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Sins of a Solar Empire v1.1 BETA Change Log

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Sins of a Solar Empire v1.1 BETA Change Log

Now Available

from Sins Forums

The next major update for Sins of a Solar Empire is now available!  Since this update is so huge and contains several brand new technologies, we are going to be offering it as an optional beta before its final release. If you are not comfortable with running potentially very buggy software (though we've tried to minimize it), do not install this beta - wait for the final release.

This beta update is available only through Stardock's new Impulse platform. We will no longer be providing standalone patches for future versions of the game. For more information on obtaining the beta and taking part in the testing, please visit: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/319061

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Sins of a Solar Empire v1.09 (aka 1.1 beta) Changelist
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Gameplay / Balance:
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-Kol Battleship:
     -Fix for Finest Hour not applying all of its splash damage correctly.

-Marza Dreadnaught:
     -Fix for Missile Barrage not applying all of its damage correctly. (thx bailknight)
 
-Sova Carrier:
     -Embargo duration reduced from 120 secs at all levels to 60/90/120 secs.
 
-Dunov Battlecruiser:
     -Shield Restore shield points replenished reduced from 350/700/1050 to 250/500/750
     -Shield Restore AM cost reduced from 90 to 65 for all levels
     -Shield Restore cooldown reduced from 16 secs to 11 secs for all levels

-Cielo Command Cruiser:
     -Designate Target damage bonus increased from 25% to 40%.

-Radiance Battleship:
     -Cleansing Brilliance cooldown increased from 75 secs to 120 secs.

-Rapture Battlecruiser:
     -Vengeance antimatter cost decreased from 75 to 70.
     -Vengeance damage retaliated increased from 40%/80%/120% to 65%/130%/200%.
     -Units acquired with Domination will now have their orders reset.

-Domina Subjugator:
     -Suppression antimatter cost decreased from 100 to 75.
     -Suppression cooldown decreased from 40 secs to 30 secs.
     -Suppression duration increased from 40 secs to 90 secs.

-Kortul Devastator:
     -Jam Weapons antimatter cost decreased from 75 to 70.
     -Jam Weapons duration changed from 15/25/35 secs to 30/30/30 secs.
     -Jam Weapons range increased from 3500/4500/5500 to 3500/5000/7000.
     -Disruptive Strikes antimatter depletion increased from 8/10/12 to 10/20/30.
     -Disruptive Strikes ability cooldown rate penalty increased from 10%/20%/30% to 15%/30%/45%.
     -Disruptive Strikes duration increased from 10 secs to 15 secs.
     -Now costs 250 crystal as originally intended. (thx bailknight)

-Skirantra Carrier:
     -Scramble Bombers antimatter cost decreased from 100/75/50 to 80/65/50.
     -Scramble Bombers cooldown decreased from 60/60/60 secs to 60/50/40 secs.

-Antorak Marauder:
     -Subversion antimatter cost increased from 100/90/80 to 100/100/100.
     -Subversion cooldown increased from 50/45/40 secs to 75/75/75 secs.
     -Subversion ship and structure build time penalties increased from 15%/30%/45% to 50%/100%/150%.

-Vulkoras Desolator:
     -Disintegration cooldown decreased from 120 secs to 90 secs.

-Stilakus Subverter:
     -Distortion Field antimatter cost increased from 100 to 200.
     -Distortion Field duration decreased from 30 secs to 20 secs.
 
-Iconus Guardian:
     -Repulsion is now a channeling and interruptable ability.
 
-Serevun Overseer:
     -Reactive Nanite Armor cooldown increased from 2 secs to 4 secs.
 
-Illuminator Vessel
     -Frontal bank damage reduced from 58.5 to 53.5.
     -Side bank damage reduced from 30.3 to 27.25.

-Returning Armada:
     -Now costs 2500 credits, 200 Metal, 500 Crystal to activate.
     -Fleet sizes summoned increased from 25-45 to 45-90 supply.
     -Cooldown increased to 10 minutes at all levels.
     -Phase Stabilizers now have 0 max antimatter.
  
