Zoomba Zoomba

Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment Announced!

Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment Announced!

Dig in for the long haul

https://store.stardock.com/product.aspx?productid=ESD-TGN-W302&theme=impulse

Today Stardock & Ironclad Games are proud to announce the first of several micro-expansion packs, for the award-winning Sins of a Solar Empire.  The first micro-expansion Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment is currently in development and will be released late 2008 for $9.95 via Stardock’s Impulse digital distribution platform (www.impulsedriven.com).

Developed by Ironclad Games, Sins of a Solar Empire is a real-time strategy game that adds an extreme amount of depth normally only seen in turn-based releases. One of the highest ranking real-time strategy games of 2008, the title has sold over half a million copies and won several Editor’s Choice awards.

Specifically, Entrenchment promises to bring fans a Starbase defense platform for each race (extremely powerful and armored bases housing a variety of weapons and other upgrades capable of defending an entire planet), turret upgrades for each race to make them more powerful (not only stronger than the current versions, but also upgradable with long-range weapons), mine fields and a Subspace Inhibitor platform that will slow enemy ships within its range.

Ironclad has two additional micro-expansions in development as well. One of which adds new diplomacy features to the game and another that will add new technologies and ships.

The expansions are being developed to prevent fracturing of the multiplayer community. If both players have a given expansion pack installed, the features are available, but if one does not, the expansion pack features are disabled for that particular game.

You can pre-order the micro-expansion now for $9.95 directly from the Impulse Store.  Entrenchment is only available through Impulse.

302,247 views 139 replies
Reply #126 Top

You are right, YOUR answer does not satisfy me. Nor do I view the 'explanations' you refer to as answers from the dev's mouths, as answering my questions. The word conspiracy is very, imo, disingenuous of you.

 

As for how this relates to the 'gamer's bill of rights', well given the older PR stuff I think it would be fair to say 'rights' 2 and 3 are challanged. The irony eh? 

Reply #127 Top

You are right, YOUR answer does not satisfy me. Nor do I view the 'explanations' you refer to as answers from the dev's mouths, as answering my questions. The word conspiracy is very, imo, disingenuous of you.

Then take it from theirs:

Hey all,

We have not forgotten about you :)

To clear things up a bit: at this point the community has access to pretty much all the tools the developers have - we're not holding anything back out of spite! Also, in certain situations you will come across hard-coded limits which may not make sense to you. Some of them may be limitations resulting from the engine design, but more often they are there to control the amount of memory usage and dynamic memory allocation - to keep the game running as smoothly as possible.

I'd like to get some idea of what would be most useful to the modding community at this point. What kind of tools are you hoping to see in a "full toolset release"? Or as ZJBDragon says, is the main requirement some centralized place to get information about how to mod each aspect of the game?

Cheers

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/311187/page/1/#replies , reply #12

The word conspiracy is quite accurate to describe what you're suggesting, since you're basically implying that they deliberately limit modding because they want to get more money out of people.

Reply #129 Top

Quoting TiberiousKirk, reply 3
Will there be new races or a SP campain in the Expansion?

We don't know how that's going to be done. We know that a campaign is in the works, and we know it's not going to be in Entrenchment. That's about it :P So we'll get it somehow, but not yet.

Reply #130 Top

Sign me up. Sounds like I can't wait.

Reply #131 Top

Quoting Annatar11, reply 2

The word conspiracy is quite accurate to describe what you're suggesting, since you're basically implying that they deliberately limit modding because they want to get more money out of people.

You are being very trollish here!

Why is it that nobody can even raise a question or suggest the slightest hint of criticism without you jumping in. It looks rather stiffling. Surely its better to let people express opinions so that the devs know there are such opinions out there, rather than be challenged into silence and hold those opinions anyway?

I thought forums were for debate, discussion and expression of opinions?

Reply #132 Top

There's plenty of criticism, in this thread and in others, that is actual criticism. His, however, was not criticism but an insulting insinuation based on a lie that he created.

And he did, in fact, imply that Ironclad is deliberately choking the modding scene because they want money for something that modders would've been able to do otherwise (which does constitute a conspiracy, by the way):

As I said a while back…is it an intentional act to make such modding projects more difficult by not releasing promised tools, in order for you to make profit from expansion packs that would traditionally be made by players using decent mod tools?

All while insisting that they have never addressed this concern, which I was happy to call him out on and prove otherwise.

You may call it trolling, but if anyone's going to criticize Ironclad they should at least do it with a truth, not a blatant lie - and that's what I make sure is known. I don't try to debunk every single criticism, and in the past I've joined in on some (by now, everything that comes up is essentially beating a dead horse because it has been debated before) albeit with a different tone because I have the advantage of knowing some of the reasoning and inner workings from the beta test. But if someone decides to make up a lie and try to use it to smear IC's name and make it sound like another money-hungry company that doesn't care about its fans and only money, well, I'll be sure to call them on it. And I stand by my post.

Reply #133 Top

Plus, if you hate Stardock 1) Why are you here on their forums.... and 2) why don't you just go by Spore and become an EA fanatic cause "I'm sure they're much better."  :typo:

Reply #134 Top

Flipping heck, is this a fanboys convention in here?

I think you will find that people who post critacally or raise concerns about things do so because they care about the game. People who hate the game/developers don't!

I thought this was aplace where you could go to discuss the game, not listen to a monologue from Annatar11? If that is all that is permitted here then its going to be a pretty dead site (and game) pretty soon.

Reply #135 Top

If somebody is going to criticize something, that criticism should at least be true.

 

:fox:

Reply #136 Top

When will the beta start, if there is one?

Reply #137 Top

I welcome the expansions.  I'm SP never MP (so my view is slanted I suppose).  I love the idea of better defenses.  I hope it will allow me to setup a defensive front in enemy territory, and also allow the enemy to better defend their production lines as well. It will also be nice to be able to trap those pesky fleeing ships. 

I'd also like to be able to buy defense from pirates instead of just offense.  Starbases will create turtles, but if I could rent 3 minutes of defense from the pirates, and hire them to guard a planet I select, while I go raid some enemy planets  --  I think that would provide the same kind of effect as starbases without it being a permanent defensive unit.

Reply #138 Top

as I have read that entrenchment is due for release in november and it will be my ** birthday please please please make the release date what a prezzie cant wait

Reply #139 Top

has anyone asked if we will have to re-mod our existing mods for these expansions or will they integrate, with the obvious exception of the added features??

 

edit: for those complaining about price: why don't you just mod yourself some starbases and whatnot.

then you wouldn't have to cough up.... $10! I'm not a real modder, so I won't complain.

 

edit #2: what? did I kill the thread? a whole week and no one...