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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 ]
163,097 views 137 replies
Reply #101 from Sins Forums Top
This is an even more smokin hot game now. Thanks again!!!!
End of quote


Indeed! with the coloured text bug fixed i can now play it properly
Reply #102 from Sins Forums Top
Notable unlisted changes;

Asteroids;
Reduced to 1 metal & 1 crystal. (Was 2/2)

Gas Giants;
Reduced # of metal/crystal spawns. (Was 2/2 or 2/1)

Ice Planets;
Reduced to 3 crystal. (Was 4)

Volcanic Planets;
Reduced to 3 crystal. (Was 4)

Ed: Note to the devs; I think we're gonna need a new Galaxy Forge.
The Political Machine 2024
Reply #103 from Sins Forums Top
I wonder what the purpose of reducing the resource asteroids was? I never had an excess of them before.
Reply #104 from Sins Forums Top
+++++++++++++++A STEP in the RIGHT direction++++++++++++++++++++++

Just a reminder to those who want to play with defensive strats. USE THE MODS!

Also THIS IS A PATCH NOT AN EXPANSION!

My wish list:

1) Viable Defensive strategy.
2) Biddable (tech, units,cap ship abilities)
3) Deeper personality (Fleet Captains etc)
4) Higher Cap ship levels.


Thanks for your hard work!!!



Reply #105 from Sins Forums Top
The data (ICO stats and singleplayer commentary) says siege is being used as a massed strike force (and in many cases, multiple strike forces). Its obvious why too: the cost and supply usage is low and you can't kill them quick enough to stop them (nor can you strike at them elsewhere in time). Thus they cost more and are more easily killed - we really want players to have to choose whether they go heavy siege and when and where they should strike with them. But if there is serious problems 1.04 is just around the corner (aka all the stuff that didn't quite make 1.03) so based on this we may end up meeting in the middle between 1.02 and 1.03. It's an iterative process. Regardless, we here at Ironclad are having more fun with it than with 1.02.
End of quote


Blair, I have to say I still have a problem with it. I think that siege frigate raids should be a very valid tactic, and I have used them a few times myself to great effect when the enemy hasn't been guarding their front lines. Feinting and sending in the siege should absolutely be fair game, but with this cost increase, they are practically worthless and hardly worth building even for mopping up. I would suggest a greater health decrease and a lowering of the cost- that way, they become hard to sneak past defended front lines (sure, that's fair) but can go the distance if I successfully draw the enemy off (that HAS to be a valid strategy!!).

At this point, I might as well send a cap ship.

Other than that, great patch, and I am glad you increased LRM range (it always seemed more like medium-range missiles to me...) although not sure how that is going to work with balance issues.

Edit: Decrease to resources on ALL planet types?? This is going to hurt Vasari bad... on games with less than 'high' resources, I ALREADY was having some trouble...
Reply #106 from Sins Forums Top
Wow! Great patch! Can't wait to see what comes next out of the works from you guys :D
Reply #107 from Sins Forums Top
-Fixed sometimes drastic frame rate drop when chat messages are displayed.
End of quote


I still get framerate drops from chat messages. Also, ICO lobby drops framerate when it's full of text, but not when it's empty or when viewing a screen without much text (player settings for example.) Basically it's just like it used to be...?
Reply #108 from Sins Forums Top
Amish Monster: I'm not sure you're going to earn a lot of support in thinking multi-player and single-player should be balanced differently. They are both the same game, no? If a balance change is positive for one format, it should be so for both, and unless you'd like to specify how this isn't true, please refrain from making vague statements.

Stardock/Ironclad: I'll have to play with the new unit adjustments (I just patched, but I'm on my way out). I like the way they look on paper, though. Increased LRM range especially: I'd found that their "long" range would only really allow them to get one salvo off before being closed on by enemy craft anyways, so this seems to allow them to fulfill their role of ranged support more effectively. Making siege units scarcer and softer is also something I approve of. Innociv raises an interesting point about balancing them with Capital ships, though. If his math indeed be correct, that does suggest a problem, as there would be no real incentive to make siege craft over a Capital ship? Aside from the cost of upgrading the slots available, but this would be balanced against the research time and cost for the siege prototype, and with a Capital ship you'd have more effective firepower on the battlefield, plus support abilities. Then again, siege units could be produced incrementally, making them available for use sooner, whereas you have to sit on your slowly waxing pile of credits before you can even start building the Cap ship, and then still wait for it roll out, etc. Given the amount of time it actually takes to wipe a populated planet, though, I'm not sure if the early arrival of a few siege units will make them a worthwhile trade-off? Food for thought, at any rate.
Reply #109 from Sins Forums Top
why this patch sucks?

