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.
I have not been keeping up with Bailknights, however last I knew Bailknights did conflict with E4X. Check in the mod's GameInfo folder and see if you find any ".entity" files that start with "Frigate" or "Capitalships".
In theory these mods could be compatible, but last I checked Bailknights had to change ship files to use Bailknights particles, rather than simply changing the particles themselves. By changing the ship files, it causes E4X changes to get lost, such as colony frigates becoming unable to capture E4X structures.
I did mention this to the guy keeping Bailknights updated though, so perhaps he has gone and fixed this problem. Alternatively, if you have E4X above Bailknights, this will cause the game to prefer E4X changes, so there is no risk of breaking E4X features, though some units may not get the Bailknight particles.
I'll try that and report back w/ bailknight on the bottom.
Oh my its been awhile and I seem to have lost my marbles. I forgot what checksum number EX4 + a few of the mods have to be or is it main mod first then minins after and checksum will vary since I am using a few select mods. At any rate saw your new rig on moddb. Looks pretty hot. How do these mods run now that you have a better PC?
http://media.moddb.com/images/downloads/1/88/87028/2015-07-09_00001.jpg
Guess the bottom.
Odd now I am crashing with only E4x mods within the first few minutes.
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/640994505177578991/48752F88C2D298E4016B41613D869A419ABDD1FA/
Pic shows mods being used checksum, game version.
Did you try lowering your graphics settings and/or LAA yet? E4X by itself really shouldn't need it that much, but running out of RAM is by far the number one cause of it runs for a few minutes then crashes problems.
Well I am running everything on high not highest and laa. I tried play and it crashed less than 5 mins. Then I started and paused went to get a drink and it crashed while getting a drink.
So I got it up and running with a few mods, screenshot shows the mods with the checksum. I get about two minutes in and crash to desktop. I am linking a dump report through google drive. I am running sins 1.83.
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/608349904192693258/4BC3610E0D627B60B924B68DA063684CD62AF920/
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwGEwTCpIw20LTR2eFJpdVJsT2s
New version of the mod for 1.84 will be up momentarily.
The mod has stopped working for me since the 1.85 patch. Hope it gets updated soon!
I hope so too, but in the mean time, you can go to Rebellion's steam properties, got to the betas tab, and go back to 1.84 until we update!
Thanks for the heads up regarding the betas tab. Wasn't aware we could roll back to that.
Hi GoaFan.
Thanks very much for this mod. It's great and I do not want to miss it.
I played today, finally 1.85 with Outlaw Sectors.
After some time the game crashed to desktop. Without a minidump. Is there something that can be done to investigate this?
And at least one of the minimods is not working:
I have superweapons disabled, but the AI does use them.
Also, resetting Titan Levels might not work, but I'm not yet certain.
Is it possible to make the homeworld Bonus move with the homeworld?
Do you have a PayPal donation link or something?
Thranks
Glad you're enjoying it!
Well, the only way I can investigate a crash is if it is reproduceable after loading from a save game. Unfortunately only the developers can get anything useful even from a minidump.
Fortunately, most unreproduceable crashes are due to one thing - the game hitting the RAM limit. If you are able to load your game from an autosave and get to the next autosave just fine, this is usually the cause. To resolve, you can either reduce your ship/planet/structure detail settings (all high is fine for me but all highest usually causes issues for me) to reduce RAM usage (all other graphics settings can be maxed). Or you can look into using a program called "Large Address Aware" (LAA) to increase the amount of RAM the game uses. Most large Sins total conversion mods, including E4X's Star Wars addon, Interregnum, recommend or require LAA.
Yeah all the patches have broken some of them. This last one definitely broke the way I disabled superweapons, which I'm a bit disappointed at. I'm currently in the process of updating them.
Afraid not. Any planet designated your home world though does get a bonus to credit/metal/crystal income though. I actually made the faction homeworld bonuses so that all the Terran planets in the galaxy wouldn't be all the same, since random bonuses do not spawn on homeworlds. They also proved a subtle but useful way to change how the factions play, especially early game. So in light of its original purpose, I don't think I'd have the planet bonuses move even if it were possible.
It's not something I've really sought, but if you would like to support my modding work, I do have a paypal link.
Hopefully this information helps,
-GoaFan77
Well, the only way I can investigate a crash is if it is reproduceable after loading from a save game. Unfortunately only the developers can get anything useful even from a minidump.Fortunately, most unreproduceable crashes are due to one thing - the game hitting the RAM limit. If you are able to load your game from an autosave and get to the next autosave just fine, this is usually the cause. To resolve, you can either reduce your ship/planet/structure detail settings (all high is fine for me but all highest usually causes issues for me) to reduce RAM usage (all other graphics settings can be maxed). Or you can look into using a program called "Large Address Aware" (LAA) to increase the amount of RAM the game uses. Most large Sins total conversion mods, including E4X's Star Wars addon, Interregnum, recommend or require LAA.
Hmm, I thought I checked Sins once and LAA was on, but my Memory must be wrong. I played it on my laptop which had 12 gigs of RAM but a very limited CPU. With the new machine and LAA on I'll leave the details at highest until the next crash
It's a shame that the devs did not activate LAA, at least with a patch.
Could you post here when it's done!? I only stumbled over the 4EX update for 1.85 because it was the day I set up the formerly mentioned new rig. Your Timing was perfect, but with only editing the first post I got no notification.
