Yarlen Yarlen

Sins of a Solar Empire - Trinity/Diplomacy - v1.2 Changelog

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Sins of a Solar Empire - Trinity/Diplomacy - v1.2 Changelog

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Stardock Entertainment and Ironclad Games are very happy to present version 1.2 (final) to Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity/Diplomacy customers.  This is a major update for the game that greatly improves the overall feel, balance and fun factor that will help lead us into the upcoming Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion.  Special thanks goes to everyone who helped test the beta versions of this update and provided feedback to us.  

Registered customers can update now via the Impulse client (http://www.impulsedriven.com).

 

Please note that v1.2 is not save game, replay or mod compatible with prior versions.

 

Version 1.2 Changes

 

[ Engine ]

  • The game engine has been updated in order to free up more texture memory. Players should generally use no more than 1.3 GB of RAM on Huge maps with all races represented now. 


[ Gameplay ]

    • Pirates
      • The Pirates system has been completely overhauled with this update. Rather than relying on random upgrades which could result in a huge power curve, the Pirates will now scale gradually in abilities, fleet size and power as a game progresses.
      • The size of the Pirate fleet is now based off of the current raid level (Low, Guarded, Elevated, High, Highest) and there are now preset fleet compositions for each.
      • Pirates now take into consideration the total amount of bounty on offer before sending out their fleets (at High and Highest raid levels). If there isn't enough booty on the table, the Pirates will send out a smaller fleet. This is to prevent 250 credit cheese scenarios that could spawn a massive Pirate incursion.
      • Pirates have the opportunity to purchase upgrades after every launched raid. There are 20 levels of upgrades available to them which include bonuses to Armor, HP, Weapon Strength, Weapon Range; plus special abilities including Intercept, Quick Jump Calculation, Timed Explosives, Heavy Fallout, Embargo Planet and Sabotage Reactor. Basically if you let the Pirates live in a really long game, they will become very nasty indeed!
      • The Pirate mission system via diplomacy has been updated. Players must now pay a pre-set credit amount to generate a raid (same fleet composition as for bounty-spawned raids). This eliminates the guesswork of paying too much/little and not quite knowing what you'll get (and makes issuing raids generally quicker).
      • The Pirate base's population upgrade will now properly increase population growth rate.
      • Fixed mission timer bug where the timer wasn't properly syncing up to reality (i.e., the timer said a player couldn't place another mission when they could.)
      • Pirates will now notify the player if they successfully complete a mission.
      • Fixed a problem with pirate raid defs that could cause odd behavior for high level raids.
      • Pirate planet's base population has been boosted slightly (for increased income).
      • Fixed a memory access error in the Pirate mission system.
      • Pirate raid level escalation has been slowed down slightly for better overall progression.

 

    • TEC Balance
      • Kol:
        • Gauss Blast: Reduced AM cost from 75 to 50/55/60; increased damage from 325/650/975 to 400/725/1050.
        • Flak Burst: Range changed from 2400/3000/3600 to 3000/3300/3600.
        • Finest Hour: AM regen reduced from 5 to 3; HP regen increased from 10 to 15.
      • Dunov:
        • EMP: Range increased from 4500 to 4500/5000/5500; AM cost changed from 100/90/80 to 90/90/90; cooldown reduced from 50/45/40 to 40/35/30.
        • Magnetize: Max affected strikecraft increased from 8/12/16 to 12/20/28.
        • Strikecraft destroyed by the Dunov's Magnetize ability now give XP as intended.
      • Marza:
        • Incendiary Shells: Stacking limit increased from 1 to 3.
        • Missile Barrage: Range reduced from 10,000 to 8,000.
      • Hoshiko:
        • Demolition Bots: Changed needsToFaceTarget TRUE to FALSE.
      • Novalith Cannon:
        • Cannon shots now cause a planet to suffer 100% reduced trade income. This effect will no longer stack.

