Sins of a Solar Empire is often described as a 4XRTS game, or a game that tried to merge the action and tactics packed gameplay of a Real time strategy game with the deep, complex, empire wide strategy of a 4X turn based game. Its up to debate whether Sins succeeded in this goal, but I think all can agree that of the 4Xs of "explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate", Sins is much more focused on the exterminate than on the other three.
This mod seeks to give more depth to the other 3Xs of the game by adding additional game elements or refining the existing ones to reward players who give more strategic thought to the non-combat side of the game. Combat will still be the center point of the game, but players will find that the non-combat options available will be much more rewarding and will need to put more thought into developing their economies. This mod will also attempt to address some other weaknesses of Vanilla Sins where possible, such as increasing race diversity or improving the AI.
Features
Faction Diversity - Exploit all new racial bonuses to crush your enemies.
Hero Units - Lead your race's champions into battle with their powerful new abilities to base your strategies off of.
Random Encounters - Keep your eyes peeled when scouting, new challenges and opportunities await you in the depths of space.
Embassies and Espionage - Friend or Foe, interacting with other Empires will never be the same again.
Ship Upgrades - Customize your capitalships and titans with unique upgrades (Rebellion).
New Planets - Your Empire will never look the same again. Meticulously balanced for competitive play.
New Skyboxes - 12 unique skyboxes provide a fantastic backdrop to your conquest of space (Rebellion).
New Artifacts and Bonuses - The fringes of your Empire hold great power if you know where to look...
New Random Events - For owners of the Rebellion Stellar Phenomenon expansion.
Civics Matter - Almost all civic structures have an impact on your Empire. You must develop your planets wisely to get the most out of them.
Culture Matters - Don't underestimate the ugly stepchild of Sins anymore, its back with a vengeance!
Customization - Play the game the way you want it with a growing library of optional minimods and enhanced mapmaker support!
Downloads
WinCustomize (Diplomacy 1.34/7)
Moddb (Rebellion)
Latest Version
Credits
People
Axel Dude - For his wonderful planet textures in the Infinite Space mod, most of which is included in E4X.
IskatuMesk - For his awesome library of sound effects released to the community, a few of which are included in this mod, as well as particle forge advice.
SZ0 - A great modeler, several pieces of his work are used in this mod.
Genocyber - For his great looking Repair Drone model!
Sinperium - For making the phase probe mesh and good feedback.
ZombieRus5 - For getting channeling abilities to work correctly (after we ironed out a few bugs) and for his many hours of "experimental" modding that lead the rest of us realizing more things are possible than we thought.
Seleucia - For his thoughtful analysis and for allowing me to use some of his rebalanced abilities.
Ue_Carbon - Intelligent Feedback.
Mods
Maelstrom - Awesome new planet module meshes
Infinite Space - Main source of planet textures and other astronomy related changes, as well as some planet bonuses.
Uzi's Sins Plus - Several planet textures and bonuses have been incorporated from it.
Project Equilibrium - For an awesome set of fun balance changes.
Also check out the new Star Wars addon, Star Wars: Interregnum.
That's what I'm trying to say. Every planet, not just the new planets, got new textures. There used to be only two different terran planet textures, now there are 5 different ones. The previous two will still have the lights, the 3 new ones do not have them.
Dontcha think all the Terran planets should look pretty and have some sorta night texture?
Anyway thanks for the mini mod descriptions.
Im having an issue with a minidump. Every single time my save game reloads and I blow up a TEC Titan Foundry, I get minidumped. You guys mess with the TEc titan foundries?
Also, lol, there's a tiny nebula, maybe 15% of the whole sky that's lit and pretty looking... The rest is a big black nothing. What happened to beautiful sky backgrounds from danman's 7 deadly sins? Do you call them skyboxes? Im not sure what they are called, but, e4x looks empty and colorless... not fun. That nebula needs to be modified so at least half of what Im looking at isnt black emptyness. I dont think anyone likes playing on a black obsidian surface with no color whatsoever. Maybe I got a bad skybox or whatever you call it Ill try again. Otherwise Im enjoying the mod, thank you!