-Scenario and Galaxy Generation:
     -Fixed problem with calculating star extents on smaller maps (because of min size, stars were getting vertically offset by too much). 
     -Fixed bug in galaxy generator so that inter-star connections could end up connected to one star.
     -Fix for some wonkiness with placing artifacts.  They would not show up in your artifact list because the control of the artifact had not been given to you because of ordering of planet acquisition and artifact placement.
     -Added missing starting artifacts for 2 start positions in Ancient Gifts map.
     -Spread out the stars in Ancient Gifts so more of them are in 'distant view' form when looking at a given one (for purely aesthetic reasons).
     -Fix for Implosion having wonky spawn probabilities.
     -Removed non-plural browse picture for Hyperion's Gates.
 
-TEC Research:
     -Maneuvering Thrusters max number of levels reduced from 2 to 1.
     -Rapid Development now additionally reduces costs of Logistics Capacity upgrades by 7.5% per level.
 
-Advent Research:
     -Augmented Defense Grid tactical slot bonus increased from 2 to 5 per level.
 
-Vasari Research:
     -Extreme Heat Metabolism and Sulfurous Respiration population bonuses increased from 7.5% to 15% per level.
     -Trauma Nanomedicine population loss prevented due to planet bombing increased from 10% to 20% per level.
     -Molecular Assembly structure build rate bonus increased from 5% to 40% per level.
     -Wreckage Auto-Salvage salvage percentage reduced from 8.33% to 5% per level.
 
-All frigates and cruisers now spawn with full antimatter.
-AntiLight attack type's damage modifier vs CapitalShip, Medium, Heavy and VeryHeavy armor increased from 25% to 50%.
-Carrier frigates rebalanced to have 2-3 squadrons and be relatively less expensive per squadron.
-All anti-strike craft frigates' base DPS reduced by 43%.
-AntiVeryLight attack type's damage modifier vs CapitalShip, Medium, Heavy and VeryHeavy armor increased from 25% to 50%.
-Composite attack type's damage modifier vs Medium armor increased from 100% to 125%.
-Composite attack type's damage modifier vs Heavy armor decreased from 125% to 100%.
-AntiHeavy attack type's damage modifier vs Heavy armor increased from 125% to 150%.
-Abilities can now require resources to be used instead of antimatter.
-Fix for capital ships not being able to build squads.
-Squad owners now attempt to build strike craft in all non-full squads, rather than just one squad per type it supports. This addresses the situation where squad owners w/ having all squads of the same type were losing 'production efficiency' vs those having both fighter and bomber squads. This should also improve construction for squad owners w/ 2+ squads (ie most high level capital ships).
-Caught more edge cases where buffs should perform their OnBuffFinish actions. (Fixes weirdness with various abilities).
-Duplicate buffs that get replaced by new instances of the same buff now do their OnBuffFinish actions when this happens. This should significantly improve Malice's damage output when multiple Progenitors are chain casting it on the same targets.
-Fixed bug with being to see weapon ranges of non-detected ships.
-Buffs are now removed from targets, where appropriate, if their player ownership changes.
-Fix GetExtractionIncomeBonus mistake with bonus amt.
-Better blocking of defeated players being able to use the market and bounty.
-Player resource buckets now start at 50% market price instead of 100% so there isn't so much red at the start of the game.
-Jump Field Generator artifact now also allows travel through wormholes.

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Graphics:
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-Major upgrade to the rendering and texture systems that allows the game to look even better on less powerful machines.
-18 completely redone and touched up meshes.
-Dozens completely redone and touched up mesh textures.
-Lots of new explosion effects and textures.
-A variety of minor 2d texture upgrades and/or replacements.
-New ship shader with colorsample.a swapped with datasample.r (Team and specular have reversed position).
-Non-planetary asteroids now have their own shader. (Note: this shader no longer uses the same texture channel format as the ship shader).
-Damage system changed so that dead entities update as fast as possible so the explosion effects occur at the correct time.
-New explosion system.
-The game doesn't crash if the number of persistent damage effects is close to the max.
-Upped the max number of persistent damage effects.