 

    • Advent Balance
      • Radiance:
        • Animosity: Increased max targets from 8/16/32 to 12/24/36; effect now channels every second over 20 seconds instead of being an instant action so new targets entering the AoE are hit; auto-cast will only activate if 3 or more enemy ships are in range.
        • Absorptive Armor: Increased armor bonus from 1/2/3 to 2/4/6.
      • Rapture:
        • Vertigo: Increased range from 4500 to 4500/5000/5500.
      • Revelation:
        • Guidance: Now a triggered, caster-based area of effect that affects friendly capital ships, frigates and structures. AM cost is now 90/100/110; range is 8000/8000/8000, cooldown is 50/50/50; buff applied grants 25%/25%/25% boost to ability cooldown rate, duration 20/30/40.
        • Clairvoyance: Duration increased from 90/120/150 to 90/150/210.
      • Communal Labor will now passively decrease module build time with a buff that stacks on the orbit body with every constructor ship. (Buff will disappear if the constructor ship(s) are destroyed.)

 

    • Vasari Balance
      • Jarrasul:
        • Colonize: Now grants additional constructor frigates instead of a structure build rate bonus. Gives 1/2/3 constructor frigates for 360/480/600 seconds.
        • Jarrasul capital ship's colonize ability adjusted to avoid crash issue. Thanks to ZombieRus5 on this.
      • Skirantra:
        • Scramble Bombers: Reduced expiry time from 120 to 75; reduced cooldown time from 35 to 30.
      • Antorak:
        • Distort Gravity: Reduced cooldown from 45 to 40.
      • Vulkoras:
        • Phase Missile Swarm: Increased range from 5000 to 6500; increased max targets from 3/5/7 to 4/8/12.
        • Assault Specialization: Increased bonus damage from 60/120/180 to 90/180/270.
      • Stilakus Subverter:
        • Shield Disruption: Reduced Phase Missile Block reduction from 25% to 20%; reduced Shield Mitigation Reduction from 10% to 8%.
        • Distortion Field: Reduced radius from 2000 to 1600.
      • Kostura Cannon:
        • Will no longer damage and stun enemy ships.
      • Missile Platform:
        • Disruptor Nanites ability now stacks correctly off missile defense platforms.
      • Orkulus:
        • Debris Vortex will now only activate when debris is in range of the effect.
        • Debris Vortex's second level will now unlock correctly.
        • Orkulus Phase Gate upgrade will now work at stars.
        • The construction boost passive of the Jarrasul colony capital ship now spawns extra construction ships over time, as opposed to all at once, to try and avoid crashes in the physics system.
      • Raider Xenophobia: Tech moved to level 5; reduced from 2 upgrade levels to 1; will now reduce the Pirate fleet size sent against the player by 1 level (i.e., an Elevated level fleet size becomes a Guarded level fleet).
      • Pinpoint Bombardment: Increased range bonus from 0.1333 per level to 0.6667 per level.

 

  • Diplomacy System
    • The Aggressiveness Rating for all players has been changed to be a random value between -1.5 to +2 (from -2 to +2).
    • The calculation for Military Presence has been updated to look at the ratio of the players' used fleet points instead of just overall fleet points. This should make the overall diplomatic rating more balanced overall, especially at higher difficulty levels. We'll be looking for feedback on this.
    • Added a new Trade Bonus modifier for diplomatic relations. Players who have a Trade Alliance will slowly gain a positive diplomatic relations bonus with one another as trade ships reach foreign ports up to a maximum of +2. If the Trade Alliance is ended, this bonus will decrease gradually back to 0.
    • AI players will now place bounty on one another based on many factors including diplomatic relationship level, overall threat level and simply avoiding the raid in general (like most human players). This makes Diplomacy much more dynamic in general as you can really play factions off one another.
    • Missions that target or are issued by players who are defeated during the mission timer are now automatically cleared with no penalty for non-completion to the other player.

 

[ AI ]

  • The AI will no longer max out all of its gravity wells with mines. Mine building is now based on AI type. This should help reduce memory use and improve performance.
  • Fixed bug where the AI would form a Pact, break it, and then immediately reform it if the players' relationship value dropped to a certain level repeatedly.
  • The AI will no longer send Envoys to non-aligned gravity wells where the player controls a resource (i.e., if you controlled a neutral extractor at an asteroid belt).
  • AI players will no longer "spam" the player with mission requests after a mission has been rejected. Each rejection will cause the AI to wait four minutes before offering another mission (culmulative up to 10 times for each consecutive rejection).

