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Sins of a Solar Empire v1.03 full change log

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Sins of a Solar Empire v1.03 full change log

Smarter AI, better multiplayer, new game setup options and lots more...

from Sins Forums

Greetings! Ironclad has been hard at work on an update to Sins based on player feedback. We've got lots of new features in this build that we hope you find compelling.

Version 1.03 will be released later this week. We can assure you that we are intensively play testing this new update over. And over. And over. Because we love you guys, we are going that extra mile in making sure the update is just right by playing it all day and all night sometimes. That's the kind of sacrifice we are willing to make just for you! :)

Here is the full list of changes:

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Sins of a Solar Empire v1.03 Changelist
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Gameplay / Balance:
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-New Game Options Screen:
-Locked/Unlocked Teams
-Fleet Size
-Pirates or No Pirates (arrrr!)
-Income Rate Speed
-Build Speed
-Ship Speed
-Research Speed
-Culture Speed

***REMINDER***
-In singleplayer you can accelerate / deccelerate time by pressing the +/- buttons respectively. I'm mentionning it again because this request is coming up a lot even though it was implemented in the v1.02 patch.

-New Market System:
Highlights:
-Random fluctuations in addition to user influence on price.
-Can cause crash or boom by selling/buying too much.
-Known exploits removed.
-Can now buy and sell resources on the market in large increments again.

-Improved Group Phase Jumping for large groups of ships. The group will only wait for 90% of the value of the ships to be ready. The stragglers will follow shortly after. Typically, its only a couple ships that cause the whole operation to stall so this should eliminate the majority of problems.

-Research subjects queued in different fields can now upgrade in parallel.
-Overseer's Nanite Reactive Armor ability can now properly stack heals (but not the armor and max HP bonus).
-Kostura Cannon now only disables enemy units and structures at the target planet as originally intended.
-Autocast for many disabling abilities improved.
-Disciple's Transfer Antimatter no longer targets other Disciples when autocasting.
-Transfer Antimatter can no longer target entities with full antimatter.
-Can't attack unbuilt structures anymore.
-You can now change game options when loading save games.
-Defeated players can no longer give or be given resources in unlocked teams games.
-Defeated players can no longer place bounties in unlocked teams games.
-Fixed unintended halving of galaxy culture coverage in the game statistics. Pop Idol achievement is now actually achievable.
-No pirate maps removed due to new game option to remove pirates.
-Large and Huge random maps split into single and multi star system variants.

-Mission durations increased by 10 mins.
-Mission failure penalties to happiness reduced.
-Rebalanced happiness losses for killing various items (Killing enemy scouts no longer causes a loss of happiness).
-Phase Jump Inhibitors:
-cost reduced slightly.
-slot cost reduced from 3 to 2.
-jump charge rate penalty increase from -250% to -700%.
-Passive allegiance shift rates increased by 100%.
-Allegiance shift rates from culture increased 25%.
-Illuminator, Javelis, Assailant:
-Increased credit cost by approx 10%.
-Increased resource cost by approx 20%.
-Increased range by approx 30%.
-Illuminator and Assailant survivability tuned to be proportional to Javelis's on a per supply basis.
-Siege Frigates:
-Survivability reduced by ~20%.
-Build cost increased by ~25%.
-Supply cost increased from 12 to 15.
-Development Mandate research subject's max level reduced from 2 to 1.
-Tier 1 research times increased approx 40%
-Tier 2 research times increased approx 20%
-All other tiers research times increased 5%


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Graphics:
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-Fixed sometimes drastic frame rate drop when chat messages are displayed.


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Sound / Music:
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-Sins handles no soundcard now.
-Added sound option for varying music vol in battle.

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AI:
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-AI now knows how to surrender (based on time elapsed, relative economy, relative fleet value, resource reserves, and allied strength). Also, an AI player will not surrender if he has a human ally.
-AI is now smarter about retreating and is willing to commit local suicide or accept local Phyrric victories if the global gain is higher and will also factor in local allied forces.
-Fixed various AI researching and building stall outs for the various trees (military in particular).
-Rewrote AI siege building and attack logic.
-Improved AI use of Black Market.
-Autocast for many disabling abilities improved.
-New AI Difficulty "Unfair" that gives the AI a tax income bonus and resource income bonus from resource asteroids (there is no other AI cheating in the game even at the Unfair difficulty level).
-Wide variety of AI upgrades.
-Improve AI taunting.

