Release Status: *** RELEASED ***

After a hiatus in June, we’re back this month with a shiny new update for the Sins II community: factional missions. This new mission system is designed to help players learn the game without having to go through all of the tutorials. For each mission completed, you’ll earn rewards like resources and exotics. Since missions are generated for each faction, you can learn as you go regardless of which race you choose to play. Of course, we realize that skilled players may not care about this, so you can switch them off in match options. Missions can be played in single and multiplayer matches, so you and a friend can learn the ropes together (or against each other) while earning rewards to help propel you to victory!

Next up, we’ve made a ton of visual improvements to the game by doing a lot of work on the shader system. You should notice cleaner looking shadows, better lighting, better material detail on units, volume scattering on atmospheres, parallax shading on gas giants and much more. For fun, we’ve even included 3 optional ‘Experimental’ shaders you can try out in the Graphics Options: Cel Shading (for that anime look), Retro Shading (for that old school 16-bit color vibe), and Liquid Crystal Shading (if you prefer to play all-green).

We’ve also added new gravity wells in v1.43 including irradiated planets, shattered planets, brown dwarf planets, and neutron stars. Prepare for intense battles within the destructive magnetic fields of these failing stellar giants! For those of you who own the Paths to Power DLC, you can now enable a new match option for capturable units. When turned on, some derelicts may be replaced by capturable Ancient Starbases! You can try this out on the new maps we’ve added, including a new 5v5 called Neutron Tempest.

To Use the Previous Version (Steam Only)

• On Steam

  • Select ‘Sins of a Solar Empire II’ in your Steam Library.

  • Click the gear icon in the upper right.

  • Select Properties → Betas

  • Select one of the listed versions from the Beta Participation dropdown.

  • Steam will update you to those files.

Hot Fix Change Log (1.43.11)

• Fixed bug that had missions loading during tutorials.

• Fixed bug where mission triggers wouldn’t properly reset when a main chain would end.

• Updated AI to allow it to build items on any unit that supports them.

• Updated system to allow for flair effects to not be played during phase space, charging, or a period of time after (modding).

• Updated system to allow flair effects to play when collecting loot (modding).

• Setup missions uniform for modding.

• Updated destroyed unit system slightly: scuttled units will now show debris, but provide no loot/XP (as intended). Previously wasn’t showing debris at all.

• Added buildable planet icons to mission tooltips.

• Added own_any_unit_item mission trigger (modding).

• Added unit count information to mission reward lines.

• The Ice Field gravity well ability Reflective Ice Particles will no longer reflect ability damage - only weapon damage. This should prevent AoE abilities from instantly destroying the casting ship.

• Removed old png files that are no longer being used.

Change Log (1.43.10)

Gameplay

• Added Factional Mission system for new players. Can be toggled in match setup options; and also works in multiplayer. When enabled, your faction’s high command will issue you specific orders based on your current game progress. Completing missions will earn resource/exotic rewards as an incentive.

• Added new map: Neutron Tempest. A two-star map where neutron stars are locked together and contain numerous magnetic planets and secret treasures.

• Added new map: Face Off. An adaptation of the original Sins of a Solar Empire map which pits two players in close proximity. Shout out to Nongenti for this!

• Added new Irradiated planet type. This is a low-mid value rare colonizable planet. It has 5 unique items, 2 TEC, 2 Advent and 1 Vasari.

• Added new Shattered planet type. This is a new uncolonizable gravity well.

• Added new Neutron star type.

• Added new Brown Dwarf planet type. This is a new uncolonizable gravity well.

• (Paths to Power) Added new game lobby option to enable capturable units. When enabled, some map derelicts may be replaced with Ancient Starbases instead.

• Added new items to AI capital ship builds as appropriate.

• Fixed AI issue that would cause it to stop upgrading its planets on Hard and above difficulty. AI players will now invest in their planets as needed to improve resource income, etc.

• (Paths to Power) Updated the ‘hard megarandom’ wave to occur at wave 20+, instead of wave 5-15 in Defend the Homeworld/Last Stand.

• (Paths to Power) Turned off missions in unique scenarios.

• All faction Siege unit costs increased. Massing Siege Frigates and Cruisers is intended to be a fairly extreme and punishable all-in strategy, not a standard doctrine. While counterable, it requires much greater knowledge to defend against than to execute. This price increase should reduce the ease of massing this unit type, pushing it later into the game where counters are more available.