1.AI that replaces dropping player loses all treaties
2.chat should stay in last target as before
3.it wasnt that hard to add a random teams option

i'm not even gonna comment the new economy :P

otherwise is good..
Reply #110 from Sins Forums Top
Where is promised option for faster game speed? There are all same old options. And new options added are nice but missing the most important one - kill rate.

New changes to black market are horrible BTW -severely imbalances whole game. Siege frigs didn't need nerf per se, what needed to be done is PJI fixed. and 700% is a very half assed fix.
Reply #111 from Sins Forums Top
Where is promised option for faster game speed? There are all same old options
End of quote


"Players can use the + and – keys in single player to control the game speed".
Reply #112 from Sins Forums Top
Also i hosted a game with high resources but they seemed to be random or medium instead.
(hope that works, seem you guys went for fixed number of asteroids - i liked the old way better).

If it's an equivalent system, well, it's for a faster game wich is good.
Reply #113 from Sins Forums Top
Thanks love the game. Special thanks to the Monk.
Reply #114 from Sins Forums Top
Where is promised option for faster game speed? There are all same old options
End of quote
"Players can use the + and – keys in single player to control the game speed".
End of quote


has been like that for over a month, they just mentioned it again for people who didnt read the 1.02 patch notes, hence the person you were replying to clearly meant multiplayer options..
Reply #115 from Sins Forums Top
I like most of the changes, but what's with the increase of siege frigate supply cost?? Even at 12 already it's a pain to get a decent siege force in early game, and with the cost now up to 15 it's gonna take twice as long to conquer a planet.
Reply #116 from Sins Forums Top
I really don't see any changes at all to the AI. If anything, the AI is way more stupid now than it was in 1.02. If you ally with an AI during an unlocked teams game, its really easy to see this. They jump in and out of places for no apparent reason, and play phase jump hop-scotch just like they always have. There were even a few occasions where, after I jumped in with an attack fleet, they flew around in a circle, then bunched up and tried to jump out of the system. A fleet that had been 4 capitol ships and 70 frigates strong was reduced to nothing by my fleet as they bunched up and failed to even get a quarter of their force out of the system before they were annihilated without even firing a shot. I thought the AI was changed so they would fight when the forces were slightly unbalanced now, but any changes that were made were totally unnoticeable.

I was looking forward to this patch because of the supposed improved AI, but even on the unfair difficulty they look even more stupid than before. Their tactics make no sense and they end up getting their fleets killed without causing any damage. In a 1v4 I eliminated a whole empire without my fleet taking a single casualty because I ripped their ships to pieces as they retreated from EVERY SINGLE ENGAGEMENT, just like before. That's pathetic! INTERDICTOR SHIP, HELLO, ITS THE ONLY SOLUTION!

Whatever you tried to do to make the AI better failed miserably.
Reply #117 from Sins Forums Top
Amish Monster: I'm not sure you're going to earn a lot of support in thinking multi-player and single-player should be balanced differently. They are both the same game, no? If a balance change is positive for one format, it should be so for both, and unless you'd like to specify how this isn't true, please refrain from making vague statements.
End of quote


This is actually the opposite of what I was saying, though I admit it came out kind of vague (several posts appeared between when I last refreshed and posted that comment, and then it wouldn't let me edit it). Basically I'm saying that while different tactics are going to be used more often in SP vs. MP (i.e. I've never seen an LRM spam in SP, but I get siege spammed all the time), the devs have to balance both fields of play effectively. I was responding to the people who only seem concerned with MP. I agree, the game needs to be balanced as one game and not to the latest rush strategy that's prevalent online, and I think they're doing a great job of that so far.
Reply #118 from Sins Forums Top
Thanks guys, you are a refreshing company in the wake of poopy ones, such as EA. Why make patches to fix patches? Thanks for the hard work and dedication to the consumer.
Reply #119 from Sins Forums Top
+++++++++++++++A STEP in the RIGHT direction++++++++++++++++++++++Just a reminder to those who want to play with defensive strats. USE THE MODS!Also THIS IS A PATCH NOT AN EXPANSION!My wish list:1) Viable Defensive strategy.2) Biddable (tech, units,cap ship abilities) 3) Deeper personality (Fleet Captains etc)4) Higher Cap ship levels.Thanks for your hard work!!!
End of quote


