Sins II Opt-In: v2.01 Change Log

Release Status: *** AVAILABLE ON TEST_EDITION ***

To Use the Test Edition

• On Epic Games

  • Install the Sins of a Solar Empire II - Test Edition product from your Library

• On Steam

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

  • Click the gear icon in the upper right.

  • Select Properties → Game Versions & Betas

  • Select 'test_edition' from the Beta Participation list.

  • Steam will update you to the latest files.

Gameplay

Iskazhar Epitaph (Buff)

The Eidolon Starbase has grown more powerful and precise, with one new upgrade and one improved upgrade.

The Dimensional Shifter teleportation can now be targeted to a specific location in its destination gravity well. However, with precision comes a need for information, and the ability now requires vision over the target to activate. Fortunate then, that the Eidolon can observe a destination unseen...

The Phase Destablizer has been added to the Starbase as a new researchable item. This device will damage the hull and drain the antimatter of enemy forces attempting to jump away from it. This cannot kill a target... But it can leave them weakened and perilously close to death.

• Dimensional Shifter: now position targeted. Select a visible location in the target gravity well to begin the 30 second relocation charge up, which is now shown in the tooltip.

• Phase Destablizer: unlocked by Phase Destabilizer Design (Tier 4, 235 seconds, 1400/600/600, requires the starbase). Costs 2 Utility exotics, builds in 120 seconds, one per starbase. Enemy ships that phase jump out of the gravity well lose 50% of their current hull and 50% of their current antimatter over 5 seconds.

Sythren Onslaught (Buff)

This unit is intended to act as the Eidolon early anti-capital unit, as well as an anti-heavy cruiser option. In order to better fulfil this, its missiles have been improved, with greater range, pierce and superior straight line movement stats. Additionally, the missiles it fires are now tougher, allowing the unit to resist Point Defense a little more reliably.

• Void Missile: range from 10,000 to 12,500, pierce from 400 to 450.

• Void Blast Charge (the missile it fires): top speed from 1750 to 2000, acceleration time from 7 to 8 seconds, turn rate from 75 to 60 and time to full turn from 3 to 2 seconds, armor from 5 to 10.

• Its shock cannon is now tagged as a shock cannon dealing energy damage. It was tagged as a physical autocannon, so it answered to the wrong research.

Corruption Targeting (Buff)

Propagate Mode and Vile Presence will no longer spread Planetary Corruption to allied planets. See how magnanimous the Eidolon are, to withhold their sinister gifts from their future thralls allies.

Corruption Mitigation (Buff)

Shortly after the arrival of the Eidolon Vanguard the mysterious Phase Jump Inhibitor used by all factions began to demonstrate a new function - seemingly capable of purging corruption from a planet and even calming the Shroud. Researchers from all factions have shown great interest in this technology now that the threat posed by the Eidolon has been made clear.

• Phasic Energy Regulation: every Phase Jump Inhibitor (TEC, Advent and Vasari) now removes 0.005 corruption from its planet every second and lifts the planet's shroud restriction by one development level while it stands.

Granular Corruption Mitigation Research. Existing mitigation techs have been split into entire tech lines, to better allow the other factions to gradually fight back against the planetary maluses imposed by the Eidolons.

• Each step reduces the planetary corruption debuff and raises how far a shrouded planet's tracks can be developed. Fully researched, every line reaches the +4 development levels the old single research gave.

• TEC: Dark Zone Designation (Tier 2, 150 seconds, 750/125/150), Phasic Telemetry Monitoring (Tier 4, 360 seconds, 1700/300/500 and 2 Defense exotics), Phasic Catastrophe Mitigation (Tier 5, 525 seconds, 2200/400/700 and 1 Ultimate exotic). Each cuts the corruption debuff by 25%, for +1, +1 and +2 development levels.

  • Replaces the single Tier 5 research (600 seconds, 2250/425/750, 50% debuff reduction, +4 levels).