[ Interface ]

  • The far planet icons that show up when far stars are visible are now turned off by default. Hovering your mouse over the far star icon will now show the far planet icons (if visible). Alternatively, holding down ALT will now show all visible far planet icons.

[ Misc. ]

  • Fixed a couple errors in the entity files that would cause the game to crash.
  • Ability PhaseOutHull will now play the proper sound effect.
  • Adjusted max dot for graphics to 0.95 from 1. This should largely eliminate the strange white lines that would appear for some players on the edges of ships/structures. Special thanks to Aractain and Kitkun for this info!
  • Missions can now be rejected so long as there's at least half the original mission time remaining.
  • Fixed some misspellings in various data files.
  • Starbases with trade upgrades will now work properly at stars.
  • Resolved a case where ships set to auto-explore would attempt to travel to other stars without phase jumping. We'll need more info on this one if there are other instances where players see this happen.
  • Tips that weren't being properly loaded should now appear.
  • Various fixes for old crash bugs (thanks to the community on these).
  • Various fixes to mesh files (thanks to the community on these).
  • Detect Mines range for all scouts has been increased to 6,000 from 5,000. This should make it easier to clear out mine fields, assuming your ship doesn't jump in right on top of one.
  • Added a new AIUseTargetCondition for AntimatterExceedsAmount. This is being used on ships that steal antimatter to prevent them from autocasting on targets that are out of antimatter. If there are other abilities that could use better or new AIUseTargetConditions, let us know.
  • Some fixes to make AIUseTargetConditions more effective based on feedback.
  • Various other minor tweaks.
  • Research screens should now properly show fleet supply numbers based on game options.
165,088 views 91 replies
Reply #26 from Sins Forums Top

Thanks for the patch :) Pirates were so annoying that i more or less stop to play.

But again, why like whit the last one, all the sound of the french localisation are replaced by the english one!

I have download approx 270/280mo with 95% of English sounds! So are they optimised in whatever aspect?

Bye

Offworld Trading Company
Reply #28 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting 501General, reply 27
cool patch, hoping mods will be updated soon though.

They should be. The biggest change was the player entity files and they are really easy to fix. Its just one line.

Reply #29 from Sins Forums Top

Kostura Cannon:

Will no longer damage and stun enemy ships.

So what do they do in the patch, just create a temporary phase node?

If they don't damage ships and starbases, then how can you justify their expense?

Reply #30 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting SPMaverick, reply 29

quoting postKostura Cannon:

Will no longer damage and stun enemy ships.

So what do they do in the patch, just create a temporary phase node?

If they don't damage ships and starbases, then how can you justify their expense?

 

 

they damage and stun buildings

Reply #31 from Sins Forums Top

What mods are worth using with this new patch?

The optimization mod was actually incorporated into the patch, right?

Reply #32 from Sins Forums Top

So, can the AIs get on speaking terms with each other yet, otherwise Diplomacy isn't worth playing for a primarily single player person like my self.

Yarlen mentioned earlier they was going to improve diplomacy part of the game. I hope they will do it soon. I think the new way the AI players place bounty on each other is a big step in the right direction.

What I'm missing is the AI ability to offer missions each other with same rules applied by human players. This would force AI planning their relation changes.

However, I find this game is very enjoyable in this form, too. And don't forget, this game is an 'old style' game and not a 'Civ V'-style one, I mean opponents can be ordered around human player in diplomatic palette, they don't stand for winning the game - alone, of course. So, the sandbox feeling in diplomacy is right.

Reply #33 from Sins Forums Top

So you mean the ship move halfway through the gravity well before deploying it's platform? 8C   *argh*

Couldn't test yet, hard to find time but I'll try this weekend hopefully (if my wife doesn't get mad at me for playing for hours :-"  lol)

Reply #34 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting ReadyMan, reply 31
What mods are worth using with this new patch?

The optimization mod was actually incorporated into the patch, right?

Some mods have been updated. Distant Stars kept on track through the beta and I fixed Bailknights.

