Feedback of any kind is always welcome. Ideas, balance changes, and bug reporting of any kind is always useful!
Version 1.00 Released!
Make sure to ask for permission before republishing any part of this mod to the public!
Downloads
1.05 + DLC Compatible:
0.12 ALPHA Release:Full Download:http://distantstars.mmobase.com/rebellion/Distant_Stars_(R)_ALPHA_0.13_[45189661].7z
Full Download MIRROR:http://www.moddb.com/downloads/distant-stars-rebellion-alpha-013
MD5: 69486D2FCD3F35E46E6F5EF8C9F1634A
1.34 Compatible:
1.01 Release:Full Download:http://distantstars.mmobase.com/diplomacy/Distant_Stars_(D)_1.01_[45685832].7z
1.051 Compatible:
Beta 0.9951 Release:Full Download:http://distantstars.mmobase.com/entrenchment/DS_Entrenchment_Beta_0.9951_[36672852].7z
1.14 - 1.181 Compatible:
Version 1.01:Full Download:http://distantstars.mmobase.com/soase/Distant_Stars_v1.01_[453701567].7z
Multiplayer Games:We've setup a thread for everyone to organise their multiplayer games in and also setup example times and dates for most people to meet up and start games. These are what we hope to be the main times for people to be around and want to play games together.
The times are:4pm EST (9pm GMT) Saturdays & Sundays9pm EST (2am GMT) Saturdays & SundaysIf you want to organise other games please go ahead using the same topic to consolidate all the information in one place and hopefully get more games together within our community. These games are for PvP, PvAI & PvPvAIso come along and we'll get some games going!
Screenshots:We've setup a thread so you can all post your screenshots to share with us the Distant Stars team and its players. Im sure we're all intrigued to see what kinds of battles and events you've all been having on the mod aswell.
Lore:We know some of you guys love to role play whilst using Distant Stars, and here's a topic for you guys to post all of your role playing stories, character profiles and anything else you can imagine.
Maps:Some of you avid map makers out there have produced some great maps but never really had them recognised because they've got lost. Well here's a topic for you to post a link to the download (we can even provide mirrors if necessary) a screenshot or two of the map for us all the preview and if enough people like it we'll even include the map in with the actual mod!
Please visit our website and for more information, change logs, downloads, and to report bugs. Our website can be found here: http://distantstars.mmobase.com
Bug Reporting
If you want to report a bug please use the Bug Report feature on our website:http://distantstars.mmobase.com/?m=reportabug
Please include as much information as possible, if you have an error log feel free to post it on these forums and we'll take it from there. If you can reproduce the error please include the error log (read below to find out how to enable error logs) and include as much detail on how to reproduce the problem.
To enable logging:Windows Vista/Windows 7:C:\Documents and Settings\<Your Windows Username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\SettingorWindows XP:C:\Documents and settings\<Your Windows Username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Setting
Open the user.setting file (using Notepad, Wordpad or any text editor) and scroll down to the bottom 7 lines from the bottom is the line:LogOutput FALSEChange FALSE to TRUELogOutput TRUE
and from then on any Log files will be saved to the debug folder:Windows Vista/Windows 7: C:\Documents and Settings\<Your Windows Username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Debug or Windows XP: C:\Documents and settings\<Your Windows Username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Debug
If you get these log files to us (you can just paste them in to a forum post) we can hopefully get your issues sorted.
Frequently Asked Questions
All files are compressed using 7Zip to shrink the download filesize. To extract these files you must use WinRAR or 7Zip.Any Patches should overwrite the original install directory, either by extracting over the original folder, or cut/copy & pasting over the existing file/folder structure.
1) My game keeps crashing, is there anything I can do to stop it?i) Are you running the game on maximum (highest) settings? if so, lower them to High or Medium, there is a known issue with the game using up too much memory, there is nothing we can do about this, also no matter how powerful your pc is, it is affected by this issue no matter the pc it is not above this crashing issue, it is a game problem not a hardware one, so quite simply lower your settings. If you still have an issue with crashing see point two.ii) Give us as detailed information as possible about the crash, what was happening at the time of the crash, what races, ships, abilities were involved. If you can supply a Debug Log (see above for more information about logging) and post a bug report on our website.
2) The loading screens and portrait pictures dont appear properly, whats wrong?i) This is an issue with ATI based graphics cards (rarely affects Nvidia based cards) we're looking in to the issue.
3) Why dont you support converting Distant Stars in to TXT format?i) Quite simply many things can go wrong with converting your mod to TXT, we cant help you with something you've probably broken yourself.
4) Can I mod Distant Stars for myself?i) Yes you can however please do not distribute our mod or our mod that you have edited to the public. You must ask for permission to do so, we will regrettably stop distributing our mod to all if users abuse our work.