• Advent Reborn: Shrouded Embrace (Tier 1, 60 seconds, 250/25/75), Corruption Redirection (Tier 2, 120 seconds, 500/125/300), Shrouded Attunement (Tier 3, 270 seconds, 850/275/650 and 1 Economic exotic). Each cuts the debuff by 25%, for +1, +1 and +2 levels.

  • Replaces the single Tier 3 research (50% debuff reduction, +4 levels).

• Advent Wrath: Telepathic Isolation (Tier 2, 120 seconds, 500/125/300), Sacrificial Cleansing (Tier 3, 225 seconds, 800/250/600 and 1 Economic exotic), Incorruptible Unity (Tier 4, 360 seconds, 1100/425/900 and 2 Economic exotics). Each cuts the debuff by 25%, for +1, +1 and +2 levels.

  • Replaces the single Tier 4 research (420 seconds, 1150/450/950), which removed the debuff entirely. The full line now reaches 75%.

• Vasari Exodus: Phasic Energy Suppression (Tier 2, 150 seconds, 270 metal and 240 crystal), Phasic Counter Resonance (Tier 3, 270 seconds, 450 metal, 480 crystal and 1 Utility exotic), Inhibitor Adaptation (Tier 4, 420 seconds, 630 metal, 720 crystal and 2 Utility exotics). The steps cut the debuff by 18%, 18% and 36%, for +1, +1 and +2 levels.

  • Replaces the single Tier 4 research (50% debuff reduction, +4 levels).

Vespa Corvette (Nerf)

The Vespa Corvette was added to provide the Advent an early high-pierce option to deal with capital ships and structures prior to the Exoria Illuminator at Tier 3. In this role, it has excelled - a little too well, in fact. In order to bring it back in line with its intended role, we have reduced its damage output and survivability, while moving it to Tier 2 to more closely align with the early pierce focused units of other factions.

• Hull from 450 to 400, shields from 400 to 350.

• Plasma weapon damage from 40 to 30.

• Vespa Blueprint moved from Tier 1 to Tier 2, research time from 75 to 120 seconds, cost from 300/50/100 to 500/125/300.

Focus Conversion (Nerf)

Focus Conversion is a mechanic we added to the Advent in order to reflect the Psionic nature of their commercial economy prior to their invasion of Trader Space, as well as to assist with their early game economic woes. In order to better perform that task while maintain both lore consistency and balance, we have adjusted the first two techs in this line to be Focus to Credit only, and to be available at Tier 1 and 2 for easier access. The Advent retain the ability to convert Focus to Metal and Crystal much later in the game at Tier 5, but at reduced rates. We will continue to monitor the impacts of this new function on Advent gameplay.

• Telepathic Coordination (was Material Communion): Tier 1, 60 seconds, 250/25/75. Converts Focus to credits at 2 credits per point of Focus.

• Collective Distribution (was Greater Material Communion): Tier 2, 150 seconds, 550/150/350 and 1 Economic exotic. Raises the rate to 5 credits per point of Focus.

• Material Communion (new): Tier 5, 600 seconds, 1450/625/1250 and 1 Ultimate exotic. Adds 1 metal and 1 crystal per point of Focus.

• Previously the line sat at Tiers 2 and 3 and converted Focus to credits, metal and crystal at 10 of each per point, rising to 20 of each.

Other balance

• Eidolon supply research is cheaper: Clandestine Caches from 155 to 105 seconds and 1000/350/350 to 650/200/200, Siphoned Industry from 235 to 175 seconds and 1400/600/600 to 1050/400/400, Vanguard Coordination from 330 to 260 seconds and 1800/850/850 to 1450/650/650.

• Retributive Capacitive Shield Design: research time from 175 to 260 seconds, cost from 1050/400/400 to 1450/650/650.

• Zhaltharien Anathema: the Crest cloaking buffs now end when the ability is released instead of lingering.

• Shrouding a planet can now draw on the market. Hold Alt when shrouding to buy the missing resources.