Yes, mostly. Some of the changes that were made on the Original and Entrenchment level did not make it in. The TSOP group will alter the mod to figure these in.

Reply #35 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Loltak, reply 26

But again, why like whit the last one, all the sound of the french localisation are replaced by the english one!
I have download approx 270/280mo with 95% of English sounds! So are they optimised in whatever aspect?

Don't care about that ;). It's probably Impluse "issue".

Reply #36 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Souls-Stream, reply 33
So you mean the ship move halfway through the gravity well before deploying it's platform?   *argh*

With or without Pinpoint Bombardment the Desolator will indeed move toward the planet to deploy the siege platform.  So the best case is to toggle the auto-cast on or off based on the situation.  With the buff to Phase Missile Swarm and the like, you might consider keeping your antimatter up for that instead.  Once you get to level 5 or 6 the ship will have enough antimatter to sustain casting the siege platforms without losing antimatter(but you won't gain any antimatter either). 

Reply #37 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting SPMaverick, reply 29

quoting postKostura Cannon:

Will no longer damage and stun enemy ships.
So what do they do in the patch, just create a temporary phase node?

If they don't damage ships and starbases, then how can you justify their expense?

 

Nothing usefull.

They r as useles as other superweepon

Reply #38 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting 1Tiberius1, reply 36



Quoting Souls-Stream,
reply 33
So you mean the ship move halfway through the gravity well before deploying it's platform?   *argh*


With or without Pinpoint Bombardment the Desolator will indeed move toward the planet to deploy the siege platform.  So the best case is to toggle the auto-cast on or off based on the situation.  With the buff to Phase Missile Swarm and the like, you might consider keeping your antimatter up for that instead.  Once you get to level 5 or 6 the ship will have enough antimatter to sustain casting the siege platforms without losing antimatter(but you won't gain any antimatter either). 

I can't remember now, was the Desolator acting like that with platform before too? I have troubles remembering because it's been a while I played now... But this patch greatly increase my intesrest along with Rebellion :drool:

I never really micro-managed skills since I was always finding auto-cast usefull (except when there's a small skirmishes coming and the ship use it's skills for nothing, then you are against a huge one without anti-matter   so I was rather trying to turn auto-cast off against small fleets and then on when the real battle begins, it was always working pretty good to manage the anti-matter that way.

But the fact that the bombardement is increased is really cool because you can leave the desolator in the back, safe of everything while your fleet take care of everything in front of you XD  you just have to be careful not to deploy that darn platform at wrong time if I understand correctly. 

Reply #39 from Sins Forums Top

Nope, once upon a time the Desolator would just drop the platform wherever it was during bombing.  This meant the platforms didn't have enough range to hit the planet and would just float there, uselessly.  So if you left it to auto-cast, it wouldn't work at all unless the ship was engaged in combat next to the planet first and didn't move away. 

 

Also of concern is that the the auto-cast scripting isn't always polished.  For example, take the Radiance's Detonate Antimatter ability.  It will use the ability on anything that has an antimatter pool, even if that pool is empty.  One very silly example, starbases.  Starbases have a 0/0 pool by default.  This means the Radiance uselessly wastes the ability, all because it 'senses' an antimatter capacity.  Considering that the cheapest 'combat' ability in the game is ~40 antimatter, the ability should only be used on targets with 35 or more antimatter.  Other silly examples exist too.  The recently altered Guidance ability for the Advent would always auto-cast, even outside of combat.  Relating to Advent tech, their antimatter restoration orbital structure blows its load of antimatter instantly as well.  It is the sort of thing that could be hammered out some pen-n-paper flow chart brainstorming/simulation.  E.g. Detonate Antimatter should cast on targets with 35 or more antimatter, Guidance should only cast itself during combat, the antimatter restoration structure should cast if there is either a ship/structure currently engaged in combat within range or it can restore say double the amount it would normally restore to a single target(i.e. if it restores 100 antimatter it should wait until enough targets are within range to restore 200 antimatter). 

 

I personally hope that Rebellion will introduce further tweaks to the auto-cast behaviors. 