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Networking / Multiplayer:
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-AI will now take over for dropped players.
-You no longer have to kill all a dropped player's planets to win even when the AI takes over for him.

-Unified the in-game and ico chat system. They now share the same irc/wow like commands. Full autocomplete with tab/shift-tab. Autocomplete will attempt to either complete the name field or cycle through the available names.

/r - doesn't take in a name for the second parameter, will send automatically to the last player who send a whisper
in-game same as ico

/wr - allows you to autocomplete with

-You can now send whispers to players with spaces in their names by using quotes. Autocomplete properly handles these names.

-Rewrite of ico friend status. all clients are now kept up to date on the current status of every friend at all times. This allows for a more friendly ui, the friend list is colored to show who is logged in/playing games. There are globbal events to notify the user of what friends are doing. This can be disabled like the channel notifications.

-Channel name list now saves the visual and selected state on any change, so it is now possible to select players on busy channels.
-There is now a setting for if the user wants to see "


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UserInterface / HUD:
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-Added culture flipping planet event.
-Made the use of 'strike craft' when refering to both fighters and bombers more consistent (often just fighters before).
-Various text color updates.
-Improved description of Development Mandate research.


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Modding:
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-Can now mod in different textures without copying the entire texture directory.
-Fixed corrupt particle effects when loading mods up in-game.


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Misc:
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-Various crash fixes.
-Game stats infocards now sort by value.
-Game stats now track the number of active units instead of built so that the graphs are more interesting.
-Game stats no longer tracks the number of units lost in combat as this was confusing with number of units killed and the information is now apparent from the number of active units stats.
-Scenario names are now localized, no longer use the filename, but instead use a string inside the file.
-Removed no pirate maps (not needed as its a game option now).
-Other very minor additions and changes.

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End
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The next stop is the demo version and then it's on to v1.04.





[ 1.02 changelog ]
163,111 views 137 replies
Reply #76 from Sins Forums Top
QUOTE: With regard to the 'can't attack unbuilt structures' item, why can other players even SEE the 'blueprint' of a 0% structure? It doesn't even exist, it's just a note on a clipboard somewhere. It shouldn't even be visible until a constructor drives over and starts building it, which would prevent the enemy magically knowing as soon as you order buildings exactly were they'll be once completed.



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Reply #77 from Sins Forums Top
This is going to be a very different game! I think the LRM changes look interesting and possibly very good. We'll have to see how the games go with the changes.

I really don't get the siege changes. I have to agree that they seem nearly worthless now.

The other changes look immense. This is a major update and I think the whole game will take re-learning, especially in SP. This is great, as I think the majority of early-adopters have exhausted the SP game as it was. The listed changes could really improve replayability. Excellent!

Siege suggestions:

Supply Cost: Like other ships: 6-10 supply each, normal build times. But lower effectiveness with other game mechanics:

1. Siege Infrastructure before much population / health are significantly affected.

So, 60% of damage would slowly erode planetary upgrades (except explore). 40% of damage would 'get through' to population / bunkers. Or 70/30, or whatever. This way, developed planets would last longer in siege, but the pain would still be significant. Besides which, this is a believable mechanic: Bombing hurts infrastructure. How/why would you target the population (motile) with 'bombs', but leave infrastructure intact, only to disappear when all the people are dead? If you target the people, maybe captured planets should have previous upgrades 1/2 working from the start? But if you target infrastructure, or everything, Logistics and Population upgrades should be eroded concurrently with population.

This also fits with the ground-assault mechanic, which would be a nifty add-on to the game. But for now, why not nerf siege frigates (and all siege) by adding some survivability and gradualism on the cheap? Spread damage into upgrades. Done.

2. Have each level of Planet Health provide a buffer before any damage is taken: 10 seconds / level would help.
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Reply #78 from Sins Forums Top
all the people saying advent are hit hardest, I dont really think thats true.

advent have the best scouts for dps/survivability per supply/cost, yes I make many scouts as advent when going vs vasari who started making assailants.
advent have access to a lot of fighters much sooner than tec/vasari via getting carrier cruisers sooner and the hangers sooner and the best early game (pre tech 4+) dps for fighters.

