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Sins Beta 1 Update

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Sins Beta 1 Update

The stuff people usually ignore in the readme file...

from Sins Forums

This is where I'll be mirroring updates that are put out on Stardock Central. This info is also in the History on SDC.

Here are the notes for what should be the last Beta 1 patch. After that the team will be transitioning the codebase over to Beta 2 (set for June).

May 16 - v.066.010 - Hotfix

+ Fix for Trade Ports not spawning trade ships.
+ Fix for weapon and repair ranges not showing up during structure placement.
+ Fix for AI spamming build trade ports message.
+ Fix for fighters not shooting at bombers.
+ Fix for AI not refreshing optimal targets.
+ Fix for throttling phase space arrival messages.
+ Fix for inconsistent ordering of build buttons.
+ Fix for tutorial crash.
+ Fix for too much bloom on team coloring of new art assets.

May 14 - v0.65.010

Note: If you have modded files, be sure to back them up before updating. As always, this patch is not save-game compatible with prior versions of the beta.

Gameplay:
+ Further differentiated fighter capacities of different types: carriers get additional squads slightly more frequently, battleships and dreadnaught more slowly and don't even start w/ a squad.
+ Experience required to level up increased for all levels after lvl 4. Buying higher levels, esp. lvl 6, made more expensive.
+ Slightly reduced bomber damage to account for higher squad count on max lvl carriers.
+ Pirate Pillager now has Plunder Ability.
+ Shorter repair range for TEC repair platform.
+ Anti-fighter frigates now unlockable via research (final research window placement tbd).
+ Cease Fire now also interrupts, which should prevent players from trapping enemy fleets w/ invincible inhibitors (either inhibitor is invincible and interrupted or functioning and vulnerable).
+ Structures under construction can no longer use their abilities until they are finished (this would include Phase Inhibiters preventing jumps before it was completed).
+ Ships can no longer initiate Phase Jumps thru gravity wells. (Warning: the AI follows this rule but he isn't very smart about it yet).
+ Fix for AI researching Artifacts incorrectly.
+ Damage Sharing should now work as intended.
+ Players now start with one metal extractor.
+ Embargo should now properly handle cases where the combined stolen income percentage from all players exceeds 100%.
+ Replaced TEC Dunov Cruiser ultimate with new one: Flux Field.
+ Fixed bug where research doesn't update.
+ Fixed ships with an auto-attack range of None not being able to target things within their weapons range.
+ Ships don't bother moving to pre-autoposition if their auto-attack range is None.
+ Fix ships not rotating to attack if they have an auto-attack range of 0.
+ Tune costs and rates of resourcing structures.
+ Fixed bug where fighters don't use their auto-attack range properly.
+ Fixed bug where fighters in hold position weren't rotating to face their targets.
+ Fixed bug where ships would run off to nowhereland under various conditions.

+ Fix for AI players becoming really stupid after loading a saved game.

+ Fix for AI players building too many Protev Colony Frigates.

User Interface:
+ Planet Upgrade shortcut now works.
+ Squad management open/close keys now appropriate for slot.
+ Fixed movement lines not drawing correctly when A. in hyperspace with multiple stops and B. when moving to exit the gravity well.
+ Auto-Attack Ranges move into the Attack button as separate modes of Auto-Attack. Iterated through by right-clicking. Old Auto-Attack button position will likely be used for more advanced AI stances.
+ Squads owned by hangars now appear in the module pipcloud so they don't clutter up the ship pip cloud.
+ When rotating the camera, strafing is now disabled.
+ Fixed bug with shiprequest count which made it show the net total requests on every ship.
+ Research infocard now states how many labs are needed to research a given subject.
+ Fixed bouncing Culture Lines.
+ Added UI and dialogue volume options.
+ Changed options to refresh from settings when you open them.
+ Fixed "can't change planet elevators option" bug.
+ Fix for objects disappearing when strafing the camera.
+ Added Research Window Pages to make room for improved research trees. Improved research trees are not included yet as they depend on assets not included with the beta.
+ In-game save-game window now has text lists for already saved games.
+ Text Entries now have the ability to select all text.
+ The Empire Tree is now fully interactable while paused.

+ Attack & repair circles are now more visible.

Graphics and Sound:
+ New TEC Trade Port art.
+ New TEC Dunov Cruiser art.
+ New TEC Marza Dreadnaught art.
+ Improved variance to starfield.
+ Fix for "all black lighting" bug.
+ Adding first pass unit sounds for almost all structures.

+ Fix for curved edge star fields on widescreen monitors.

+ Numerous lighting adjustments.

+ First pass adjustment on some of the scale/size of structures so they fit in better with planets and ships.