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Sound / Music:
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-Fix for rotation sounds disappearing when loading save games.
-Fix for losing sounds after migrating hosts.

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AI:
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-Improved AI ability choice and usage.
-Fix capturable resource mines from being considered damageable and causing all sorts of badness in the AI (and elsewhere).
-Fix for ships not attacking modules all the time.
-Set the correct difficulty of dropped players converted to AI.
-Improved when AI decides to build capitalships.
-AI can now build frigates in priority list if the supply usage is too low (ala patterns noticed in human build strategies).
-Fix support ship ratio to not be affected by non-combat ships (was building way too many if there were things like trade ships)
-AI now consider a repairbay more of a threat so it gets taken out at a higher priority.
-Improved AI building of tradeports and refineries.
-Further improved AI bounty logic so human players can't cheese the AI so easily.
-Auto join fleet members now inherit auto attack range.
-Autojoining a fleet now also inherits the fleet leaders settings (ex. group hyperspace state).
-Fixed bug where ships that autojoined formations would have their preorder move point overwritten by the rally point code. This meant that the last ship joined would always try to go back to factory, instead of in-formation with their fleet.
-Fix path-finding crash.

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Networking / Multiplayer:
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-Introducing the beta of Ironclad's new game networking technology "Alloy":
     -Peer-to-peer technology (very common with real-time strategy games) has been having a rough time lately due to the increasing use of Internet security software and routers.
     -Sins was no exception, with the most visible problem being the amount of technical knowledge many users needed to learn in order host multiplayer games over Ironclad Online.
     -This latest version of Sins introduces a cutting edge network technology called "Alloy" that bypasses all these problems, performs faster, more reliably, and with more stability.
     -Players should never have to worry about being able to host, configuring routers, changing port numbers, or games ending due to failed host migrations. It’s 100% hands-off.
     -Technically proficient users can always choose to disable Alloy and handle the details manually.

-Synchronization:
     -Fixed loading mods potentially causing a sync problem.
     -Robustness added to various network commands so they don't crash when out of sync.
     -Scenario files are now checked to make sure they don't differ in multiplayer games.
     -Meshes are now checksummed in order to detect sync errors faster.
     -FileArchives now keep track of their contents checksum so the game can do more accurate checks on client data to detect if the game might go out of sync while playing multiplayer.

-Ignore system added so specific players can be ignored in ICO and in-game.
-Fixed assert in GalaxyGenerator causing socket error.
-No longer attempt to whisper "in-game" to disconnected players. This way you can talk to friends over ICO who have left the game.
-Fix for losing sounds after migrating hosts.
-Players can now attach their email to their ICO account to improve future support.
-Players can now join ICO chat lobbies that have the maximum number of characters as their name.
-Previewing galaxies in ICO will no longer kick you back to the single player screen.
-No more spamming of "host has changed game settings" in the game lobby.
-Fixed false negatives being reported for ICO-game hosting.
-All clients are notified if the host changes the game settings while in the game lobby screen.
-New ICO screen for managing game hosting.
-Added a no-duplicate name algorithm to player setup due to the new chat system. There would be no way to send whispers to duplicate name players.
-ICO accounts will now be forced to logout if you attempt to login with the same account. This was supposed to be fixed in 1.05 but should now actually work.

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User Interface / HUD:
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-New Mini Underground Window
     -This new window gives you immediate access to common Underground actions without having to leave the main view. Actions include:
           -Buying and selling resources.
           -Viewing the current bounty target and the raid time remaining.
           -The ability to increment the bounty on the player with current highest bounty.
     -All these actions are now hooked up to hotkeys.
     -Opening and closing the Mini Underground Window can be done via Ctrl-Shift-X or using the User Interface options screen.