The only thing I added to titan factories was the upgrade abilities, but I don't know how those would cause any problems if the foundry was destroyed. What minimods are you running?
The Skyboxes I'm using are the regular Sins ones and a set I've received from Infinite Space, which he said most came from the Sacrifice of Angels mod. I don't know if 7DS is also using them or if SoA got them from 7DS, but regardless. Yeah there are one or two of them that are a bit empty looking, but sometimes I like that black emptiness it seems more realistic and it doesn't get in the way as much. That said, you can change your skybox at any time in game by going to the options and just changing the "Use Colored Skyboxes" option on and off until you get one you want.
Ok, I totally retract my statement about the skybox issue. Yeah, my 1st e4x experience was with one that was 85% black space, but I tried a few more and wow, they are better than I've seen on 7 deadly sins. Amazing! And I didnt know I could toggle till I got one I liked! TY!
Ok, Im running above the main e4x mod the titan and the no super weapons mods. Thats it.
More on the minidumps... Seems I was able to reload the game... and sometimes by doing things differently, I wouldnt get a minidump. I was able to reload the game via either saved or autosaves and finish it.
But now I'm about 5 and a half hours into a game and its really heating up. There's a HUGE battle going on and it minidumps 15 seconds into my game. I even tried reloading without my two minimods and it still minidumps me.
Im not sure what to do at this point... Im getting pretty frustrated with not being able to play the game out... Do you have any advice?
Do you have any idea of what your RAM usage is? To be perfectly honest I don't usually play 5 hour games, so though I've never had a RAM related issue I guess by that point their could be. Really the only other thing you can do is send me the save to take a look at.
It's quite possible disabling any minimods would cause stability issues though. So once you start a game with them don't disable them until you're ready for a new game.
Ok ill send you the save. The whole way thru this saved game Ive had the no super weapon and the reset titan level minimods above the e4x mod enabled.
Where I send it? And thanks and g/l with the whole 15 secs you're gonna get out of it, lol.
Edit: Ill also include my dxdiag print. How do I check memory levels while in the game? Alt tab out and go to the task manager?
In Task Manager's Processes tab Sins is running at 47-52% Processor power and 981,744k of memory.
In the Performances tab I am using a total of 2.02-2.06GB of memory out of 4GB total and my processor is running between 50-52%.
Yup. If Sins is only using about 1MB its probably not a RAM issue then. You'll definitely have some frame rate hit that late in a game and with that kind of processor usage and I've seen that before, but not a minidump from it.
Any file hosting site you like, dropbox, mediafire etc. And that 15 seconds before the crash is the most important.
Just to make sure, it was.
1. No Superweapons
2. Resetting Titan Levels
3. E4X 1.5
http://www.dynaverse.net/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=163374003.0;attach=36841
Yup. Also, dunno if important, but noticed an Aluxian Resurgence Kodiak Heavy Cruiser in transit from Smirnova to Niebuhr and as soon as it arrives, I get an audio notification of allied reeinforcements arriving probably because of my embassy base there and then it crashes. Every single time. It could be because of the massive battles elsewhere...
I'm running mostly medium effects without bloom. I dropped it to all low and took the majority of effects off, then reloaded it. My total system memory usage dropped to 1.93GB from 2.06, but didnt change the outcome of the minidump. Im eager to see what you get. Thanks fdor the help.
^Dizzy, I'm unable to use that link, it says something about only members can use that site. Could you use a public site that doesn't require an account?
http://www.mediafire.com/?sx8ey60vpctlsik
Sorry bout that other link. Damn buncha nazi hoops u gotta jump thru to get an account on dnet.
Yeah. Thanks for uploading again.
Thank you for the latest release of E4X!
