maybe it's supposed to be like that so its not OP but I kinda expected it to steamroll everything. It certainly doesnt die, but it also doesnt seem to be killing much
The Executor, Mandator, and both CIS super capitals have 8 count firing banks. Essentially, it does less damage than some cruisers, which have two, to a single target in large battles. When you cut it down by a fourth, it comes across as feeling kinda wimpy, but it's still mowing down four times as many ships at once. Most of the capitals are at 4 targets per bank, so many of them also come across as more dangerous to individual targets. The Praetor in particular outstrips it bad with that comparable damage and only 5. It's still worth two of them though, just isn't quite as noticable.
Quick question, and I know its probably so simple and stupid I am going to hit myself when I get the answer. I wish to crush my roommate/friend's pathetic rebellion and its worlds under the tyrannical heel of my unstoppable Imperial Starfleet. Can he and I both play this mod over our LAN? I assume he would have to have it downloaded and properly installed and all that, but is there anything else that needs to be done?
yes. All mods can be played over LAN (or even over ICO!), so long as ALL PLAYERS have properly installed the mod(s). The only exception is graphics mods (like ManSh00ter's Volumetric Explosions&Damage Effects), as the graphics folder's aren't checksummed.
But yeah, so long as you have at least one (1) copy Sins of a Solar Empire v1.181, one (1) copy Sins of a Solar Empire:Entrenchment v1.041, and two (2) copies SoaGE v1.0E, then you should be able to play the mod over a LAN.
Thnx for the info, Whiskey, he is DL'ing it now, and I am looking forward to destroying him and his sad little empire/fleet.
To all involved in this mod, if I havent said it before, a huge "Thanks" to you all. I have loved Star Wars since I first saw the original movie when I was a kid, and have loved RTS's for almost as long. I about died from joy when I found this game and then the mod forums and saw your work here. Huge thanks again.
Hey Love the mod!! But I'm getting minidumps now ....But its strange, I only get a minidump when I try to save the game, and it has only just been happening for a few hours. The only thing I have touched are the numeric values of the ships. That wouldn't cause a conflict would it??
Oh well, I'll just wait for the next update, keep up the great work!!
PS And some better effects/explosions would suit this nicely
Thanks!
More info!
I've saved loads of games without consequence, so narrowing it down to a specific characterist would be very helpful.
Felkins try playing the game without the changes as well, we've done a lot of testing and haven't found any minidumps. Doesn't mean they can't happen so we need a lot more info and need to make sure it wasn't your changes.
Did you change the values then load a save? that could be causing the problem.
Yeah thats exactly what I did. After I posted I deleted all my saves, and autosaves, and played for over two hours saving every 5 min aprrox. Until just now I saved and minidump....again. I am going to play the original the rest of the night and see what happens.
It couldn't be because I left the code in text could it? Should I convert back to binary? Anyway thanks for the response:)
I dont really like, when i zoom out I cant see the ships, thats a bitch.
hey guys, this is such an awesome mod! I love star wars and space battles so this is perfect!
the only things that id really like to see improved would be the ship descriptions. it would be nice to see what abilities the frigates and cruisers have before i build them. I think some of the ship descriptions could be improved as well.
apart from that, i'm loving this mod so far! I can't wait until star bases are added. i think watching an Imperial SSD slug it out with a starbase with tons of lasers and missiles flying all over the place while x wings and tie fighters dogfight in the space between could be so incredibly epic.
Also, i heard that the yuuzahn vong might be coming in a later release. is this true? i really hope so!
Keep up the good work!!!
This is Nice!
Who changed the planets' PipelineEffects so that the clouds are completely opaque? I'm going to incorporate it into the next release of Bailknight's Graphic Mod, and I'd like to give credit where its due.
It's a combination of changing the alpha on the cloud texture and adding some extra factors into the shader (really just upping some constants and exponents) I also made it so that the specular is higher and the dark side of the planets are darker
A note for the ship speeds, when we release a patch it will change the multiplier in the game options, there will be a fast setting that is about 2x faster than it is now, the slow and normal will remain unchanged.
Ah-HA, So it was Eville himself!
The planets do look really nice now. It never consciously occured to me, but looking at the planets, they always seemed a bit off how all the cloud cover was so transparent. Look at any photo of Earth, and that's not at all how things appear.
Also, is it possible to make the clouds obscure light from the dark side of the planet... i.e. be more opaque like on the sunny side, but an opaque black? I'm gonna look at possibly brightening the citylights on the dark side, too...
EDIT:Almost forgot! I encourage you to look at the particle modifications I did for Requiem. For the Rebels, I gave them red lasers with a bright orange core, as opposed to the orange lasers in this mod. And the muzzle-flashes, for all sides, are an impovement I think. Requiem and SoaGE could both benefit from some exchange of resources!
Mmm zooming out and can't see the ships - isn't that the way normal Sins works? That's why there are icons I don't think you'd want to see every single ship above a planet anyway, would take up way too much screen space
If you have ideas for ship descriptions, please post what you want it to say
As to the Yuuzhan Vong, yes... they will be coming in a future release (2.0 maybe?? who knows)
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