  • TEC Krosov Siege Frigate cost increased from 500/60/100 to 600/75/125. Build time increased from 40s to 50s.

  • Vasari Karrastra Destructor cost increased from 185/235 to 215/270. Build time increased from 54s to 60s.

  • Advent Purge Vessel cost increased from 300/130/90 to 450/150/100. Build time increased from 35s to 45s.

• All faction research item missions have had improved descriptions added to individual objectives and passthrough added (meaning that if you already have copies of these items when the mission appears they will count towards fulfilling the mission).

• All faction consumable item missions have had improved descriptions added to individual objectives and passthrough added. In addition, the Vasari and Advent have had one of their three required consumables removed to speed up the mission and match TEC.

• Advent

  • Progenitor Mothership Shield Regeneration ability is no longer a channeled ability, allowing the ship to move and otherwise act while it is active.

  • Malice now properly spreads to new targets when multiple instances of the ability are used simultaneously.

  • Iconus Guardian Shield Projection will no longer attempt to autocast when the ship's shield is nearly or fully depleted. This should eliminate wasted casts and deconflict groups of Guardians attempting to apply the Shield Projection Buff to large fleets.

  • Seeker Vessel Unstoppable Phase Jump buff now appears in the buff indicator and on the Unity tooltip.

  • Seeker Vessel Lingering Presence can now be used by multiple players on the same planet simultaneously.

  • Moved all Advent missile technologies down a tier and adjusted costs respectively.

  • Advent Missile Speed increased from 1200 to 1500. This will ensure that they can catch Corvettes, even when those Corvettes have some degree of speed increase, such as TEC Enhanced Light Thrusters.

  • Advent Light Missile Hull Points reduced from 5 to 3. Additional speed would allow these missiles to pass through PD grids too effectively - especially TEC PD grids. This change will maintain parity with the previous build in terms of Advent Light Missiles vs. PD.

  • Advent Tempest Vessel Light Missile damage per hit increased from 15 to 20. (DPS from 6.8 to 9.1 per weapon). Even with increased missile speed the Tempest underperformed against Corvettes. This change will help the Tempest definitively reclaim its anti-corvette role and generally be more relevant against the low durability targets it is designed to fight.

  • Advent Tithe Sanctum reworked:

    • Now provides +5/10/20% Bonus Commerce Per Population and an additional +3/4/5% Bonus Commerce Per Population for every Temple of Congregation at the planet.

    • No longer provides any bonus Base Credit income.

    • Research moved from Tiers 1.5/2.5/3.5 up to 2.5/3.5/4.5.

    • Unlock and upgrade tech costs corrected to normal values for their tier.

    • The Tithe Sanctum was originally intended to help the Advent overcome their early Credit bottleneck by being an accessible, affordable item that would retain value by slowly upgrading over the course of the match. It far exceeded this role, becoming the centerpiece of Advent Credit economy. Therefore, it has been changed to require more investment to both unlock and maximize, with a particular focus on synergistic builds on high population planets.

  • Advent Planetary Development Credit Cost scale reworked. It will now cost less Credits to upgrade a planet below planet level 13, but considerably more above this level. This should help alleviate the early Credit bottleneck now that the Tithe Sanctum is no longer a Tier 1 Item, while also giving a much larger Credit Sink to the Advent later in the game when their income spikes.

  • Advent Irradiated Development research now correctly increases Irradiated planet item slots instead of Geomagnetic planet item slots.

• TEC

  • Stilat Missile Corvette missile speed increased from 850 to 1500. This will allow it to hit target that it is pursuing. Soft stats adjusted to maintain parity with current performance in point defense interactions and corvette targeting.

  • Added Repurposed Cargo Hold and Modular Equipment Bay technologies to TEC. Replaces the Improved Radiation Bomb tech, they now allow all TEC consumables to gain additional stacks as the game progresses.

  • Akkan Battlecruiser Armistice Ability now disables cooldowns while active to prevent trivial Armistice chaining. Antimatter cost increased from 150 to 250.

  • Increased Flak Burst range from 1850 to 2000.

  • Added a new Autocast only range to Flak Burst so that it can detect incoming missiles and activate slightly in advance of their arrival (2250 range).

  • Removed Improved Radiation Bomb tech, as it no longer does anything.