Feedback:
Bug Reports:
General ideas:
Upgrade ideas for TEC:
Loyalist:
Ankylon Titan:
- Long range beams - as alternative to the shield draining ones. Whenever an enemy flees, the Ankylon rarely gets off more than one beamvolley.... because it has its broadside pointed at the enemy. By the time it finally moves the enemy is half a grav well away.
- Auxilary antimatter generators - no other Titan in the game suffers as hard from antimatter draining ships. A single Kortul is all that is needed to stop your Ankylon from using abilities permanently. Other titans at least remain somewhat useful. So what about giving it a minor AM increase that cannot be disabled(easily). I dont know anything about how the game engine works but in theory I thought about something like this: "If antimatter is below 100 wait 30 seconds.... then give 100 antimatter.... 2 minutes cooldown...... check again. Of course this means that under normal circumstances the Titan needs to regenerate up to 100 AM points in less than 30 seconds. So as long as it can regenerate normally the auxilary sytem is not triggered.
- Engine upgrade - makes the Ankylon faster and gives it higher turn rate.
Capital ships:
- remove improved warhead launchers, that suits the HTS far better imho.
- replace with Emergency shields: Every 10 minutes if the hull points of the ship go below 500 a 500 HP shield restore is applied.
Rebel (HTS)
Ragnarov Titan:
As alternative to Pulse charged shells: Supercharge Rail Gun. "Divert all available power into the rail gun, increasing its firepower by 50 and its range by 30 %. However the enormous power requirements make it necessary to take away energy from the shields, weakening them by 25 %. If shields go are below 25 % ability cannot be used. Also movement speed reduced by 50 %. And the rapid firing cycle putts enormous stress on the rails, so it can only be used every 5 minutes. (Cooldown)
- Remove improved core armor and replace it with enhanced targetting - inreases the range of all weapons by 30 %.
Balancing feedback:
That is all I can think of for now.
Keep up the great work!
Savegame with Maraud Bug:
http://www.wikiupload.com/2HF475ESU14PZV1
Use: Load the game and immediatly pause it. Then center camera above control group 1. Then send away the Marza to the planet and make him use Maraud.
Comments to things I have time to reply about right now.
Sadly I cannot change what the game displays on the infocards and what it doesn't. It just does that automatically, and it is not moddable. The best place to see what the upgrade does is on the upgrade's ability infocard, not on the ship that got the upgrade, but even there it might not display everything and I'm unable to change that.
I recently decided that the best way to show which planetary defense a planet have is to have a custom particle effect with a picture of a missile, railgun or nuke put above the planet. I haven't worked with particles before though so we'll see what happens.
Not just for TEC, but I've considered giving the "Home" type planet the ability to support two starbases for everyone.
I'd rather not have upgrades give lots of negative effects; the player cannot choose when these apply, so upgrades can really only be applied to situations where I can do checks to ensure they are used in a situation the player would use them in anyways.
Not possible to tie that to only friendly gravity wells.
I've nerfed their starting culture spread twice. If that's still a problem it might be the maps you're playing use a smaller size so the culture spreads farther. If so I need to know what maps you're playing, Randoms don't seem to have a problem.
I'm still hoping the normal game will get fixed or at least better adjusted later, so I'm saving decisive action until it really is the last patch.
Thanks.
Well Dizzy, mostly good news I think. It wasn't that Kodiak in transit that caused your minidump as I could prevent it from dumping if I disabled ability autocasts, but then remembering ARES' post, I looked around and noticed your TEC ally had a Commander Deyrenov that had started to siege a desert. And sure enough, when I used that ability for him I got an instant minidump. So it seems you two were having the same issue, which hopefully means that's the only crash bug (I don't know what happened as I haven't changed Maraud since porting it to Rebellion, but things happen). After looking through the other saves and perhaps making some balance adjustments, I'll release a hotfix that should allow you to finish your game. And if the hotfix ruins the save, well, I'll shall we say, send the offending brash Commander "back to the barracks". It certainly isn't the first time he's needed disciplinary action from the upper command.