3 advent hangers (without the upgrade) can kill 3 LRM's every 12 seconds, now this might be nothing in endgame, but its quite a lot in early game where the lrm rusher first attacks you with 15-25 lrm's or with the new costs it would be closer to 11-18 lrms.

Reply #79 from Sins Forums Top
advent have access to a lot of fighters much sooner than tec/vasari via getting carrier cruisers sooner and the hangers sooner
End of quote


Thank you for pointing out what seemingly all the posters so far seemed to ignore :P
Reply #80 from Sins Forums Top
This should significantly increase teching, and therefor reduce game duration, yes?
End of quote


no, the game isn't won by research. this change just ensures that the players will all have everything researched by about 2/3 the way through the game.
Reply #81 from Sins Forums Top
I like virtually all the proposed changes. Should help things a lot. As a TEC player, the reduced development mandate will hit me hard, but I'll live :p

I do agree that seige frigates have now become utterly useless. I agree with reducing their survivability and perhaps the cost, but further increasing the supply slot? I thought that 12 was excessive already. At 15, I can build only three seige frigates for the supply cost of a capital ship. Of course, the cap ship costs much more in fleet logistics and raw cost, but we all know that supply is the real limiting factor as it is directly tied into your economy.

This said, my play style won't be affected. I never (...very rarely...) build seige friagtes anyway.
Reply #82 from Stardock Forums Top
I too like the changes, especially the lag gone during text popups. However I'm disappointed that the vasari weapon effects are still going to vanish all the time forcing a save/reload. It gets really tedious late game.
Reply #83 from Sins Forums Top
However I'm disappointed that the vasari weapon effects are still going to vanish all the time forcing a save/reload.
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As far as this goes, I know the devs are aware of it but as far as I know it's been pretty elusive to track down the cause. They are trying :P
Reply #84 from Sins Forums Top
Good news on the crash fixes, and the player quitting fixes. No mention of the migrating issue ? So if in a let's say 3vs3, the host dies, the game is over early ? Why is there a host at all if mutliplayer networking was supposed to be p2p ?

Since 99.2% of sins customers play single player only, this according to the data released on the forums, it's obvious 99% of the balance changes will go towards single player. Many ICO games are vs AI, even pure multiplayer games tend to become vs AI once defated players quit, in which case the others will build nothing but siege frigates if they want to finish the game, or quit. So the stats aren't realistic, because after the players quit, they have to clean up using siege frigates to finish the game.

Now multiplayer is (probably) a tec/vasari game of who spams more lrms. This if the host doesn't quit for whatever reason, then in multiplayer you have to consider this and never kill the host if you want to finish a game (lol). Lrms were already powerful enough, now they receive a boost in range, soon they will have to just stand in the center of a gravity well to be able to hit anything that enters :D

This boost in range makes LRMs invulnerable to planetary defenses, and with a few flaks added in they are immune also to hangar defenses. For advent, if this wasn't bad enough, vasari assailants receive a boost, making them the ultimate advent killer. Some players here say that the range boost makes it more difficult to counter lrms with defense vessels/flaks/sentinels, i'm not sure about this, i would have to verify if i do some more multiplayer games (to be more specific, multiplayer games NOT vs the AI).
Reply #85 from Stardock Forums Top
I too like the changes, especially the lag gone during text popups. However I'm disappointed that the vasari weapon effects are still going to vanish all the time forcing a save/reload. It gets really tedious late game.
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Oh I have no doubts they are trying to track it down. :) It just makes me sad since Vasari happen to be my favorite race to play as. I'm quite patient though and have faith they'll smash the bug eventually. Since I don't play online it's not a huge deal since I can fix it manually, it's just irritating lol.
Reply #86 from Sins Forums Top
advent have access to a lot of fighters much sooner than tec/vasari via getting carrier cruisers sooner and the hangers soonerThank you for pointing out what seemingly all the posters so far seemed to ignore
End of quote


Yeah 5 carriers are going to do great against 25 assailants with 20% higher hp and 9k range.
Reply #87 from Sins Forums Top
Congradulations on being able to randomly pull '5' and '25' out of nowhere :P
Reply #88 from Sins Forums Top
-Improved Group Phase Jumping for large groups of ships. The group will only wait for 90% of the value of the ships to be ready. The stragglers will follow shortly after. Typically, its only a couple ships that cause the whole operation to stall so this should eliminate the majority of problems.
End of quote
Drat. I would really prefer for the group to wait for 100% of the ships to be ready. When I want a precision launch and arrival, having any stragglers at all diminishes the impact of that arrival.