-Hotkeys:
      -New default hot key for Select Colony Ships to not conflict with Toggle Main View Icons. (Alt-G)
      -Hotkey to toggle expand/shrink the best selected Empire Tree node. (L)
      -Hotkeys added for opening up specific tabs in the global windows:
           Examples:  
                 - Research Window: Combat, Non-combat, Artifact, Fleet
                 - NPC Window: Market, Pirates
       -Escape menu screen now more accurately reports when the player is entering text so that you can switch from the network status screen to other screens with hotkeys.
       -Entities autojoining fleets (see AI changes) will now search for and join the hot key group that contains the entire fleet. This way you don't have to rebuild hot key groups as more ships get added to the fleet automatically.
       -Can now toggle between the pirate and market screens without having to close them first with hotkeys.
 
-Empire Tree:
       -Hotkey to toggle expand/shrink the best selected Empire Tree node.
       -Using hotkeys to toggle the expansion of an Empire Tree node now also makes it visible. Note that this isn't done when clicking the arrow to the left to prevent shifting of the Empire Tree while your cursor is interacting with it. 
       -Empire Tree now updates if paused.
       -Fix Empire Tree crash.
       -Fixed a bug in the "show selected node" algorithm.
       -Tolerance for readjusting the Empire Tree changed so that it happens when any of the entire node is outside of the window instead of only the entity selected. This is so that selecting an entity will bring the planet in view even if the planet is outside the window.
        -Changed the behavior when making an entity visible so the entire node shows up on the top of the Empire Tree instead of the bottom.
        -New algorithm for making the selected entity displayed. Now takes into account the context of the entity, for example if a ship is selected the entire planet and all of its contents are attempted to be made visible, instead of just the ship.

-Fix missing planet type descriptions from scenariodef file.
-Fix for crash when selecting player portraits.
-Pasting text into text boxes no longer only cuts of the front if the text won't fit (cuts off the end).
-Both combat and non-combat lab counts are displayed in the open research button infocard.
-Abilities that spawn units now show the duration of their spawned units in the ability infocard.
-Changed button text to show credit cost on press instead of /unit of resource.
-Added colors to text that the big market screen uses.
-Added left handed mouse support. Swapped mouse buttons will be auto-detected from the win32 api and saved as a personal setting.

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Modding:
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-Maximum number of buildable capital ship types per race increased from 5 to 9.
-Abilities can now require resources to be used instead of antimatter.
-Fixed loading mods potentially causing a sync problem.
-Caught more edge cases where buffs should perform their OnBuffFinish actions. (Fixes weirdness with various abilities).
-Fixed game from crashing when a mesh type that the engine expects to have shields is modded to not have shields.
-New convertdata can convert binary to text as well.
-As mentionned in graphics: New ship shader with colorsample.a swapped with datasample.r (Team and spec have reversed position).
-As mentionned in graphics: Non-planetary asteroids now have their own shader. (Note: this shader no longer uses the same texture channel format as the ship shader).
-Various improvements to GalaxyForge.

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Misc:
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-Fix crash bug with array out of bound values with Resource Focus.
-Fixed a crash in rendering certain string types.
-Screenshot Changes
       -Changed code for taking autoscreenshots to get rid of any render time interpolation.
       -Take screenshot on singlestep
       -Screenshot mode is disabled on shutdown so all relating settings aren't saved as off.
-Fixed bug where temp ships where messing up statistics (causing them to go negative).
-Fixed a null pointer crash.

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End
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1,720,979 views 574 replies
Reply #201 from Sins Forums Top
Further to ZJBDragon post, Stardock Central/Impulse isn't big enough yet for it's customers to accept this kind of treatment.

If Central/Impulse had enough popular games as well as it's own games(I will use Steam as a example), not just SINS, there might be enough customers who are willing to put up with that.

