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.
Without any applications running my task manager shows 1.2 something gigs in use. I should probably clean up these background processes.... however when running vanilla sins that goes up to almost exactly 2.0 gigs and the vanilla game has not crashed once on me. When I start a match in E4X (the small fiefdoms map) it goes up by only 0.1, to about 2.1, but I got a minidump again less than 5 minutes in. I don't know if it's 2 gigs overall that crashes you or 2 in use by Sins exclusively, but if the former that would explain it I guess.
Update: I started another match in vanilla and turned all the unit details up to Highest--this raised my memory usage to 2.05 gigs but I was able to make a bunch of frigates, colonize a few planets, and explore, basically play the first 5-10 minutes of the game normally. No crash. I've been able to play on these settings in the past without the game crashing, it just makes it laggy once there's enough junk on the screen. So I doubt it is the memory usage.
Tried foreign invasion this time 3v3. I choose Advent Rebel had a tec rebel and a vasari rebel on my team and 3 randoms for the other. 2 CPUs were unfair one on each team the other were hard. Started playing, build order
Cap ship factory
Civic center
1 hayclon carrer
2 scouts enabled auto scout
1 colony ship moved to edge of grav well
upgrade planet infrustrcture to be max credits
Carrier finished construction began to send it to the first planet and it crashed before it goto the end of the grav well.
Are you able to try out of dev mod to see if you can recreate the issue?
PS.
I dont know much in modding as far as creating and fixing, but I did overhear ryat mention the .exe changed, they were discussing Large address aware.
Doesn't really matter what I do, once I start a game it crashes shortly after with the mod on. I've tried bare minimum graphics with easy AI, all the way up to max with unfair. It always crashes shortly into the game. I wonder what they broke!
For those of you who are experiencing the problem... try running it in the dev.exe? See if it throws out anything meaningful to you just before it dumps. I realize it runs fine on Goa's, but the fact it isn't on yours means there's a difference between your installs/setups and Goa's. It'll help narrow things down.
Well I've only been running it on the dev.exe and its worked fine for me so far. I guess I'll try it with the standard .exe but I really hope that's not the issue. If there's a difference between the standard and the dev.exe now that's going to be a huge blow for the modding scene.
Oh no, sorry, I'm not implying there's a difference between the standard and dev versions... I'm thinking there's a difference between what they have on their PCs and what's on yours. Whether it's a bad/corrupt file or otherwise, I don't know. But this will help narrow down (hopefully) where the difference is.
oh boy dev.exe I put the mod in the folder run sins, run steam, play game from steam, enable my mods and then start the game. Am I suppose to be running the game from the mod folder? Like Skyrim SKSE?
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/410160
Guide to using dev.exe... by Goa no less. I read up on it a few days ago to better test my own modding.
Basically, run it once (should be in the same directory as your game), then make a copy of the mod and paste it to the second mods folder that was created with "dev" annotated on it.
Example, mine (for Rebellion) says "Mods-Rebellion v1.82 Dev"
If you're not keen on having to reset all of your settings, either, then make a backup copy of your settings files (I only know Rebellion location... sorry): Documents\my games\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion\Setting
Assert @ D:\projects\SINS\SinsRebellion\main\CodeSource\Engine/Core/Settings.cpp(695)
!attemptToReadLegacySettings || (attemptToReadLegacySettings && versionNumberFromFile >= ConvertToReleaseSpecificVersionNumber(184))
Got this fun error on running the dev exe let me click through it.
Should I run the dev version every-time I play sins, this mod other mods?
Yeah, that message is just it telling you (basically) it's overwriting your settings files.
I'd say unless you're actively modding, stick to the normal exe under normal conditions. There may be no harm in using the dev.exe, but I (personally) feel that for normal game-play the normal exe is fine. In the end, I don't think there's any difference between the two, though, other than the dev.exe has a command console you can access to modify the game a little on the fly and actually gives you a reason for the mini-dumps... just before it flushes you out to your desktop.