+ Fix for glowing asteroids.

+ New Flux Field Particle Effect.

+ Re-evaluated skybox-star combinations.

Modding:
+ Removed BEGIN and END tags from archive text files.
+ Simplified Archive format and made it more user friendly.
+ BuffInstantActions that use EntryVehicles now have proper EffectAttachInfo so the entry vehicles can be launched from the correct spot on the ship.
+ Standardized all ability, buff and weapon point strings in code and mesh files.
+ New flair effects system. The particle sim name is now built into the mesh point name instead of having to be linked up in the .entity file.
+ A lot more data driven material (can't reveal specifics).
+ A lot of other powerful mod support items we can't reveal yet but is there to use and discover

+ Planet colonization can now be constrained by research prerequisites (this may or may not make into the final but its now available for experimentation).

Misc:
+ Added autosave interval setting (currently only accessible from the file user.setting).
+ Adjusted autosave anticipation interval to be more accurate.
+ Fix a potential Cinematic Camera crash at the start of game.
+ Fixed memory leak.
+ Improvements to initial load times.
+ Numerous crash fixes.

April 5 - v0.62.010 - The Happy Easter Patch!

+ Fixed numerous crashes.
+ Fixed memory leak.
+ Fixed numerous string problems.
+ Fix for missing Repair Bay string warnings.
+ Fixed numerous font problems.
+ Fixed stuttering sound problem.
+ Fixed "Failed to Initialize" crash on startup. (Special thanks to momoguru)
+ Fixed bug where it was not possible to give an order if you moved the mouse slightly.
+ Fix for not being able to generate more than 5 solar systems.
+ Pause now pauses non-music sounds as well.
+ Autosave message now appears before autosaving instead of after.
+ Planets are now their own pip group for use in control groups.
+ Control groups are now fully expandable.
+ Increased Empire Window stacking size to 10.
+ New option to place black backdrop behind Empire Tree.
+ Changed sorting of structures in Empire Tree so defenses are first in the list and resource asteroids are last.
+ Added option to hide icons of refinery and trade ships.
+ Temporary improvement to icon visibility by darkening their edges.
+ Construction ship icons made smaller.
+ Added "Some Grouped" move button graphic when not all ships in selection are in the grouped Phase Jump state.
+ Improved efficiency of pre-Phase Jump positioning for ships using grouped Phase Jump.
+ Improved frigate explosion.
+ New starfield tests.
+ New skybox color tests.
+ Increased capital ship DPS per level.
+ Canceling structures under construction now cancels the one with the least construction progress. Ties are resolved by the time of queuing.
+ Numerous rally point improvements.
+ Right-clicking planets while selecting a group of ships in another gravity well will now tell them to move to it instead of bomb it.
+ Fix for camera instant zoom levels now working after strafing.
+ Repair Bay ranges are now rendered.
+ Repair Bay range reduced.
+ Multiple Research Labs are needed to reach higher tiers of research.
+ Standardized weapon cooldown for TEC medium lasers.
+ Further improvements to mini-dump system.
+ NOTE: Old save games will be broken!

March 31 - v0.61.009

+ New camera system trial run based on user feedback.
+ Fixed bug with fighters not docking when entering Phase Space.
+ New minidump system to improve automation of error analysis.
+ Trade and refinery ship icons drastically shrunk.
+ Trade and refinery ships removed from Empire Tree.
+ Trade and refinery ships no longer follow waypoints when they are built.
+ Fix for crazy trade income bug.
+ New control group icons added to the Empire Tree for better fleet management. They are not yet expandable.
+ Ships rallied to a ship in a control group will now automatically join that control group.
+ Some minor particle improvements.
+ Numerous performance optimizations.
+ Cleanup of unused assets.
+ NOTE: Existing save games will be broken.

March 29 - v0.60.004

+ Numerous reported crash bugs fixed.
+ Fixed cargo ship research.
+ Added the option to invert both horizontal and vertical camera rotation.
+ Changed the art of the main view pip groups to be less prominent (metal casing removed).
+ Default camera mode is now the attached camera mode.
+ Changed tutorial message window position to be less obtrusive.
+ Fixed a number of sound bugs.
+ Fixed a number of video problems related to alt-tabbing, resolution changes and loading intro movies.
+ Fixed queued up capital ship levels resetting.
+ NOTE: Existing save games will be broken (expect this to happen frequently with updates).

March 27 - v0.60.003

+ Initial Release

156,362 views 163 replies
Reply #76 from Sins Forums Top
it would be nice to at least receive an automated response from their server that it received my emai


if you send an email to [email protected] you will get an automated response
Reply #77 from Sins Forums Top
That is exactly where I have sent all my SmartException logs, etc., and I have not received a single response ... automated or otherwise.

