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.
Awesome! Thank you!
Ahh so I usually play random and end up on whoever I end up on, and I noticed the Advent do not start with a starbase vessel like the TEC did, is this intended?
Starting with a starbase is unique benefit only for the TEC since they are a defensive faction (even the HTS do not get one). Each race and faction has special bonuses that either take the form of research like benefits, which you can see from the diplomacy tree, or extra starting units/buildings.
I see, very cool.
Hmm seemed to capture a fortress constructor while advent and I cant build anything
That's one of the ancient structures. They require a specific planetary artifact to discovered before they can be used, but they are quite powerful. So start exploring those planets.
Very nice mod! I really like it!
But there is one thing that is very annoying:
As you removed all relationship buffs from the envoy's and put them into the embassy which can only be employed on allied planets, it's almost impossible to form new alliances with opposing forces.
Please allow the envoy to place embassys at all planets friend or foe. Or at least leave it with a basic relationship boost.
Ive noticed on huge fieldoms the AI wont leave there system. 10 AI all on hard -1 hour into the game AI is twiddling his thumbs or looking for the anchor switch on its ships.
is this mod as good as distant worlds because that mod kicks ass.
Well thats very hard to say. I think equal hard work has been done, And both very creative and awesome.
What is it of DS that you like?
They both have extended research, the ability to double fleets and different planet functions. Some research tec is different. I suggest download it and give it a shot.
I play several different mods and switch between them!
everything. i guess ill have to download this mod. does it have graphic enhancements?
This is true, however I believe I also made it easier to get a cease fire (I.e. your relationship doesn't need to be as high as in vanilla). I guess I could let you build embassies at hostile planets, but they wouldn't be invulnerable, hence they would be extremely vulnerable to being destroyed. Besides I personally find bribes a better way for getting that initial cease fire, assuming your faction likes the other faction enough, which is usually a bigger roadblock.
Huh, I often test the mod on Medium-Large Fiefdoms and the AI attacks other solar systems. Maybe you need to explicitly set them to aggressive or something on the fiefdom maps, as without other players in the solar systems maybe some AI types won't care to attack.
I assume you mean Distant Stars, not distant worlds the game?
For some history, DS and this mod were initially rather different. E4X started as just a small proof of concept mod to attempt to deal with what I viewed were structural defects in the base Sins game, like how trade mechanics always created a snowball effect or how annoying envoy mechanics were. I also sought to do things I hadn't seen other mods do, like the random encounters. In other words, like the name says it originally focused on improving the 4X game mechanics more than adding new varieties of stuff.
DS, while I haven't really played it a whole lot, the focus seemed to me to on adding new content. It added or included mods that added new planets, more/expanded research, new fighters etc. However, while they made some balance tweaks like much harder pirates, they didn't really try to change how Sins worked at all.
As E4X developed however, it began to add new content as well as rework existing ones. It also came to include things like new planets and research, and thus E4X and DS became much more similar to each other. However, the initial focus on improving the base mechanics of Sins at least somewhat is still very much a part of E4X, which to my knowledge DS has not done as much of.
Some other difference.
I'm sure people like Mike and Boshimi who've heavily played both mods can give you even better answers, but that's how I see it.
You know I do believe so, however I am sure goa can answer that. On http://www.ricksgalaxy.com/download.html you can find BailknightsGMod-v3.0R-RG and Volumetric_v2.5R-RG on the download link page. This might be help for any mod.
Note that some mods may or may not work with others!
I use these two mods with just about every mod I play and it usually works fine
How do i capture an occupation center?
I've found the AI isn't that great at jumping between systems, but I have seen then use wormholes decently. Ironically I've found the pirates to be better at jumping between systems, when given the appropriate techs to do so.
Heh damn AI needs to get its act together and attack me already
You don't. That is the Vasari Command Center, which they use to deploy their heroes. As long as you control the planet, it will be unable to spawn any heroes, and your units should leave it alone.
I will say some people have had issues with Bailknights if they put the mod above E4X in their mod order (it will work but some abilities like capturing neutral structures won't work). Sadly this will prevent all the graphics changing from taking effect. I am unsure if this applies to Volumetric Explosions.
I don't know if I'd call them competent, but they definitely send fleets to other solar systems. Granted I'm not exactly sure how long it took, as I usually stress test the mod by starting the game in the dev.exe and changing my own player to an AI. When I check back they are somewhat attacking each other, a few AI even got beach heads on other player's systems.
Ill give that map another shot after the one im on. The VCC i did just that got the planet and its just sitting there wondered if there was anything else and no. So its working as intended. Thanks for the responses.
cheers. gonna give them a try.
cheers. gonna give them a try. [/quote]
Post back and let me know what you thought.
The problem is that if im ally with eg Advent human and im playing TEC, there is no way to get a Vasari ally. Even if the Vasari is a human player wanting to join the alliance. It just cannot be done because we dont even get near a cease fire.
At least one relationship boosting ability should still be left on the envoy to get a cease fire and emerge from there.
This is another problem me and my friends experienced while playing last week. We were in a huge multi random and all the 7 other AI's where sitting in their own solar systems waiting for godot. My friend who was playing Vasari and was unable to join our alliance left the game. Even after 4 hours in the game where me and my friend, who was playing Advent, conquered almost 60% of the galaxy there was still no sign of any enemys, except scouts. All AI's where on vicious.
Quoting mikefacciola, reply 933 Ive noticed on huge fieldoms the AI wont leave there system. 10 AI all on hard -1 hour into the game AI is twiddling his thumbs or looking for the anchor switch on its ships.This is another problem me and my friends experienced while playing last week. We were in a huge multi random and all the 7 other AI's where sitting in their own solar systems waiting for godot. My friend who was playing Vasari and was unable to join our alliance left the game. Even after 4 hours in the game where me and my friend, who was playing Advent, conquered almost 60% of the galaxy there was still no sign of any enemys, except scouts. All AI's where on vicious. [/quote]
I tried this again and they did actually leave there system, however I reached the game (a few hours into it) limitations and tried a smaller map. Havent been able to reproduce the AI not leaving its own system.
Two questions goafan, first is how can I tell if the loyal tec planetary defenses are actually built or what planet I need to still do and the same how can I tell what capital ship or upgrade a ship still needs to be done?
Edit other than the flashy cannon above the planet.
I found a texture bug on this Volcanic Planet
If you're playing as the TEC Rebels/HTS yeah, they have really negative relations with Advent and Vasari factions. That's not something I added, even under the old system it was near impossible to get ceasefires with them.
1. As mentioned, the cannon particle lets you know when at least 1 of the planetary weapons is online. You'll also notice a +500 health buff, as before the weapons are construct a garrison is constructed first. However, once you research the planetary weapons all other planets you colonize will start off with them, you only need to manually construct them on planets you colonized before the research. Also, I don't think the colony frigate will autocast on planets that already have them.
2. Again, if you turn on autocast for the upgrade abilities they will automatically attempt to upgrade ships that do not yet have that upgrade.
Yeah, when they updated the vanilla planet textures a few of them are still a bit wacky. I'm not sure why it looks like that honestly.
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