Sorry, this will be the last time I post tonight. Midnight here and the forum is loading extremely slowly for me for some reason.
Goa, I downloaded your mod and gave it a whirl. It had actually caught my eye earlier, but decided to load it up in the dev.exe as well just to see. Nothing happened for me. I even set the AI to take control for me so "we" could multi-task better. Nothing caused an MD in the short 10 minutes I tested. Was just a normal medium-random map.
I can give it a go under normal exe tomorrow if these folks don't encounter issues using the dev.exe.
Probably not, in fact you'll get some very annoying error messages if you do. But for now we're just trying to figure out if there is a problem and what it is.
Hi. I just wanted to say I'm really enjoying the mod and I've had no crashing issues with it. I purposefully played an overly lengthy game last night (Triad map, 4 hours playtime) just to see if there were any issues. No crashes at all. I do have LAA enabled on the exe. Distant Stars which I love crashes like mad mind you but E4X is fine.
One issue that did occur with this particular map was one of the Ai opponents (Advent Normal difficulty) simply could not expand out of their starting area due to the second planet (ice world) being defended by a rather large Vasari defence fleet (Random militia one with Capital ships). Due to this that Ai player did nothing all game and once I cleaned out this Vasari infested planet the Advent Ai simply gave up. Damn shame since I wanted a fight.
I was playing with Flagships enabled and I'm not certain if Rebellion Ai in general has a major problem with them or not. I tend to use my flagship aggressively but all my other opponent did (TEC Rebel) was keep his at his home world with most of his cap ships. For the majority of the game that Ai did launch medium sized attacks with 1-2 cap ships but for the most part was content to ebay bid the pirate spam which I welcomed for the experience boost.
What do the Styx device and the other reactor do that you can capture? I wasn't sure if they provided a tech boost or a resource increase at all.
I personally love the powerful pirates and the recruitable Pirate Captain is great (the voice acting is hilarious) but I wonder if maybe they are too powerful for the Ai to deal with. I don't remember pirates ever bombing planets in standard Rebellion so perhaps its the mod (maybe I've never seen it because I don't let me self get trashed by them) but I'm not sure if the Ai can cope with it. Yeah I know I could switch Pirates off but where is the fun in that? I'll up the Ai to hard difficulty and see what happens, I typically play on hard but since this mod was new to me I started with normal while I got used to the changes.
Would it be possible to make emergency facilities provide some form of resistance to Gamma Ray bursts? On the whole I like the Stellar Phenomenon DLC but losing your entire population as the annoying burst moves backwards and forwards down a single phase line numerous times feels more like a cheese mechanic than an actual random disaster. So maybe a new planetary shield upgrade or hardened bunker tech would be useful.
Thank you very much for the mod and all the hard work you've put into it. Also looking forward to SW Interregnum.
Sadly I tried to play again, got the two minute crash to desktop again, only running the mod. Large fieldoms. I was playing as advent. All my drivers are current the game is current. I am able to run DS it crashes here and there but this one I cannot get past two minutes since the beta/new patch This was in dev mode this time as well.
Did the dev mode give you a message before it dumped you out?
Yeah, unfortunately that can happen sometimes with the mod's "Random Encounters". I believe these will not appear on the "Fair" maps if you want a more competitive game, but in additional to most random encounters being removed you won't get any of the artifacts or planet bonuses the mod adds.
I call these ancient structures. They are very powerful devices that do all sorts of things that require you to discover certain artifacts on your planets to unlock their abilities. Basically they are another incentive to explore your planets in the hope that you'll get the artifact you need to use them. You can find more on them and other new E4X features here.