Have you actually received automated responses? If yes, that probably means they have not received any of my emails.
The Political Machine 2024
Reply #78 from Sins Forums Top
every time i send in an error report with eg a savegame, i get this message:

Thank you for your email. It has been received by the bug tracking system for Sins of a Solar Empire and given a case ID number of ***** internally.

Please reference that case ID when referring to this submission in the future.


Reply #79 from Sins Forums Top
Hmmm.. when I send the minidumps I never get a response as well. But it goes to a different email as well.
Reply #80 from Sins Forums Top
The last patch was April 5; so 6 business days ago. I'm not being picky...


You may not be picky but the Canadian Government is. Good Friday (6/4/07) in Canada is a statutory holiday...except for the "distinct society" of Quebec where they observe Easter Monday as a holiday. Ppl will sometimes make an uber long weekend by taking both Good Friday and Easter Monday off...making the 5/4/07 release either 4 or 5 business days ago. Sorry for the confusion, I should have explained the 4-5 business days thing in my previous post.
Reply #81 from Sins Forums Top
Multianna,

On the automated reply what do they use in the 'Subject' of the email, or is it simply "Re:" whatever you used for a subject?

Also, is their email address on the automated reply shown as "[email protected]" or something different. I am just wondering if my company's email system blocks them ... possibly thinking they are spam.
Reply #82 from Sins Forums Top
Hyquist,

You were / are absolutely correct! I guess maybe I actually was 'being picky' even though that was not my intention. Good Friday and Easter Monday are observed as holidays by many people in the US as well.

Relative to SoaSE I am very frustrated with the CTD, and am anxious (too much so?) to get an update that fixes it. Thus each day waiting seems longer than it really is.
Reply #83 from Sins Forums Top
Remember that the purpose of this beta was to test the game on various types of machines for compatibility. So far, the game appears to work reasonably well on most everyones rig. Late game issues are something that I'm sure they are working on. However, such things can take time to resolve.
I do agree that when you consider the current state of the game, the devs should consider increasing the content of the game for further testing. As long as the platform testing appears to be stable, it is time to move forward. As testers in this beta stage, there is only so much we can test for platform compatability without changing our setup. Therefore adding more content will continue that process and determine the limits of lesser platforms - like mine.
Reply #84 from Sins Forums Top
Yorkie's right, time for more stuff. Either TEC or another race. For all we know platforms might take a down turn when the Advent show up. Theirs only so much TEC on TEC action a person can take.
Reply #85 from Sins Forums Top

Multianna,

On the automated reply what do they use in the 'Subject' of the email, or is it simply "Re:" whatever you used for a subject?

Also, is their email address on the automated reply shown as "[email protected]" or something different. I am just wondering if my company's email system blocks them ... possibly thinking they are spam.


My last subject was "game crash after 1min" so its nothing special vs any other bug. And its an automated reply, its not like they are choosing to reply to some. So i think your email is blocking them i guess. As ive always seen a reply from the same mail.
Reply #86 from Sins Forums Top
Updates to Beta 1 are done for now gang. Don't expect any additional patches for quite some time, possibly not until Beta 2.
Reply #87 from Sins Forums Top
Ah well its ok, I am having tons of FUN modding!
Reply #88 from Sins Forums Top
Updates to Beta 1 are done for now gang. Don't expect any additional patches for quite some time, possibly not until Beta 2.

!!!
this is something that sends off red flares. no updates for beta one???

that doesnt sound very "hands on" with the development process, sounds more like the beta was merely a crowd-pleaser. how are we supposed to assist with the final product during development if the only time we are getting fresh material is a couple months before release? even now we know that we havent gotten a sufficient portion of what you guys already have.
Reply #89 from Sins Forums Top
this is something that sends off red flares. no updates for beta one???

that doesnt sound very "hands on" with the development process, sounds more like the beta was merely a crowd-pleaser.


Beta 1 is about stability and compatibility testing. It's true that the devs have taken a lot of feedback in other areas, but that wasn't the focus of this first beta by any means.
Reply #90 from Sins Forums Top
If you encounter a minidump from a crash, are you supposed to email it in? I could have sworn I was asked if it (the game) was OK for it to send the dump. Also, I appearently had a previous minidump, but don't recall getting a message for that one. I will email them in, if need be.

I think my issue now is hardware limitations. My AMD 4000+ (single core) is the bottleneck now. Since there's an ungodly amount of "units" in my current game, I think my CPU is getting hammered.