But as of now, It's too early for Central/Impulse to do that.
Reply #202 from Stardock Forums Top

also particularly damming if the argument of Impulse being de facto DRM introduced by an anti-DRM ever gets going.

Well Stardock's philosophy on DRM and copy protection has been since Galciv 1 in 2003: reward people for being customer than pirate. This translate into:

  • no DRM/copy protection on the retail version
  • no draconinan control about the number of times you are installing the game on various computers.
  • constant free updates with content based on feedback for legitimate user
  • easier for legitimate customer to update their game than to get a correctly working pirated update version

BTW, I wonder what is the correct definition of DRM with Impulse since :

  • You can still play the game if you haven't updated it. No online check are made once actiavtion has been made (slight annoying case on offlince computer)
  • Impulse won't desinstall your game against your will
  • Impulse isn't required to play the game, just to update it.

In short, Impulse is used to ensure that legitimate users get easily the updates while annoying the pirates to get them. That is really the only right that is digitally managed ;)

Star Control: Origins
Reply #203 from Stardock Forums Top

Guys, could we stick to discussing the actual Sins update and not how it will be distributed?

All updates going forware are going to be on Impulse. There won't be stand-alone patches. If that is a problem, you have the option of not downloading the patches. It's not really open to discussion. Debating it is completely academic. 

The only reason why Sins had stand-alone patches at all was because we originally had targeted Impulse for release in March but we got delayed working on another project and weren't set up with Stardock Central to handle Sins updates. I'm sorry that some people don't like the idea of using Impulse to get updates but that's the practical trade off. It's too expensive and time consuming to create stand-alone updates of the complexity that Sins is.

I think most people can understand why Impulse is a good idea and I think our reputation for customer service speaks for itself.

Reply #204 from Sins Forums Top
A lot of the games I've played have had built in updaters. No additional software needed to be downloaded or run. I have found Stardock central to be very annoying as a result, as it is a separate program I needed to run just to check for and download updates. Today, I decided to try downloading Impulse. I find it to be easier to use than Stardock Central, but it still is an extra program I'd rather not need to use. I much prefer having an update button on the game's launch screen (like in Neverwinter Nights).
Reply #205 from Sins Forums Top
All updates going forware are going to be on Impulse. There won't be stand-alone patches. If that is a problem, you have the option of not downloading the patches. It's not really open to discussion. Debating it is completely academic.


So what you saying is that for people like me (no Internet access at home and work computers use Windows 2000 (so even the convoluted Impulse method does not work)) is that you will be providing zero support for the product you sold and so if it does not work out of the box then tough?

Well I suppose you got my money so you don't really care.

Before anyone complains I don't object about Impulse, I am only objecting because this is being introduced 5 months after the game shipped and there was no mention of this major limitation on the box.
Reply #206 from Sins Forums Top
Guys, could we stick to discussing the actual Sins update and not how it will be distributed?
All updates going forware are going to be on Impulse. There won't be stand-alone patches. If that is a problem, you have the option of not downloading the patches. It's not really open to discussion. Debating it is completely academic. 
The only reason why Sins had stand-alone patches at all was because we originally had targeted Impulse for release in March but we got delayed working on another project and weren't set up with Stardock Central to handle Sins updates. I'm sorry that some people don't like the idea of using Impulse to get updates but that's the practical trade off. It's too expensive and time consuming to create stand-alone updates of the complexity that Sins is.
I think most people can understand why Impulse is a good idea and I think our reputation for customer service speaks for itself.


SINS should not be used as your "launch product" for Impulse, and customer service can only go far if you continue to ignore us that want stand alone patches.

You should use it on your future products!

Not mid-way!

All updates going forware are going to be on Impulse. There won't be stand-alone patches. If that is a problem, you have the option of not downloading the patches. It's not really open to discussion. Debating it is completely academic.So what you saying is that for people like me (no Internet access at home and work computers use Windows 2000 (so even the convoluted Impulse method does not work)) is that you will be providing zero support for the product you sold and so if it does not work out of the box then tough?Well I suppose you got my money so you don't really care.Before anyone complains I don't object about Impulse, I am only objecting because this is being introduced 5 months after the game shipped and there was no mention of this major limitation on the box.


