Sins Beta 4 Technical Feedback - *POST HERE*

And so it begins....again.

from Sins Forums

This thread is for technical feedback for Sins of a Solar Empire Beta 4. 

Please reply to this post if you'd like to make: a bug report, let us know about a compatibility issue, graphics issues, performance reports, etc. (i.e., technical stuff).

Before making a report, please be aware that the minimum system requirements for Beta 4 are:

  • Windows XP SP2 / Vista
  • 1.8 GHz Processor
  • 512 MB RAM (1 GB RAM for Vista)
  • 128 MB 3D DirectX Video Card
  • DirectX 9.0c
  • LAN or Broadband Internet Connection for Multiplayer

IMPORTANT:  When making a post about a bug, be certain to include - your system specs, a description of the bug you encountered, what you were doing when the bug occurred (how to reproduce it), and if it was reproducible or not.  We won't be able to make changes to the game without detailed information.

If you encounter a crash, Sins should automatically generate a minidump file. Please send the generated exception and a DirectX diag report to support(at)ironcladgames(dot)com along with a detailed description as outlined above. Minidump files are located in (please note these directories are hidden by Windows):

XP: C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire
Vista: C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\

If you'd like to give us some non-technical feedback, please post it here:

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/index.aspx?AID=166574

By keeping this information in one place, it will go a long way towards us making Sins a better game!

Thanks!

204,941 views 269 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Building the Vasari culture thing results in a freeze and this error message:

"Failed to find StringID: 'IDS_PLANETDETAILSINFOCARD_ALLEGIANCEDETAILS_DELTAFROMCULTURE'. NOTE: Any following StringID failures will be supressed."

The game can continue if you click Skip however.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
First game I played as the Vasari I noticed that I am not getting any icons for any units when zoomed out; that is both Vasari units and enemy units in all systems. Also zooming with the mouse wheel breaks when you zoom in too close. It seems that unless you are zooming into a specific object it breaks and starts zooming you into the star. I played a random-huge single player game with 10 AI on medium. I had textures set to high, 1280 x 1024 75 Hz, and 2x anti alias. I then played the same map type as TEC with icons and zooming functioning normally. I then quit and started the same game a third time again as Vasari with everything working. Every time I have tried it since icons and zooming work fine. Anyone else have this issue?
Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
You can´t research the auto salvage technology, since it requires 2 points in the prior salvage tech, but that one only has one research level.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
galaxies are now WAY too close together, it creates visual problems for ships in gravity wells that are between zones...

seperate them by a vast distance, please.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
I also got an error message when building culture playing as TEC:

Failed to find StringID: 'IDS_PLANETDETAILSINFOCARD_ALLEGIANCEDETAILS_DELTAFROMCULTURE'. NOTE: Any following StringID failures will be suppressed

Also after alt tabbing twice to copy this error message Sins then wouldn't allow any other program to come to the front.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
First game I played as the Vasari I noticed that I am not getting any icons for any units when zoomed out; that is both Vasari units and enemy units in all systems. Also zooming with the mouse wheel breaks when you zoom in too close. It seems that unless you are zooming into a specific object it breaks and starts zooming you into the star. I played a random-huge single player game with 10 AI on medium. I had textures set to high, 1280 x 1024 75 Hz, and 2x anti alias. I then played the same map type as TEC with icons and zooming functioning normally. I then quit and started the same game a third time again as Vasari with everything working. Every time I have tried it since icons and zooming work fine. Anyone else have this issue?




Ditto, I'm on a random-huge map with full AI on medium as well as the Vasari and have some goofy camera issues when zooming in certain instances.

Seems to have a problem locking onto the Vassari ships.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
its not the vasari ships, its that planets are so far into other galaxies that the background of those other galaxies masks the unit icons, if you zoom far in enough you can still see the ships (note how its on a different colored background however)
hence hte reason for my comment
galaxies are now WAY too close together, it creates visual problems for ships in gravity wells that are between zones...

seperate them by a vast distance, please.


Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
What map were you on?
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
its on several maps blair, huge random and aerolean sector
I have very very little doubt its an issue in all multistar scenarios.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

Building the Vasari culture thing results in a freeze and this error message:

"Failed to find StringID: 'IDS_PLANETDETAILSINFOCARD_ALLEGIANCEDETAILS_DELTAFROMCULTURE'. NOTE: Any following StringID failures will be supressed."

The game can continue if you click Skip however.


I get the same errors. It happens as soon as you build a broadcast center for ether Vasari, or TEC.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
Vasari capital ships are missing the visual cue for leveling up

Using the ability of the nano weapon jam structure causes an error.
"Missing string nanoweaponbuff something"

I had TEC ships jumping multiple times backwards or maybe just flying really fast out of the gravwell.
I don´t really think that they were jumping because my ships went after them sublight.

The Vasari light Carrier uses the voices of its TEC counterpart.

When the Vasari Battleship fires its wavecannons on an enemy capship, the waves sometimes cross each other in the middle of the flightpath instead of hitting one spot.

Vasari light shipyard building animation sprays its violet stuff all around, but not on the ship that is being built
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

Many of these are now fixed. We hope to have a hotfix out soon. Thanks for the reports.

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

sari capital ships are missing the visual cue for leveling up


Which cue? The plus signs on the icons or the big flash on the mesh?