Reply #40 from Sins Forums Top
In general, I think patch is great! Only reservation is that Novalith debuff...100% is pretty harsh...
Reply #41 from Sins Forums Top

Does the AI build Capital Ship Factories once their first is destroyed? Are the entity files modifiable in their current state? I will not get the patch until I know for sure. That, and I have an issue with Impulse. Maybe I just need to re-download it. I'd appreciate a quick response.

Reply #42 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting JA_394, reply 41
Does the AI build Capital Ship Factories once their first is destroyed? Are the entity files modifiable in their current state? I will not get the patch until I know for sure. That, and I have an issue with Impulse. Maybe I just need to re-download it. I'd appreciate a quick response.

Yes and Yes. Can't help you with Impulse with just that information.

Reply #43 from Sins Forums Top

Thanks and thanks. Redownloaded Impulse and now it works. Now to get the patch and start modding! (Again...)

Reply #44 from Sins Forums Top

Hey, is the message "File is smaller than expected" supposed to flash up on my screen when I download the patch? I'm guessing no, because it still says update avaible. Should I just reinstall?

Man, I really do have problems, don't I?

Reply #45 from Sins Forums Top

Just reinstalled. Same message. What's going on?

EDIT: The exact error happens when the download gets to about 68.7 percent and then the message flashes up on the bottom of the screen. Like I asked, what's going on?

Reply #46 from Sins Forums Top

Try disabling any AV or firewall. They're probably interfering with the download.

 

:fox:

Reply #47 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting 1Tiberius1, reply 39


Also of concern is that the the auto-cast scripting isn't always polished.  For example, take the Radiance's Detonate Antimatter ability.  It will use the ability on anything that has an antimatter pool, even if that pool is empty.  One very silly example, starbases.  Starbases have a 0/0 pool by default.  This means the Radiance uselessly wastes the ability, all because it 'senses' an antimatter capacity.  Considering that the cheapest 'combat' ability in the game is ~40 antimatter, the ability should only be used on targets with 35 or more antimatter.  Other silly examples exist too.  The recently altered Guidance ability for the Advent would always auto-cast, even outside of combat.  Relating to Advent tech, their antimatter restoration orbital structure blows its load of antimatter instantly as well.  It is the sort of thing that could be hammered out some pen-n-paper flow chart brainstorming/simulation.  E.g. Detonate Antimatter should cast on targets with 35 or more antimatter, Guidance should only cast itself during combat, the antimatter restoration structure should cast if there is either a ship/structure currently engaged in combat within range or it can restore say double the amount it would normally restore to a single target(i.e. if it restores 100 antimatter it should wait until enough targets are within range to restore 200 antimatter). 

  

That is why they added this in.


Added a new AIUseTargetCondition for AntimatterExceedsAmount. This is being used on ships that steal antimatter to prevent them from autocasting on targets that are out of antimatter. If there are other abilities that could use better or new AIUseTargetConditions, let us know.

Reply #48 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting JA_394, reply 45
Just reinstalled. Same message. What's going on?

EDIT: The exact error happens when the download gets to about 68.7 percent and then the message flashes up on the bottom of the screen. Like I asked, what's going on?

That's odd. One thing I try doing is manually deleting the Diplomacy Folder in the Sins of a Solar Empire folder (where the .exe's are) then reinstall, its helped me with random install errors. Though from the sounds of it, that might be an issue on their end. Also do you have Trinity or did you buy Diplomacy individually? Maybe only one of the two is having problems (again).

Reply #49 from Sins Forums Top
Thanks great patch!
Reply #50 from Sins Forums Top

Hey,

Thanks Ryat and Tiberius, this clarify a lot of things...

So, from what I can understand, that auto-cast "bug" is fixed then? Except for the desolator which still will need micro-management of the platform.

So if the ennemy planet has a huge defense with turrets, mines, etc... and the desolator has the platform on auto-cast, and your fleet is still at the border of the gravity well, will it just run through the mine field and everything automaticallly to end up getting destroyed or at least severly damaged just to deploy that platform? Did anyone tried it? I haven't fought against such defense yet so I'm curious to know what will happen?