Exactly!
Reply #207 from Sins Forums Top
This is the same problem with Valve games. And Steam is much more invasive than Impulse.
You buy your game, you can play without the DVD, you can download patches for free via the website and you have the tools and access to update it from a Ironclad/Stardock point.
If you don't have a viable internet connection, this is not the fault of Ironclad/Stardock, this is your problem to find a way to update your game.
Personally even without the patch 1.1, I payed for a game that is worth of the money I spent to buy it. 1.1 is only a bonus, a gift from Ironclad/Stardock you don't really need ton play your game in singleplayer.
So if you can come back on the change log, it would be great because this subject begins to be annoying.
Reply #208 from Sins Forums Top
The reason it's up for discussion, is because of Stardock decision to do so.

So who can you blame but Stardock?


This beta update will be available only through Stardock's new Impulse platform sometime in mid-July. We will no longer be providing standalone patches for future versions of the game.

Not our fault if the company has decided to change it's attitude towards Piracy, I also paid for the game, no need to punish legit us users by restricting where we get the patches.

Impulse is no use to me at this point, thus no point in having it installed.

Impulse should have waited until it's got a few major titles under it's belt.

EDIT: I believe you can back up your Steam games imho.
Reply #209 from Sins Forums Top
Sweet, now it's getting closer to me starting to play it :D
Reply #210 from Sins Forums Top
I soooo hope the space egg has received a visual upgrade, one of my favourite utility ships is the uggliest thing the Vasari own :(
Reply #211 from Stardock Forums Top
IMHO, there is alot of dumb people out there. Just because your computer are slow, you run IE6, Windows 2000, without internet. Really, who cares? I certainly does not! Because that the progress would never improve since you always must think about backward compatibility. And that is just silly, since a product should always improve to the better and stable, not just the last.

I then urge Stardock to rewrite the about page about Sins, and state clearly that Impulse is needed, Windows XP or greater and a internet connection. Since by doing this, Stardock has stated it clear that Sins has it demands. If you disagree the terms, use the future refund option, and leave Sins alone until the option is in place.

My two cents...

Birger :)
Reply #212 from Sins Forums Top
I then urge Stardock to rewrite the about page about Sins, and state clearly that Impulse is needed, Windows XP or greater and a internet connection. Since by doing this, Stardock has stated it clear that Sins has it demands.


If this had been stated clearly on the box (and not hidden inside it (Most shops don't allow refunds if you don't agree with the EULA after opening the box (even though you can not see it until the box is open!))) then I would not have a problem with it now.

Maybe a big warning on the website that you always planned a very restrictive online only patch distribution system, would also have been a good idea while Impulse was in development. That way people would not have assumed that offline patches were always going to be available.

Other then the patch distribution problem, the update looks good.
Reply #213 from Sins Forums Top
Devs, this post is actually about the change and not about the distribution, so please read.

-I think you nerfed the Stilakus Subverter too much. I hardly bought it before, and now I am sure never to buy it.

-Can you explain the change about the repulsion more? I don't understand what the change is doing to the guardian.

-What was the pervious cooldown period for Returning Armada? Are there still 2 levels to that tech?

-Good job the with carrier frigs, that is definately needed.

[/Tab] -However, I am wondering why anyone would now bother buying a carrier captial now? For 1/10th the resources, I get the same starting squadrons. Perhaps increase the number of squadrons on the carriers as well (maybe 5-10?).

[/Tab] -I am also wondering why anyone would build hangers now? For 1/3rd the cost, I can have a carrier frigate that has the same capacity as a hanger. Buff the hangers as well (maybe 4-5 squadrons).

-I like what you did for the Vasari about the population limit on volcanoes. I believe you should make that change for all planet types for all races. 5-10% just isn't enough to make it worth while sometimes, especially on small-medium maps.

