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!
That one above is just a thumbs up to distant stars. Desktop I made for myself since I was so fond of the loading screens from DS
Nice
Sadly it still does the same thing. :/
And thank you for the PM thing with the instructions.
Why not put it the same link as the current mod? Since we cant revert back to older patch so would it not be more productive to the alpha 1.4 patch on it?
@StarFall, Pretty pictures.
My only criticism is that the ships/structures are known to be out of scale with each other, so any size chart built from a single in game image with the ships lined up doesn't accurately represent the size relationship that they're actually supposed to have. Any chart made in that manner is misrepresenting the truth. To get accurate sizes, you have to take separate images and resize them so that common features are the same size, or use screenshots from each ship in game and build a scale of the ship based on features that can have their size estimated in a fairly accurate manner as I discussed in this post last year: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/409268/page/1/#2946589 and then using those scales to create true size comparisons. You must also carry assumptions over to each ship (like the height requirement for each deck on a TEC ship) otherwise you blow your own scale apart and do a lot of work for nothing. I know I talked about sizes in this thread in relation to present day trucks and boats, but I can't find them anymore.
I did some digging after making that post I linked to above and did find out that officially it has been stated that the smallest ship (strike craft) is 10 meters, and the largest is a kilometer in length, so that helps a lot when figuring things out. That information was in reference to the original game and things have changed since then, especially with the inclusion of titans.
That's the biggest reason why you aren't able to find size comparison charts, no one has done the work to do an accurate job of things.
The thing is, I don't have Rebellion, so I cannot test anything I release, and thus release them as unofficial/use at your own risk. If it works, great, if not, I tried, and someone else can use what I've done to make something that does work... There is no official update until Nacey gets around to it whenever that is. We're all real busy people in real life so these things take awhile, especially when there is an available working solution. Another issue is the fact that since my update appears to work for more people then it doesn't, more effort is being put into the Beta build which is actually for Rebellion, rather then the Alpha builds, which is a port over from Diplomacy which creates lots of broken things in Rebellion. So you're really left with a choice, beg for more official alpha updates, or let me worry about those and release unofficial ones while those team members that do have Rebellion work on the internal alpha which will become the public beta once they're happy with it.
I was not aware of any idea that the ships were not to scale in game. What is your source that how they apear in game in relation to eachother is not accurate? I mean obviosly they are off scale with the planets, but comparing how they appear in game to the cinimatic made for the rebbelion intro, they seem to match pretty well. In the cinimatic they look about on scale to how they are in game, and given that the cinimatic is suposed to look like somone had a video camera at the battle, Im not sure that the scale is actualy off in game.
If you look at the cinematic, the Colony Frigate for the TEC as it lands to pick up troops is not in scale. The windows are too tiny and it is supposed to fit many many people, not a squad of 40 crammed in on top of each other.
Sometimes, pics do help...
That is exactly the graphic I was thinking of. See how the soldiers are at least '3 windows tall'. Does not compute.
Two words. Shrink rays.
It's like liquifying natural gas, just on fit for human use. Leave it to those crazy capitalists to see the efficiency gains from such technology.
Really, shrink rays..?Yeah, The Colony Frigate needs to be at least 50% larger in the above pic...
when is this B going to be updated for Rebellion.
I want to play this S.
-Æ
Its not clear that those are windows, they could be lights of any kind. Or maybe just small windows. But its beside the point anyway. I'm talking about the other parts of the cinematic where it shows many of the ships in close proximity so that you can get a good idea of their scale. I set out to make charts of their sizes relative to each other, and I contend that using the in game engine to do this is valid, given that they seem to match how they look relative to each other in battle scenes of the cinematic. But i still would like to know the source of the idea that the in game ships are not to scale with each other, as I am always open to convincing
Just keep in mind that this was ALSO from the cinematic ... where two things that were side by side were completely out of scale.
The ships are scaled to each other. But they seem comically scaled to anything else, like planets, stars and the people from the cinematic. Thus while you could do a relative chart it's impossible to give a number to their dimension to compare with other Sci-fi series or real world objects.
Soon. Sent an email to Nacey about it.
The ships are not to scale to eachother. Just look at the windows on the scout or protev. Abd either one compared to HC or Capitol Ships is not in sink.