I'm not completely seeing your Point here. If I Play against another ADL, ORT if you will, then his homeworld is all the same(as mine), right!?
Early game would also not be influenced, because who moves the homeworld in early game?
Another wish came into my mind in the meantime. Is it possible to make flagships (the ones from flagship victory) leveling?
It's not something I've really sought, but if you would like to support my modding work, I do have a paypal link. Hopefully this information helps,-GoaFan77
Have some beverage while modding.
You do have to apply LAA again every time the game updates (or you downgrade via the Betas tab). That is what often gets people.
They've said some CPUs don't handle it that well, and the game might become unstable, so they don't want to do it by default. A lot of mods use it though so it seems like a pretty small number.
Sorry, I'll try to do that from now on.
If you conquer another player of your race yes. However that's still an improvement, since on average 33% of the orginal homeworlds will be the same instead of the usual 100%.
I'm not talking about moving the homeworld. I'm saying without the mod, there are no bonuses on the homeworlds. With E4X you get a starting bonus based on your race which further specializes the factions. TEC find it even more competitive to rush trade for example because their original homeworld gets a 25% bonus. Since you have the bonus at your first planet, it has the most influence early game.
If you could move your homeworld at it comes to your new capital, then the original planet you had is now just a blank boring Terran.
I'm not 100% sure on this but I think it is possible by making them proper capitalships. However they already have 4 abilities and the stats of a max level capitalship. Do you think it would be better to have the standard Kol/Radiance/Kortul abilities or do you prefer the current set designed to help the flagships escape from danger?
I think the next thing on the agenda though is a bit of rebalancing for starbases.
Thank You!
I'm not talking about moving the homeworld. I'm saying without the mod, there are no bonuses on the homeworlds. With E4X you get a starting bonus based on your race which further specializes the factions. TEC find it even more competitive to rush trade for example because their original homeworld gets a 25% bonus. Since you have the bonus at your first planet, it has the most influence early game.If you could move your homeworld at it comes to your new capital, then the original planet you had is now just a blank boring Terran.
OK, that's right. In fact, the new new system is better than the original one and I'm not moving my homeworld often.
I'm not 100% sure on this but I think it is possible by making them proper capitalships. However they already have 4 abilities and the stats of a max level capitalship. Do you think it would be better to have the standard Kol/Radiance/Kortul abilities or do you prefer the current set designed to help the flagships escape from danger?I think the next thing on the agenda though is a bit of rebalancing for starbases.
I have not tested them all, but the stats are not level 10, more like level 5. I would not give them normal abilities. Coming without antimatter has advantages, especially for this ship type. They also only have 3 abilities, haven't they?
My suggestion: Level 1-3 cooldown reduction of the original abilities; level 4-5 one command + 50 supply; level 6 ultimate; level 7-9 cooldown red. MK2; level 10 ultimate MK2. Stat leveling should also be done, but to which scope!? With the enhanced abilities +1 armour per level could already be fine. Maybe +shield-regen and + hull-regen.
The fourth ability is used by the game to mark the ships as the flagship, but I could probably move it to the 5th ability slot, since it has no real impact on gameplay.
One problem with making the flagships capitalships is that the abilities wouldn't all be unlocked at the beginning. You could only pick 1 per level, so you would be level 3 before all the abilities you have now would be unlocked. However I believe with the recent Rebellion patch I can now make capital flagships spawn at level 3, which would solve this problem.
There is one last major issue with this though. The flagship would still use 1 command point, effectively preventing the player from building an additional cap at the beginning of the game. Which is a pretty big issue. I think I would have to increase the starting cap slot count to 2 globally for all game modes for this to be workable. Still, might be worth considering.
Huh, I'll look into it, see if there's any particular lore reason for them to not be affected. If not I'll probably change it, probably an oversight by Ironclad.
Are you able to edit/mod that trait? Then a passive bonus could be added (race-specific!?). I'd like to see something that tempts people, at best also the AI, to acutally use the ship. Something as a damage bonus in enemys gravity wells.
Is it possible to give them this one command point and 50 supply as level unlock? Then spawn them level 5 and go with +2 armor per following level.
I believe it would be possible yes, as long as its a passive effect, you can generally stack as many things as you want on it.
However I'm afraid that probably won't do much for the AI. As far as I can tell they're programmed to sit at the homeworld until threatened, then run away if possible. I wouldn't get my hope up that changing that would change things, though perhaps making them capitalships would. I'll ask around.
You can increase armor, but fleet supply can only be increased via research or artifacts, not abilities.
New version of the optional minimods released! Now Sins 1.85 compatible.
Great! Thanks for the post, this time I got the notification mail.
I still get non-exploding mines, although I use the mod that should make them explode.
Look at the flagships:
http://www.xup.in/dl,92898355/Mines.zip/
And, I don't know if this is from your mod but using your mod I cannot report it as game bug, can I? From time to time I get a very sudden drop in frame rates, making the game unplayable. I have uploaded two savegames which were running fine until this point. I coulld still press pause and scroll around/save. But if I unpause I maybe have 0,1fps.
I have completed vast maps with 7 or 9 (whatever the max is) NPC without problems, but these two for example "got stuck"
http://www.xup.in/dl,82643126/Saves.zip/
It seems to work for me. Are you sure you put the minimod above E4X in your mod order?
I'll take a look thanks!
No, I'm quite sure it's the opposite order here. Seems I missed that point.
Thanks
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