-TEC is still too weak; can you slightly buff some of their ships, or perhaps give their research in armor and hull points more weight?

-What's happening with the player resource buckets (100% to 50%)? What does that mean in English?
Reply #214 from Sins Forums Top
I agree about the Subverter, I never used it that much and never thought it needed a nerf?

The carrier capitals are for fighter/bomber support more than anything as they always have been. It wouldn't hurt to give them 1 more squadron earlier though.

Hangers take logistics slots and not fleet supply, I'd still rather take a hanger at key locations. Not to mention hangers are a lot tougher.

Returning Armada used to be something like 8 minutes? It definately needed a change but I'm not sure I'd use it with this new functionality. An _extremely_ expensive tech that I then have to pay for the (random selection of) ships anyway? Considering that system is only 1 jump away from my fleets if they have a Phase Stabaliser anyway I'm not convinced of the benefit. Although it has to be better than before where once you had RA you just mopped everyone up in big games.
Reply #215 from Sins Forums Top
To equate my position as not wanting to step away from command prompt text games is pure madness.


Or the power of analogy, with a touch of hyperbole. Which is to say, rhetoric. All I'm saying is that your arguing from the perspective of "change is bad" -- and that's rather ridiculous.
Reply #216 from Sins Forums Top
The only reason why Sins had stand-alone patches at all was because we originally had targeted Impulse for release in March but we got delayed working on another project and weren't set up with Stardock Central to handle Sins updates.
Have you ever missed a bus/train/boat before due to a delay? That bus isn't going to stop for you once it gets going even if you pound on the side or chase it down the road. You were delayed 5 months -- you missed the Sins bus. If you want to avoid anger you're going to have to wait for the next bus, which happened to be the Political Machine bus. You can't just reschedule the first bus after it's already left to force it to stop and wait for you without consequence.

All updates going forware are going to be on Impulse. There won't be stand-alone patches. If that is a problem, you have the option of not downloading the patches. It's not really open to discussion. Debating it is completely academic.
I will remember this next time you release a game that gets my interest and think twice about purchasing it. Other people will remember this too. As your new pals at Epic Games have demonstrated in the past year, customer service can change literally overnight.
Reply #217 from Stardock Forums Top
If you leave Stardock because of the way they are distributing their patches, then you are better off. Since I would rather have Impulse and receive a patch after two, three years, rather then not getting anything at all.

Take a look at Steam. Do you really think that Valve would update Half-Life if they did not have Steam? No they would not, since the work applying stand-alone patches is much harder then just have a unified platform like Impulse or Steam.

Birger :)
Reply #218 from Sins Forums Top
Anyway. A pair of very important interface question:

Does selecting a stack of your units in the empire tree subselect one of them yet? Using Guardians or Subverters or any other group of units whose abilities you don't want to use all at once is painful the way it is now. Or was this fixed some time ago, and has it just been too long since I've played for an extended period to notice?

Do orders against enemy stacks queue against the whole stack?

C'mon, Ironclad, these would make the tree about ten times more useful for tactical combat.

And a less important interface question:

Are there plans for making the build menus support unlimited numbers of buildables via page buttons? Even 9 capitals seems a bit light for some themes.
Reply #219 from Sins Forums Top
Personaly I want even more hardcoded limits removed (for example number of diffrent strike craft types allowed per ship should be 9 (max for the interface)).

Even so the capship thing and some other bug fixes/improvments sound very nice.
Reply #220 from Sins Forums Top
Does anyone not feel that a better tradeing and treaty interface would make this game alot more fun?

Somthing similar to Galactic Civilization?