• Right clicking a Shroud Mode button, on the quick bar or in the Planetary Corruption window, now deactivates the planet's active mode. Previously the gesture did nothing, or focused the planet.

• Alliance offers can no longer demand more influence than the ally holds or can hold. The demand tooltip shows the amount, the button is disabled when the visible side holds no influence, and a stale demand can still be taken back.

Fixes

• Strikecraft are removed when their carrier's slots are removed.

• Achievement progress that accumulates over a match (Systemic Corruption, Dust and Echoes, plate spins, resources raided) now survives save and load. It was silently reset by every load. The Fear of Icebergs capital-ship latch is re-derived on load so it can no longer be laundered by reloading.

• Closed a desync in server-hosted games: AI diplomacy reactions to gifts and to enemy culture domination were applied on the client rather than in the simulation.

• Lobbies without the Harbinger DLC can change the starting mode again.

• The lobby map settings tooltip no longer crashes on an unknown starting mode.

• The map preview keeps starting gravity wells accurate: overrides match the launched game, dragging a position enables and resets overrides, generated maps keep their random starts, and legend colour markup renders correctly.

• News items are shown in the right (published date) order.

• The pirate king's Redline Navigation tooltip uses the shared "hull lost on phase jump" line.

• 1.51 saves load again.

• Unit item names in the faction picker's unit preview come from localized text rather than file names.

• [Harbinger DLC] Rift fixes: a rift closes when its homeworld is lost but stays open until its queued delivery lands, a rift that failed to close after a Major Portal built a capital ship now closes, and a closing rift is non-functional on the tick its close is scheduled.

• [Harbinger DLC] Shroud restriction and corruption debuff modifiers from planet-scoped sources (such as the Phase Jump Inhibitor) are applied, and a non-owner's view of a shrouded planet's development limit no longer borrows the owner's track definitions and honours future research.

• [Harbinger DLC] The Eidolon Starbase’s teleporter's landing point is clamped to the gravity well, tested at landing height with the starbase's build footprint, and an icon click lands midway between the planet and the well edge.

• [Harbinger DLC] The Scourge weapon research description now says light phase cannon, which is what it grants, not a super heavy phase dart.

UI

• The main menu logo has hover and pressed states.

• Save and load menus can search icons of DLC-locked players.

• Enabling or disabling a mod that contains shaders now shows a Restart Required dialog, since shaders only load at startup.

• The front-end welcome message was retired in favour of the news screen.

• New shared tooltip lines: hull, armor, shield and antimatter lost on phase jump, charge up duration, and teleport to target location.

• [Harbinger DLC] The Cloak button tooltip shows the shortest and longest cloak cooldown remaining across the selection, and honours unity cooldown status. The button's selection walk is cached per frame.

• [Harbinger DLC] Build tooltips show cloak detection, including player and level modifiers.

• [Harbinger DLC] New Show Corruption Lines setting. Corruption spread lines and rings fade with camera distance, their fibers collapse when zoomed in, and the fade stays continuous while following a unit through a phase lane.

• [Harbinger DLC] The "cloaked unit detected by enemy" notification no longer plays a sound.

• [Harbinger DLC] Eidolon influence research and the survey research have proper descriptions, and the Corruption Reservoir description was reworded.

Modding

• Abilities can be position targeted with position_target_relocates_owner_unit and position_target_gravity_well_must_be_fully_detected, and buffs can carry a destination_position of target_position with a target_gravity_well unit type. This is how the Dimensional Shifter works.

• Buffs can set make_dead_on_source_ability_released.

• ignore_shroud_limit and planet_corruption_debuff_strength are honoured from planet-scoped modifier sources such as buffs.

• Corruption line zoom fade knobs in main_view.uniforms: zoomed_in_alpha_scale, zoomed_in_unfocused_alpha_scale, zoomed_in_fade_begin_distance_scale, zoomed_in_fade_end_distance_scale.