5) Your mod is in BIN format I can't edit the files, what can I do?i) You can convert the mod to TXT format however we wont offer any support to versions of the mod that have been converted to TXT.
6) Why is Distant Stars distributed in BIN format? i) Mods load faster in BIN format and are less likely to have issues in this format.
7) I'm having trouble installing the MOD, do you have any more instructions?i) Carbon was kind enough to do some more advanced instructions out here.
8) Is there any way to make new maps for Distant Stars using GalaxyForge?i) Within the Distant Stars Extras folder there is a folder called Galaxy Forge, Copy and Paste this folder (or its contents) over your original Galaxy Forge folder (or its contents) replacing any files if it asks you to. When you start Galaxy Forge next you'll be able to use all of our planets.
Or, the DIY approach (without custom icons):
ii) The GalaxyForge supplied by the devs will still work with our Mod, however to be able to access all of our planetary bonuses, templates, planet types and stars you will need to take our GalaxyScenarioDef.galaxyScenarioDef (found in the GameInfo folder of the mod) and place it in to your GalaxyForge folder, overwriting the original GalaxyScenarioDef.galaxyScenarioDef (if you still wish to make maps for the original game keep a backup of the original file). This will allow you to use all of the Galaxy changes included in our mod.
Note: Any maps made for Distant Stars will not work with other Mods. See #8.2 for DIY instructions for map making or take the appropriate files from Entrenchment, they're cross-client compatible.
Some statistics...
Since August 2009 to February 2011 we have had over...
400,000 Unique visits to the website12,000GB (12TB) of data transferred from our website
That equates to over 60,000 Unique downloads of the entire mod, excluding the excess of 20,000 Patches downloaded.
Thanks to everyone that has supported us this far and making our mod as popular as it is!
The granted experience for small ships (frigates and cruisers) is in each individual ship file.
The capital ships work differently. In the file "Gameplay.constants" you have the experience values for the capships (experience needed for levelup, experience gained for killing it and cost of training). Those values are shared for all capships, no matter the race.
No, we already tossed that idea around internally. Game engine just doesnt support it. You can though change in your gameplay data the drop rate per jump for culture. If you want no drop just change each number the the max i.e. 200%
Ok so if i purchased the diplomacy micro addon i still wouldnt be able to play the MOD correct?? Sorry for asking the questions but i have heard nothing but good things about the game.
IF i am unable to play the MOD could someone tell me of one or a way i can up the pop cap limit? I know nothing about mods for this game but have heard there is something i can do about the cap.
Thanks,
John
If you purchased Diplomacy you would be able to play the latest version of the mod, since it is made for the latest version of Diplomacy.
You could. If you look at the OP. You can see there are different download for each version we support.
For vanilla we supported till 1.181
Entrenchment: 1.051
Dipolmacy: 1.34
I'm with juntinian66 on learning how too do stuff myself...
So I got a second question, What is the process you guys use too raise the level cap on %bonus research. AKA Laser's/Armor stuff like that? Any answers would be nice
Once upon a time I downloaded a mod called "TEC Laser Beam Mod" for Entrenchment and I quite liked it, but since it stayed at only the TEC and an older version of Entrenchment, I decided to put my own laserbeam mod together.
For those not familiar with the concept of spotH3Ds original and now also my mini-mod:
Since a laser is a ray of light, traveling at lightspeed, it has to be a beam, not a blob or projectile. Of course in a vacuum you couldn't even see such a beam of light, but who cares about that in a game with sound in space.
Anyway back to the technical... I replaced all projectile laser (and I mean really ALL lasers) with short-lived (between 0.1 and 0.3 seconds depending on race and size) beams.
With the Advent I tried to stick as close as I could to the colors of the original blobs (blue for light, violet/pink for heavy). I also fiddled a bit with the weapon colors of ESW and Elite bombers to visually put them apart from standard bombers. All Advent beams use the nice and regular Advent beam graphics.
With the TEC (and derelict ships) I got a bit more creative, since their original lasers are all the same color (boring...). They use the more irregular beam graphic found in the Kol's forward beams. Their light lasers start out as yellow (with the yellow light pulegun muzzle and impact effect, since it fits better than the red laser effects), their heavy lasers have the same orange color as the Kol's beams and the medium are pretty much in between.
The pirates use the "pirate capitol beam" graphics that DS put into the game and all their lasers are blood red. Since they use far less laser weapons than the TEC, all lasers having the same color isn't a problem for them I think.
The mod, in it's current form is based off the DS 1.00 files and only replaces graphical effects. It has no impact on balance. Just make sure it is enabled above the DS mod in the mod-manager, or it won't have any effect. It was made specifically for Distant Stars (D) 1.00, so I'd advice against using it for anything else.
56k warning: Packed in a rar archive this mini-mod is 91 KB big (about 340 KB unpacked).
I hope some of you will enjoy it as much as I do.
