Sins of a Solar Empire v1.03 now available!

Lots of new features and tweaks!

By Frogboy Posted March 12, 2008 15:56:41

Sins of a Solar Empire v1.03 has been released! The new update adds dozens of new features to the game based on player feedback.

In the month since its release, Sins of a Solar Empire has sold nearly 200,000 copies worldwide (with revenue split pretty evenly between retail and Stardock's digital distribution system). It is also the highest rated PC game of 2008 thus far with Editor's Choice Awards from every major PC game publication and website.

The game blends real time game play with “4X”. With epic level scalability, multiplayer games that can be saved and restored, and fantastic visuals, Sins of a Solar Empire has become the highest rated and best selling new PC game of 2008.

The new version adds dozens of new features into the game including:

• Many new game setup options such as fleet size, pirate options, income rate speeds, build speeds and more
• Players can use the + and – keys in single player to control the game speed
• Improved black market provides a more volatile market
• Players who drop can now be placed by cunning computer AI players
• Vastly improved computer AI
• New difficulty level “Unfair” for really hard core players
• Computer players will surrender
• Improvements to Ironclad Online
• Lots of tweaking and balancing based on feedback
• MUCH more…

We have a lot more updates in the works. The primary purpose of v1.03 was to improve the computer AI and get it to replace dropped players. Once the demo is released, Ironclad and Stardock will be working on v1.04 with even more new features and enhancements.

To get the update: From within the game, press the "Download Updates" button on the main menu. Please note that v1.03 is not compatible with save games or replays from older versions.

Change Log: v1.03 update notes

+26 Karma 90 Replies 67 Referrals

Battlesupud; the patch will not work unless you have a purchased version of this game.

you get the error he is talking about when you try to edit your posts

great!

1.02 saves are NOT compatible with 1.03.

In general, don't expect old saves to be compatible with new patch releases.

GREAT!!! I had to take tomorrow off (honestly, some repair people are coming to the house Lord knows when) and was thinking, "Man, too bad I can't play 1.03 all day." This is outstanding. Thanks.

I've got a groovy (for me) undocumented change to report!

Although I was running all of my visual settings on "Highest" before the patch, now that I've patched, all of my textures are higher resolution than they were before!

It took me quite some time to decide I wasn't just going nuts and imagining it, but there are words and numbers on things that were never there before, and even some slightly bad things, like texture misalignment at seams on asteroids.

I'm not complaining about some minor seams, though. I'm darned happy! ^_^

Since nobody has mentioned anything about redone textures, I'm assuming that there was some problem with my video card (8800GT) or drivers before the patch that's now been rectified.

Nothing but goodness.

Hey guys - this patch overwrote my user.setting file. Not the biggest deal to go back and redo all my graphics settings, but a bit annoying.

-HM

Yes yes... Hey we need 2-3 new races....Grrr I want to play with some race like alien and predator...

YES!!!!!!! Thankyou Stardock!

<3 Stardock/Ironclad

I thought people generally agreed it was already a bad ship (?)It made the kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.Babylon-5 (gameplay example!) and old-school Star Wars references by Stardock employees = this game wins by default.

True dat... kudos SD/IC!

and Frogboy... you are my leader.

hm i had hoped to see an option, where the ship slots are based on the number of planets you control... i saw in the forums that some people strictly don't want it, while others (like me) think that the number of planets under your control should influence the fleet size. So the best solution to satisfy everyone would probably be a switch to decide if it's an absolute number of shipslots or dynamic based on planets.
Is there any chance to see this in an update sooner or later? I just ask, because i want to start a huge map and i don't see how it should be playable without the ship slots being dynamic...

Okay, in first view it looks really good with more options to choose from - but I can't see more options for slower speeds than from 1.02 and the values in files have not changed for slow setting, only a bit faster for the “zapp” ppl. I was really expecting slower speed settings options than it is now, "slow" still the slowest. I mean still only 3 settings to choose from - for me not so big a issue anymore because I can make my own modifications, but more for all others who can't do this.

Could it maybe be possible to go negative in-game speed when using “+” and “-“ in SP? Still only positive settings for all whom like it faster.

Redion

Can someone explain to me what exactly does the change in "fleet size" affect? so far I've loaded games with large, med, and small fleet supply, and in all of them the max fleet supply research still reads 2000. Am I completely misunderstanding what this is supposed to mean?

I'm not seeing anything here for Start of Game location, so players playing coop can start next to each other. What gives...

Small is -25%, large is +25%. The numbers on the research don't update because they are displayed from the files directly, and the setting is just a multiplier which the infocard doesn't take into account. Not very intuitive, but I can confirm that it is working.

Basically, if you play on Large, every time you would've gained FPs, you gain 25% more

It was based this way for a while in beta, but I wouldn't hold out hope for this kind of system coming back, as an option or otherwise. It would require a re-write of too much stuff (the old beta code was pretty much completely scrapped)

I thought people generally agreed it was already a bad ship (?)

It made the kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.

ha, awesome. i always love a good star wars quote. Plus 15 points for Stardock, and since it is a Han Solo quote, i will add on another 5 points because he is cool.

I hope the mini-dump issues with LAN games is fixed. My friends and I haven't been able to finish a single game because of that.

The AI beat me today. I'm alittle crusty; so maybe that's why.

But;
5 stars; 200 planets total.
2 hours (first hour expanding and heavy offense; second hour spent defending and trying not to lose my 2 planets)
FFA
Random difficulty levels on AI
Random tatics for AI

To AI flanked me by attacking 2 of my planets at once. When I sent my support fleet stationed on a third planet to help one of the planets being attacked, one of the AI brought in another force to the planet I had just left.

And I lost. Can't wait until 1.4 to see what they'll improve next!

(Sidenote: The enemy seemed to start countering my strike craft spam which effectively killed me. Bravo)

I played the AI today. Small, Random, no pirates, Hard, Agressive. All Normal settings. I was pretty disapointed. I won easily, and it only attacked me once. It retreated every other time I attacked (just like it use to). I don't see a difference, but it's just one game; maybe I'll notice it in the next game I try . . .

Very nice update, especially like that part where you can add a computer in for a player who leaves. This makes very long games more reasonable to play through.

Purple; the AI handles small maps pretty badly. Go to a Multi Random - Huge (5 stars 200 planets) and you might see a big difference.

In general, 1v1 is very hard for an AI to do well in. Try multiples, and then see

I like that they build up defenses now, and actually build pretty sensible fleets instead of capitals + light frigs

Does anyone know the trick to getting the new patched version to accept the maps I created in Galaxy Forge? They worked with the previous version, now I can't get them to show up in this version.

Ummm, thanks Windex, but it took me 4 hours to play the small map; 14 planets I think, playing a map 15 times larger really does not appeal to me. Maybe I'll try a medium map next. If the AI competence is based on map size, I and my friends are out of luck SP I guess, cause that's about all we play. . .

The AI kicked my ass on large hard map. Which is funny because last time I played 3 AI locked teams on hard vs. me and whiped the floor with them. Much much improved.