Sorry, but i seriously doubt that there will ever be anything put in for turtling. The devs have stated they hate that and love to kill people in games attempting such a thing. Normally i would be against this, but games would just drag on wayyyyy too long in sins.
Reply #120 from Sins Forums Top
Another bug that i noticed, if ships are disabled by vasari utility and i alt-select that group all ships don't move even if there's only one disabled.
Reply #121 from Sins Forums Top
What the hell were you guys thinking? You're making the game even less competitive than it already is. Quit tuning the game to support single player love. If you're going to make a multiplayer RTS than you need think about the impact you're having on people that actually play the game to get good at it and smash other people with their tactical prowess and knowledge of your creation.

Seriously.. you guys are making Forged Alliance patches look freaking amazing.

FYI - Not a good thing.
Reply #122 from Sins Forums Top
I agree that the siege frigate nerf seems a bit overdone...the pop requirement seems pretty high. I'm not going to embroil myself in the debate, though, since I'm definitely just a casual player.

I just signed on to request longer ship names :P If I can rename ships, I want to be able to have some serious fun with it. I want ships like the Screw Diplomacy and the Oh My God What Is That Thing. The--by my count--13-character limit seems a bit low. I mean, it's certainly not important by any means; it's just that me and a few of my friends would like to see it expanded.
Reply #123 from Sins Forums Top
not the roving gank squad that it was.Otherwise, looking forward to it!
End of quote


lol @ roving gank squad

that should be a unit type in itself its just too funny ;)

Reply #124 from Sins Forums Top
What the hell were you guys thinking? You're making the game even less competitive than it already is. Quit tuning the game to support single player love. If you're going to make a multiplayer RTS than you need think about the impact you're having on people that actually play the game to get good at it and smash other people with their tactical prowess and knowledge of your creation. Seriously.. you guys are making Forged Alliance patches look freaking amazing.FYI - Not a good thing.
End of quote


This patch doesn't tune it for single player. It was supposed to make the AI better...it didn't accomplish that at all, in fact I think the AI is worse after this patch. Besides the bug fixes, all this patch did was give the TEC a significant advantage over the other races, since, being the best race at acquiring credits, they can now buy as much resources as they want for much cheaper than before. No more 10,000 credits per 100 (at times), now it always falls quickly back to the base price. Races who depend on selling resources (Vasari mainly) suffer greatly from this patch. This didn't help or hurt single player games any more than it did multiplayer.

I've heard people complaining about the siege frig nerf too, but really, spamming siege frigates is a stupid strategy anyway. Don't take my word for it, AI players spam siege frigates too, because the AI is stupid. If they didn't make siege frigates weaker, than they might as well remove base defenses from the game, because everyone knows they aren't good at defending against much else.

Some of us can't spend hours playing online and want a decent single player, which, to this point, has fallen short. You're frustrated because they ruined the balance (though it wasn't that balanced before), and I'm frustrated because they can't make an AI smart enough to play the game they created. You're frustrated because now everyone online will be playing as TEC, spamming trade ports, and I'm frustrated since the damn AI won't fight me EVER unless I have 1 ship and they have 50.

It's a bad patch, I'm tired of people blaming it on the fact that "They're making it for single player NOOBS!" You know, not everyone plays it online, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve to have the game improved for single player, or that they suck at the game. Your probably still having more fun online than I am in single player, even with this patch. Single player in sins has been more frustration than fun from the start, and I'm about ready to give up on it until the Star Wars mod comes out or something that will distract me from how dissapointing its been so far.
Reply #125 from Sins Forums Top
My question is what isthe Bonuspack that was in the patch.... Atleast when i downlaoded it it said bouuspack.