Karma for both of you.
weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Please post when that fix is done. I'm liking this mod a lot. Thanks for doing it! Oh, any chance on adding Pirates as a faction?
Of course. Glad you're liking it.
Probably not, though I'm curious you asked that as I noticed you researched almost every tech but pirate mercenaries. I reworked it so it works from a "Pirate Embassy" structures and just gives you free ships every 10 minutes at a planet of your choice (homeworld if you leave it on autocast), so that's probably the best way to use pirate ships. I may add a way any faction can mass recruit pirate ships if there is demand, but a playable faction seems a bit much as they don't have anything but the handful of frigates and a defense turret done.
Well, there's this saying..., "sometimes you don't know what you are missing untill you try something new."
In this case, I am missing the variety of races in the 7 deadly sins mod by danman. Had I never played that mod, then perhaps your e4x mod would be enough for me. It needs further explanation, however. Walk with me a second...
There's something I'm after when I load up a huge map of 70+ planets and 8 player slots. Games last 5-8 hours. They seesaw back and forth with diplomacy and backstabbing. Its amazingly fun when you thought you had it in the bag only to find out a faction on the other side of the map comes to your neighborhood and trashes everything in sight and screws up your plans. Sometimes I've lost games because of relentless opportunity attacks when I'm already engaged on a two-front war. These dynamics add much more replay value to this game than a quick win or lose small map that lasts 3 hours.
Now along with the above dynamic, there is a variety element I like in my games. Unfortunately, there are only 3 factions with 2 minor variants of each making 6. There's really only 3, though... With 8 player slots, or more, I quickly tire of facing the same enemies over and over. In 7 Deadly sins, there are custom races each with their own unique play style and abilities and ships. Its huge fun with all the variety involved, but in keeping with the traditional factions in a more traditional game, it wouldn't be appropriate to add, say, the Star Wars Empire faction. That'd break the lore of sins and the mod becomes something entirely different and I'm not here to argue the pros and cons of adding races not included the original game ... But adding Pirates wouldnt. They are already in the game.
Adding them as a faction, however, allows you to encounter AI or playable factions that behave differently than Pirates that offer their services via bidding and they add the variety needed that's missing in larger games.
7 Deadly Sins uses Pirate capital ships that are fairly tough and nasty... They herald from the original sins game if you've seen it. I cant recall ever seeing a Pirate Capital ship in any raid by pirates playing rebellion 1.1. 7 deadly sins mod has added a few more capital ships along with a colonizer. I think your mod be fantastic if you added a playable pirate faction. I hope you're open to the idea.
dizxzy_mc have you seen zombisrus's mod(s) sins of the fallen, it might also suit what you want, and from memory one of the factions he created was a pirate rework.
harpo
I understand, which if you read one of the latest news I plan to work on a mod that will work with E4X that will add 4 Star Wars factions which should hopefully feel like 5.5 "races".
Indeed, I'm not sure if the Rogues are updated for Rebellion but Zombie's factions are good. Probably the best pirate faction ever made.
Hello.
I played some games with your mod and it was very fun (after solving the memory-crash-bug because of very high detail settings).
I play it with your minimod "No Superweapons" because i enjoy pure fleet battles.
Then in a game some colonies were gone and i realised that there are still capturable superweapons in the game.
So can you make a "No Superweapons" minimod that include the capturable one please? Shield or station builder are ok but the weapons are annoying if any other superweapons are disabled.
Greetings
Is this mod fixed yet or will those ships still cause minidumps when casting abilities on planets? `
Oh, and I play without superweapons as well, but the ones you find are not very super... They add nice flavor to games without the big WMD. They are like little miniature WMD, hehe. Like Dr Evil's mini-me.
Disable autocast on TEC Marza Hero ability "Maraud".
Minidump gone.
The hotfix has just been released.
In his (and I imagine most people's) game it was the AI using it that was the problem.
Awesome!
ahh.... yes.... forgot about that possibility...
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