Distant Stars Laser Beam Fan Mod
Just in case: I am not part of the DS team (though I did ask wether I may post my mod here).
Downloading!
I love mini mods!!!
*cough*You kids need to make more*Cough*
By process what do you mean?
Ok Carbon likes the Lazor Mod.
TEC lazors are a bit harder to see, but thats b/c it lookes like they are not Bailknight's style FX's unlike the Advent.
But this is going to a pera addon for me. Makes my pew pew so much cooler!!!!!!
Interesting.
By process I guess I meant what files did you tweak too raise the research level cap on them. As in how TEC laser research (both of them) are 4 levels each (5% per level) for a total of 40% boost instead of 2 levels each for a total of 20% boost.
Also still wondering how you guys made the Faster research setting make research go Ultra-Fast. Would be really nice too know
Those answers are very simple that I can happily give you before crawling into bed. In the research files themselves, you will see this line: MaxNumResearchLevels 4 It used to say 2. Also in the research that is next in the chain such as the second set of laser research, there is this section:
Prerequisites NumResearchPrerequisites 1 ResearchPrerequisite Subject "RESEARCHSUBJECT_WEAPONDAMAGE_LASERTECH0" Level 4
That level used to say 2 as well, but since the previous research got changed to 4 levels, the change here needed to be made as well so that you couldn't research it before completing the previous. You can change all of the numbers to 8 instead of 4 and thus give another doubling of the effect.
Alternatively you could just look closer to the bottom of the research files in the section that has this:
researchFloatModifiers 1researchModifier modifierType "WeaponDamageAdjustment" baseValue 0.000000 perLevelValue 0.050000 linkedWeaponClass "LASERTECH"
All you would have to do is change the per level value adjustment. Currently its a 5% per level gain. You could change that to .1 to give it a 10% per level gain.
research speeds are set in the gameplay.constants file. Look for this section:
researchSpeedData-Slow researchRateGameSpeedScalar -4.75 researchSpeedData-Normal researchRateGameSpeedScalar -1.3 researchSpeedData-Fast researchRateGameSpeedScalar -0.15 researchSpeedData-Faster researchRateGameSpeedScalar 7.5
That 7.5 is why things happen at warp speed compared to the other numbers that have negative values. The higher the number the faster it is, the lower the number, the slower it is.
Flaghips mod? or will it be added later?
Added later. Like when I have time to review it and make any necessary changes. Right now work is crazy. UPS.
Sweet thanks. I can start tweaking some techs I never used much at last!
Woo!
Have a for the help
Norbert, i love the Laser mod. TEC starbase + Pirates = Pink Floyd.
I think this could definitely be worth looking into some more (hint hint).
Yes, once I saw a pirate starbase with the lasers, it was gold! Btw, is it a full on DS change that militia get starbases and caps or was that just the Ashes of TEC map?
They could have them in any map that addes them to the template.
Hey DS Team just a quick question/concern. While loading up your mod today, I noticed the entrance theme is different. Infact, the music is the exact same as normal Diplo. Did you intend for that? Only because I liked your original entrance so much:). Also, while playing the TEC today the in-game music was normal Diplomacy music as well. I miss the music so much only because I think music directly impacts gameplay and mood so I was wondering if you intended for this and were going to incorporate other music or if this was a complete accident. Either way the music for me has been unchanged and remains the same of normal Diplomacy. Also I was wondering if you could add music for other races?
It sounds like you didn't get a good download?
DS didn't completely replace the original diplo music, it just added new ones to it, so it isn't unusual that you can hear original Diplo music ingame from time to time.
The Theme song though, is another matter. That one was taken out (or forgotten to be put in maybe?) for the 1.00 version. The others are all still in there, as far as I can tell.
If you still have an old version of DS, you can just copy/paste the old "Opening Theme.ogg" into the new folder. Though I don't know wether that alone is enough to change the mod-checksum.
Also make sure that you unpacked it properly. If there is a Distant Stars folder inside of a Distant Stars folder, then you need to take it out of the first folder. Dunno if that makes sense, but there should be the Diplo mods folder, Distant Stars folder, then mesh and textures and all. And make sure you hit both enable and apply mod buttons.
Draakjacht, i too have the standard Diplomacy fanfare to greet me on the main menu, and i have it all unpacked correctly.
There's also a *slight* issue with a map (maybe?). It's the large scenario map with 8 players called "Balanced Resources."
In the area i started in there was a deep space sector just behind my home planet, which was home to what seemed to be the only pirate base on the map. Just saying that it was rather frustrating to have every pirate raid make a trek through my system just to get to the other players.
I'll have to look into it, but if it's a deep space sector with a pirate starbase, it shouldn't be a spawn point for pirates, rather the starbase is just a component of the local militia. If it's an actual pirate base, then that's the design of the map and yeah, it would suck. Hmm... methinks I have to jump over to my other comp later tonight and double check that.
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