Has anyone ever had the game start acting weird (totally sluggish) after a save game load, then after trying to shut it down, your SLI gets disabled? I had to reboot, re-enable SLI, and then reload the same save game...It worked after all that just fine.
Reply #91 from Sins Forums Top
Well haven't they already done all the compatibility testing. Last time I checked no more people could get in on Beta 1.

So what happens when Beta 2 is released, and instead of focusing on balancing and tweaking the races. Ironclad is stuck doing nothing for a month other then fixing issues for user stability and compatibility.

Kind of makes sense that you can't eat a cake when their is no cake (i.e. do full compatibility and stability testing with out the main features. Or more people in the beta)?

So not being able to overwrite saved games is not a stability issue?

So not being able to test the other races textures in a full on fleet battle against a completely different race isn't stability testing?

etc... etc...

Sentient is right, unfortunately for Ironclad. My guess is when Beta 2 goes live their are going to be more people with compatibility and stability issues then people complaining about how this or that race needs tweaking. Lets play it smart guys, you do not want to wait for Beta 2 just for more optimization. If you really want this game to succeed then you never stop updating until your consumer base has lost interest.

If this beta is about optimization and stability why stop patching it and fixing issues in Beta 1? Do you want to wait until Beta 2 and then announce your going to need a Beta 3&4? Just because you realized more people need optimization fixes and stability issues because your dumping a shit load more code on them.

I don't mean to piss you guys off, but I paid to get access to this Beta. Just like everyone else. You want our opinions, or at least thats what you said. And me and Sentient now agree on something, the idea of stopping the patching or update process completely until Beta 2 is a grave mistake.
Reply #92 from Sins Forums Top
BTW: Since no one has reported it yet and there might be a compatibility issue with the SLI drivers for dual G80s I guess I will. I suspect it is not the game however. When the SLI performance mode is set to "force split-frame rendering" you only get half a screen. The "force alternate frame rendering 1" works well however - for what its worth.
Reply #93 from Sins Forums Top
Allow me to rephrase:  Don't expect daily new builds or new builds every couple days like before.  They'll be issued when Ironclad has stuff that needs testing.
Reply #94 from Sins Forums Top
Allow me to rephrase:  Don't expect daily new builds or new builds every couple days like before.  They'll be issued when Ironclad has stuff that needs testing.


HEHE! You have to watch very closely what you say on these forums, as there's a few "testy" fellows onboard! LOL!
Reply #95 from Sins Forums Top

Allow me to rephrase:  Don't expect daily new builds or new builds every couple days like before.  They'll be issued when Ironclad has stuff that needs testing.


HEHE! You have to watch very closely what you say on these forums, as there's a few "testy" fellows onboard! LOL!


Indeed... I almost pulled out the sharpened spoon to show how upset I was...
Reply #96 from Sins Forums Top
Just so long as you clean up the blood...
Reply #97 from Sins Forums Top
Indeed... I almost pulled out the sharpened spoon to show how upset I was...

and i was about to tear the hair of my head... oh wait i did that a week ago


Well atleast there will be patches, thats better then nothing

So i wounder whats IC's plans are now. I wanna help out in some ways, but dunno what else to do now, as ive dont have any other problems after my new upgrade. Well only the late game crash.

Would be nice if there were some specific things they told us to test, or do

Reply #98 from Sins Forums Top
Try to break the game. Do weird stuff in-game and see if you can make it crash by doing the unexpected.
Reply #99 from Sins Forums Top
Beta 1 is about stability and compatibility testing. It's true that the devs have taken a lot of feedback in other areas, but that wasn't the focus of this first beta by any means.

and it still disturbs me. how are we supposed to comment on the gameplay and the "fun factor" if we dont get a proper chomp of gameplay until a few months before release?
Sentient is right, unfortunately for Ironclad. My guess is when Beta 2 goes live their are going to be more people with compatibility and stability issues then people complaining about how this or that race needs tweaking. Lets play it smart guys, you do not want to wait for Beta 2 just for more optimization. If you really want this game to succeed then you never stop updating until your consumer base has lost interest.

uh... not quite what I meant, but you have a point.
Allow me to rephrase: Don't expect daily new builds or new builds every couple days like before. They'll be issued when Ironclad has stuff that needs testing.

that is better. but I still think any major updates or factors that you guys consider implementing (i.e. a new way to move from one solar system to the next etc.) should be released for wide testing before being decided upon.
Try to break the game. Do weird stuff in-game and see if you can make it crash by doing the unexpected.

I find that difficult in this game... there isnt a ton of wierd stuff you can do with spaceships with little emphasis on micromanagement.
Reply #100 from Sins Forums Top
oh freakin A. Come on. That's just ridiculous. They value your feedback, they didn't invite people on as the Junior Design Squad.