I did not change the composition of pirate raids except for the strongest pirate raid, which will cause an enemy pirate captain to spawn to lead the raid. For both Vanilla and this mod the weakest raid does not spawn planet bombing ships, all the other raids do, so the AI will be just as good or bad against the pirates as they were before. I did change how the pirate raid strength is calculated a bit so that the bounty amount is more important than how strong the player is (very late into the game you could have guaranteed strong raids even with no bounty in Vanilla).
Yeah you like'y need to play on a harder difficulty. They've made the normal AI easier a few patches ago so its really only for newish players.
I don't know about that, but yes I've noticed this event seems a little too powerful so I'll probably adjust it somehow in the next version.
Well a new version will be coming out soonish anyways, maybe that will help somehow.
Ah I guess I missed the E4X Beginners Guide as I downloaded the mod in my overly hasty enthusiasm. I guess that explains a lot, obviously I didn't tune into the daily Unity broadcast. Cheers.
Also I didn't realise they'd changed the difficulty for normal, its been a while since I played the old Sins and changes Rebellion makes are still new to me. I'll leave it hard from now in it seems more like what I was used to.
Many thanks for explaining things.
Playing most recent version on Rebellion 1.82 with Advent Rebels results in a lot of errors thrown during loading regarding research (was using dev.exe) and ultimately crashes within 10 seconds of the game starting.
Errors in the dev.exe is normal, you should turn them off in your settings file if you want to play a real game in the dev. Crashing is not, if it happens again try turning reducing your graphics settings.
Did anyone have a problem with the Vasari VIR's 'Starbase Moblization'? I finish all the required research and researched Starbase Moblization but my starbase is unable to make a jump at all. I only had one starbase at the time and built a few more after the research to make sure there wasn't any bugs/glitches but none of there were able to make a jump.
This is a great mod I enjoy countless hours playing Sins of a Solar Empire with this mods.
The devs changed Starbase Mobilization a while ago so that it only works between planets you have a phase stabilizer node at. If you want to send your starbase to an enemy planet, you need to fire a Kostura cannon at it first, as well as have a phase gate at the planet the starbase is jumping from.
Another option unique to the Enhanced 4X mod is the Vasari hero unit Warlord Lurathrak always creates a phase stabilizer node at the planet he is at. So you simply need to include him along with your attack fleet if you want to send a Starbase to support it, instead of using the Kostura Cannon.
@GoaFan77
Sweet, thanks for the quick reply. I guess Starbase Mobilization is now a little more balanced.
Edited: Quick question, do you happen to know if it is possible to add more ability points per level for capital ships?
OK Just randomly popping up with some stuff again.
Anyway I got 3 things to talk about this time.
These are from the version 1.74 using the Enhanced AI/Faster combat/Non-Vasari phase gate Mini-mods BTW
1: I think the base 0.3 culture generation is bugged for TEC Loyalists, as they don't seem to have it which means it gimps their home-world income at the start compared to other races that still have it working.
2: For some reason when AI advent use their envoys to build a embassy the envoy self-destructs a couple of seconds later. Is it supposed to do that?
3: And last of all after doing some thinking. You know the first Vasari hero you could not think of a 4th skill for? Do you think you could just give it the reintegration skill like other Vasari Heavy cruisers have? maybe a slighter better version due to having better nanites on board but it would fit with the ship's theme IMO.
All AI envoys do that. It was not possible to teach the AI they only need one envoy cruiser, so when the AI builds an embassy the envoy cruiser self destructs and they get the resources back.
Maybe, but I'll be honest, I'm not really working on adding much new content to E4X at this time. Whatever updates it gets will be bug fixes or are things I've wanted done that will carry over to the Star Wars Interregnum mod I'm primarily working on right now.
I'll check on the TEC Loyalists, but do note that the culture rate may not be the same for each planet. If the TEC planet had lots of phase lanes connecting to it, it will be divided among all of them, so it will appear to be spreading slower.
OK thanks for the info about the envoys.
Also just checked again and yeah TEC loyalists are not getting the home-world culture generation.
You can add me to the list of those having the mod active crash problem too...
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