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
The big flash. the sound plays but there is no eyecandy ^^
the + and the > for missing squads is there


I have also encountered a quite bad thing about the new phasejumping system.
The new gravwells with the outer ring are really great as you can now jump into another system much more flexible, but there is a sever flaw:

If you jump from the inner part of the gravwell, you also arrive in the inner part, if you jump from the outer edge you will also arrive on the very outer edge of the new one.

This is a very big problem with combined arms, as the weak ships (like carriers or LRMs) that automatically go in the back will come out in front after the jump.
While the stronger ships will appear behind them, effectively breaking the thing.

With the current setup you can even pass by an enemy ship by this.

If should really be the other way round: if you start in the inner edge of the gravwell you should drop out at the outer and starting at the outer you drop out near the inner.
That way formations don´t break up and the thing is more logical, as all jumps are then the same length and not longer if you jump near the inner edge and shorter if starting near the outer.

I really hope you can fix this!
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
Vasari light frigates (Skirmishers) and heavy cruisers auto-cast their self-repair ability continuously when in combat, even if they haven't taken any damage. Since this disables their weapons and armor, this seems sub-ideal.

Phase Missile Swarm seems to have no visible projectile effect.

The Siege Platform, when dropped, does nothing. It cannot target enemy planets, nor any other ships.

The running lights on Vasari Skirmishers often flash in perfect unison. They should be more randomized.

The Disintegration ability locks up the game when fired with the message "Particle Simulation Definition not found: Ability_DisintegrationMuzzle".

I'm loving the Vasari so far, though, and I'm intrigued at investigating the new opportunities for modding.
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
I really hope you can fix this!

I actually like the current setup, so long as weaker ships go in front during phasejumping the system can be used to your advantage! sweep enemy fleets by jumping early! manuver around gauss cannons by going forward! the strategic difference could make many games VERY interesting. I vote it stays, so long as the way in which fleets jump is changed.

The Disintegration ability locks up the game when fired with the message "Particle Simulation Definition not found: Ability_DisintegrationMuzzle".

a lot of abilities seem to be coded improperly... I havent run into any, however.
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
sweep enemy fleets by jumping early!

The only way you could use that, is if the other fleet is farer out in the gravity well than your fleet when you are jumping, something that normally doesn´t happen, because if you just jump every fleet jumps as soon as possible.

I see the outer gravity well more as a room to manouver for both the defendant fleet (by staying right at the edge you can get behind the enemy if he jumps in) or for the attacker fleet to manouver around gauss.

manuver around gauss cannons by going forward!

I don´t quite get what you mean by this, there is no possibility to jump behind an outer line of gauss cannons, as they can only be build in the inner circle and reach almost to the jumpline (as before when the outer circle didn´t exists)
As of now there is simply more room around the defense line to manouver.
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
The only way you could use that, is if the other fleet is farer out in the gravity well than your fleet when you are jumping, something that normally doesn´t happen, because if you just jump every fleet jumps as soon as possible.

incorrect, if you go out at an angle you can jump ahead of the enemy.
I don´t quite get what you mean by this, there is no possibility to jump behind an outer line of gauss cannons

you dont need to get behind them to manuver around them

besides, the vasari small gw's might allow it...
As of now there is simply more room around the defense line to manouver.

precisely, although you can choose to jump damn near on top of the gauss if you want to.
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
In the game I'm playing my main capital ship either decided to fly all the way between the sun and one of the planets (without jumping), or got dropped out of phase space half way. Some of the enemy's ships tried to fly out of the gravity well towards my capital ship
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top
Bug: Magnetic clouds seem to disable all abilities, not just those that use antimatter. Prime example, a scout's auto-explore ability will be "Disabled" while in a magnetic cloud, right clicking to toggle auto off and on again will not fix it and the scout remains in the cloud forever and ever and ever.
Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
Bug: Phase out hull auto targets enemy ships, and they behave really oddly. They skate out in weird directions, and end up way outside the grav well (half a phase lane length away!)
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top
Particle Simulation Definition not found: SupportBuff_WeaponJam This one is a game breaker. It wont let you skip, or break out of it. Same with Particle Simulation Definition not found: Ability_DisintegrationMuzzle. Seems any other effect with errors like this will break the game to where you have to ctrl-alt-delete out of it.

I would send mini dumps, but the game wont even create them now.
Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
Same with Particle Simulation Definition not found: Ability_DisintegrationMuzzle.


That's the Desolator's ultimate isn't it? I had the same error, gotta kill the game.
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top

The following issues are fixed:

Fixed: SupportBuff_WeaponJam issues.
Fixed: Ability_DisintegrationMuzzle issues.
Fixed: Phase out hull issues (aka moving weirdly and out of gravity well problems)
Fixed: Magnetic cloud disabling explore.
Fixed: Self-Repair autocast issues.
Fixed: Siege turret not firing.
Fixed: TEC voices being used on Vasari units.
Fixed: Not being able to research Wreckage Auto Salvage.
Fixed: Fixed 'IDS_PLANETDETAILSINFOCARD_ALLEGIANCEDETAILS_DELTAFROMCULTURE' error.

We'll put a hotfix out as soon as possible

Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top
Icons, and planetary connections disappear on maps with more than 1 star.

Vasari cap ships missing the "sparkle" effect when they level up (already mentioned, but just clarifying).