Reply #89 from Sins Forums Top
Drat. I would really prefer for the group to wait for 100% of the ships to be ready. When I want a precision launch and arrival, having any stragglers at all diminishes the impact of that arrival.
End of quote

That would be nice, yes, but as long as the ships actually jump in a timely fashion then I have no complaints. Right now I normally notice capital ships pushing each other out of the way. A couple of times it's become an almost endless loop preventing a phase jump. 90% should be a quick fix to the problem.
Reply #90 from Sins Forums Top
-Siege Frigates:
-Survivability reduced by ~20%.
-Build cost increased by ~25%.
-Supply cost increased from 12 to 15.
End of quote


I counted 13 complaints about the Siege Frigate hypernerf in this thread. The cost and supply increases are ridiculous, making them absolutely useless units from the somewhat useful position they had. The survivability thing is fine. Maybe you could try tuning the AI to let off on those siege rushes a bit, instead of trashing the unit to the point that they are merely a waste of memory and processing power.

On the other hand, this makes the Vulkoras Desolator, Jarrasul Evacuator, Revelation Battlecruiser, and Novalith Cannon more important as units, with the Marza Dreadnought, Kortul Devastator, Kol Battleship, and Radiance Battleship also getting usefulness boosts to a lesser degree.
Reply #91 from Sins Forums Top
oops, seems to be out right now, just patching via sdcentral... hehe
Reply #92 from Sins Forums Top

Yeah.. Advent relies on the defense vessal early in the game to stop enemy LRMs,
End of quote

Use scouts if you can't tech to fighters yet.
Reply #93 from Sins Forums Top
this all looks good I'm going to go play a game now to try these out, thank you for your hard work. can't wait to see what you have in store for the next patch.
Reply #94 from Sins Forums Top
Hmmm, I think Advent are okay against LRMs.

-Scouts, as mentioned
-Early, early access to fighters, both defensively and on cruisers
-If you're worried about early game LRM spam on your capital ships, choose appropriately and use Vengeance.
Reply #95 from Sins Forums Top
interesting, however has the ways to get easy wins on ICO been fixed? or is that for 1.04?
End of quote


The various exploits reported have been addressed.
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just checked, neither of the things I was referring to were fixed (doesnt involve other players at all and tried it on my account with under 4 games, not a real account).

hopefully it will be fixed by 1.04.
Reply #96 from Sins Forums Top
-Research subjects queued in different fields can now upgrade in parallel
-Can't attack unbuilt structures anymore.
-Tier 1 research times increased approx 40%
-Tier 2 research times increased approx 20%
-All other tiers research times increased 5%
End of quote


This should shake things up.

Very disappointed that there's no fixes for the obviously mod-limiting hardcoded slots limit. I very strongly hope this is in 1.04.
Reply #97 from Sins Forums Top
Sweet it's out!!!! I need to go play it now!!! SEE YA'LL (jumps through hole)
Reply #98 from Sins Forums Top
If they had included a Campaign Mode into single player I could see why they should be concerned with balancing single and multi but w/o it, putting any effort into single player mode seems pointless.
Reply #99 from Sins Forums Top
If they had included a Campaign Mode into single player I could see why they should be concerned with balancing single and multi but w/o it, putting any effort into single player mode seems pointless.
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The beauty of a game with such an epic scale is that a campaign mode isn't really needed. Every game becomes a campaign in and of itself. Even if a campaign existed I would still think that the vast majority of single player games would be the skirmish style games vs. X number of computer AIs.

The big downside to this epic potential is that they keep breaking the damn saved games with their patches. What good is a game of such epic scale that it can last months of casual play if you have to restart it 3 times every month?

A campaign would still be a welcome addition in my opinion, but that is more a matter of having some sort of resolution to such a good game intro than needing a directed play style. It seemed like a very interesting story to build an intro for and then more or less drop.