  • Increased Radiation Bomb duration from 45s to 75s. Increased Radiation Bomb casting range from 7500 to 10000. Radiation Bomb is intended to allow the TEC to shape the battlefield by being a persistent hazard. Moving out of it quickly should allow you to escape with minimal damage sustained, but sitting in it for its full duration should be dangerous, thus forcing movement.

  • Kol Battleship Experimental Beam range increased from 8000 to 10000. This will allow the Kol to consistently autocast the ability even after researching Advanced Gauss Coils and improving the Kols standard engagement range.

  • Kol Battleship Experimental Beam Pierce now scales with level: 500/600/750. This will allow high level Kols to meaningfully threaten Titans with this ability, allowing the Kol to fulfil the tertiary Anti-Titan role held by Battleship Capitals.

• Vasari

  • Vasari Homeworld starting militia supply reduced from 40 to 30. Recent changes to targeting AI made militia forces better at picking targets and sticking to them, which would result in Vasari starter Ravastras being killed in the initial homeworld militia clear. This reduction should prevent that, even if the militia all target the same Ravastra.

• AI

  • Fixed how the AI assesses the Vasari Pulse Gun platform. This should make the AI more appropriately assess its power and attack it.

  • Fixed how the AI assesses the Ancient Starbase (Paths to Power). This should ensure the AI doesn’t underestimate it when attempting to attack a planet with one present.

  • Refined pursuit mode triggers for armed mobile units. Armed units will now consistently enter pursuit mode when given an attack order against a moving enemy target. Faster ships benefit from this more as they are able to close the distance with fleeing enemies before automatically taking up a firing position behind them.

Graphics

• Added 3 optional ‘Experimental’ shaders you can try out in the Graphics Options:

  • Cel Shading (for that anime look)

  • Retro Shading (for that old school 16-bit color vibe)

  • Liquid Crystal Shading (if you prefer to play all-green).

• Added new PCF based shadows. This new shadow system is much more visually refined than the previous and eliminates ‘stair-stepping’ effects on shadow textures.

• Added Vasari floating bodies to destroyed unit debris.

• Added new parallax shading effect to gas giants (provides cloud depth).

• Added volume scattering shader effect to planet atmospheres.

• Added improved atmospheric Fresnel effect.

• Added flow maps to planets and the neutron star.

• Improved shield shader fx.

• Fixed Advent Destra Crusader engine hardpoints pointing in the wrong direction.

• Removed planet elevators from City planet type.

• Fixed Vasari Orculus starbase missile alignments in pods.

• Fixed TEC Hangar Defense point-defense turret size.

• Cleaned up Vasari Orculus starbase textures.

Bug Fixes / Misc.

• Fixed bug where Advent Resurrection supply check wasn’t taking into account queued supply.

• Fixed bug that caused channeling units given a move order to break channeling. Units will now queue the move order until the channel is complete (clearing other orders).

• Fixed bug that caused units casting an ability to not clear commands, which caused unit ‘stutter’. Units that are moving will continue to move when using an ability (unless it’s a channel ability).

• Fixed various typos in the game credits.

• Made various tooltip UI improvements.

• (Paths to Power) Fixed bug that would cause planet ownership to loop in Conversion scenario.

• Updated Discord Social SDK to v1.3 (fixes a crash bug).

• Mods which are in-use will now display in the lobby map info.

• Fixed bug with unit items not updating correctly, or passthrough not working in missions.

• Fixed bug where the HUD would display numbers higher than the trigger goal.

• Fixed lobby option caching bug.

• Updated mission trigger tooltips to allow for icons.

• Fixed bug where special units would count towards mission completion triggers (i.e., garrisons counting toward a build goal).

• Fixed missing Thai language character glyphs in font files.

Modding

• Added local mod file hotloading to the sins2_dev.exe. Enabled by default, this can be disabled by changing file_watching.local_mod_files to ‘false’ in settings.json.

  • Local mod files are stored in: ..\AppData\Local\sins2\mods

  • Mods directly downloaded from Mod.io are not hotloadable.

• Increased total race count from 10 a higher number. Be aware that this will impact game performance!

• Mods which are in-use will now display in the lobby map info.

• Added target_game_version to mod metadata. This will allow us to better indicate when mods become outdated or incompatible with new game builds.

• Added new target filter unit type for uncolonizable planets: uncolonizable

• Increased max unit_tags from 20 to 30.

• Added entry in Solar Forge for max_effect_radius_scalar for particle effects. Default is max float; values less than 1 are set to 1 (since less than that isn’t invalid).