-Twi /)
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/172963/page/1/#1556877
Blair, one of the creators of the sins universe states fighters are 10 meters and the largest cap is a kilometer. Comparatively, this does not equate in game. Close, absolutely, but it just doesn't equate.
Then we have this post from Brad roughly three weeks later:
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/175286/page/5/#1589301
He says the frigates alone are 1.2 kilometers. Fascinating isn't it?
So we have 10 meter fighters, 1200 meter frigates, and 1000 meter cap ships... I don't dare try to figure out the size of the cruisers. Clearly the size of ships is left entirely up whom ever you listen to on the development team. That being said, if there's no consistency between developers, how are we able to assume there is consistency between the ships? Brad is full of shit since the math just doesn't ever work out that way so we'll just continue on while ignoring him.
So now we go back to my post using rational facts like the size of people and structures on the ships to compare rather then just accepting what we are told... I computed the length of the trade ship to be roughly 200 meters. Now compare that ship's length to the sova in game and you can assume roughly a kilometer in length for the sova. So that supports Blair which means my methods and math are at least valid, however, if you use the same methodology to get the size of the sova based on the height of people and using recognizable structures like windows to calculate the size and number of decks in a certain area and thus give you a tangible number to work with for measuring as I did to compute the size of the trade ship, the sova only ends up being a little more then half of a kilometer long. So comparatively, based on recognizable structures, this comparison proves the sova visually is 5 times longer in game, however mathematically it should only be two and a half times longer. They fail the consistency test.
Okay so let's just ignore the math on that previous example. Let's use the pictures provided. We can still assume the average person is 6 feet tall (just hair more then 1.8 meters). The colony ship in the cinematic still provided by Bison comes out to an estimated 30 meters long (which is me being extremely generous since it does not look like it's the length of a football field, but I digress). Likely smaller if you assume that visual distances would make the people visually smaller then the ship since the ship is closer in perspective to the eye, but I'm ignoring that. So if that ship is only about 30 meters, in game when compared to the sova, the sova ends up only being 120 meters in length (again, extremely generous)... But that's just not possible if the fighters are roughly one fiftieth to one seventy-fourth the length of a sova. I can't get a perfect shot of them on the same plane, but after 6 attempts I'll settle for the largest measurement, one fiftieth. That makes the fighters 2.4 meters in length, a little more then half a meter taller then a man (roughly 2 feet)(but in actuality probably not even as tall as a man if I had an accurate picture from the cinematic to work with). Name one fighter, terrestrial or not that is only 2 feet longer then a man is tall and packs in engines, fuel, life support, sensors, equipment (or most likely smaller then a man and still have all of that)... Hell, the chair alone would take up most of that 2 feet... So that creates a huge problem for you about the cinematic and a real simple suggestion from me... The cinematic is lying, meaning all comparisons based on what is observed from the animated cinematic (which was not rendered using in game material/footage) and what appears in game is complete bull. The two fail the consistency test.
So, three fails for consistency... Need more?
This is all im trying to do. I understand that they are sevearly out of scale with planets, and it seems possibly out of scale with people (still not sure im entirly agree, but i see that much of the evidence is sound). All I am doing is making a chart of scale between the various ships, whch I still think at this point they are acuratly scaled with eachother, even if as an agregate they are out of scale with the rest of the game. @Stant you think way too deeply about this (bravo for that sir ) and your measurments using the people definatly holds water that some of that cinimatic is lying (the part on the planet I belive) but I dont think any of your evidence precludes that the ships are to scale with eachother, which is still my only stated goal. But thank you for the information. I think we are all pent up here. When is the full rebellion update for DS comming out again?
Soon
Can't help it..
Well, you asked the question, I had an answer to it because I worked on the very same question over a year ago. I just never made scaled sketches like I did with the trade and refinery ships. I did those because I was planning on using them in the DS lore at some point before interest in it waned. Someday maybe I'll get around to the others...
I would enjoy seeing those. I'm interested in your take on the scales.
Personally, I'd scale them to what Blair said not how they appear. It's his universe. If I have to fudge the drawings, then that's what I have to do.
Is the link for the download broken?
Humm ok got it to download and when I go to enable all it does is minidump .
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