Reply #221 from Sins Forums Top
Does anyone not feel that a better tradeing and treaty interface would make this game alot more fun?Somthing similar to Galactic Civilization?


interface alone, no, not really, I'm fine with it. might be interesting to have the "i like you" % directly next to the faction name so you can see at a glance your relation to all other factions, but that would be the only issue.

that said, when we're at it, it did kinda expect some stuff on diplomacy, like the much said trade ships/ planet for money exchanges and so on. but then that would necessitate a bunch of other changes, starting from the ai's use of it to slight pace changes if you are using more of you time on a diplomatic rather than on a domestic development/ combat layer. so, yeah, big change, lots of time, hope that it finally comes.

which is not to say that the patch log looks awesome. nice work ppl.

I tend to agree on the RA issue though. paying for it seems like a sensible enough thing, but the price seems rather hefty. c'mon, the price for activation is comparable to that of a whole capship and the fp return too. effectively you spend tons of resources on research and stations and gates and all you get is the option to insta-buy a bunch of ships every 10 minutes at a negligible discount (at lvl 1) and a good discount (at lvl 2). seems a bit too hefty. why dont you lower the price for lvl 1 research, since you get fewer ships anyway, bc at lvl 2 it does currently seem to pay off, once you get that far.

just some thoughts.
Reply #222 from Sins Forums Top

I think once we have the beta out of v1.1 it'll be easier to evaluate the balance changes. That's one of the reasons for having the beta is that it's such a significant update it's going to take some adventurous people to use it.

Re people without Internet Connections: You download a game, archive it to a flash drive, take it home, unarchive it and voila.  IF Impulse hadn't been in the works, users would have been using Stardock Central to get updates (as have all our games).  Impulse has nothing to do with copy protection.  For the past 5 years, all our games have used Stardock Central to get updates. The successor to SDC, Impulse, was supposed to be done in time for Sins but was delayed so we had to release stand-alone patches which are a significant effort compared to what we do with SDC/Impulse.  The biggest reason we've been able to do frequent updates to our software over the years is because of SDC (and now Impulse).

I should also point out that with Impulse, people will be able to find multiplayer games within Impulse without having to load up Sins which is a pretty significant bonus IMO.

Reply #223 from Sins Forums Top
I still don't believe that having an extra application installed, when i'm not gonna be using it all the time, and that games like SINS don't get updated enough.

If you compare it with Steam and/or GPGNet (Gas Powered Games multiplayer platform), it outdoes your Central/Impulse by a mile.

So you guys really need to work with your customers on this, because having being forced to not be able to update without "Impulse" installed is very rude.

The fact that you also haven't updated your packaging and retailers to notify your future customers, I find that poor.
Reply #224 from Stardock Forums Top
To solve this problem, I would suggest a ImpulseTray with a right click to "Friends", "Servers", "Games", etc. And when you click either and Impulse isn't loaded, you only get a small window down right just above the tray containing the relevant data. Frogboy?

Birger :)
Reply #225 from Sins Forums Top
Raziaar, I think why you haven't seen starting locations addressed is because of the limitations of the map selection process. This isn't like some strategy games where you can click a starting spot or line up numbered starting location to select where you and opponents will start. From what I've been able to gather, starting locations are controlled by some sort of placement algorithm.


Though any properly coded algorithm, even on completely randomized galaxies, would be able to determine where a player starts in relation to another player.

I just find it completely ridiculous, and can't believe I've waited this long in the hopes that they'd actually deliver with it. Guess what people had said about it being in 1.10 was a crock.

Going to sell my game, because even though I love the game, I don't get any joy out of it when my primary playing style is cooperative against the AI, preferably on large systems for truly epic games, and I start entirely in a different star system than my ally or allies. That makes it so I'm just playing to myself, when it takes absolutely forever just to get to my friends.

I mean for crying out loud... This is standard fare for any other RTS. And they could have made it work, they just chose not to. There is absolutely no point in playing cooperative games if nearly 100% of the time(and I tested this with restarting the game about 4 dozen times) you end up in a completely different starsystem from your intended partner.



EDIT: Great... and I just remembered, I can't even sell my game since stardock doesn't allow it, since my key is tied to my account.