This is the "Release" topic for the SoA 2 mod. Candidate for Mod Database's 2008 Mod of the Year.

SoA 2 0.03b adds the unified Dominion (with Cardassian, and Breen units) as a playable faction. It is the second part of the 0.03 series. You do not need 0.03a3 to play it. The 0.03b is complete. Delete any previous version of the mod and replace with the new version.  This is still a "Ships Only" Release. Structures, Defenses, Research, and Ability's are schedualed for the 0.04 update.

The SoA 2 "Work in progress" topic is here  https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/173883 All News, and updates will be posted there. Any non known issue bugs post over there.

Here is the Mod Database page. You can download the mod from here.  http://www.moddb.com/mods/star-trek-sacrifice-of-angels-2  If the download is not there yet. It is still processing. Keep checking. It takes a while for ModDB to process new files

Here is an alternate download link for 0.03b. The link will be removed when ModDB has the file up. http://files.filefront.com/SoA+2+003bzip/;12933985;/fileinfo.html

SoA 2 0.03b "The Second Dominion War" is the second of a two part release of 0.03. All four main factions are playable. We merged Manshooters Volumetric Explosions mod into SoA 2. While still a demo we are no longer going to use the term, because SoA 2 is starting to shape up into a full blown total conversion.

You MUST be running Sins version 1.1, 1.11, or 1.12 to play the mod. It will NOT WORK ON ENTRENCHMENT! or any other Sins beta. It also will not work on any versions of Sins before version 1.1

Read the Readme file for important installation instructions.

If you have an older version of SoA 2 just delete it from your mods folder, and replace it with the new version.

For best results install the SoA 2 mod on a clean install of latest update of Sins of a Solar Empire (version 1.12 as of this release).

Before you run the game for the first time after a clean install of Sins. Delete the "Ironclad Games" folder in c:\documents and settings\"your user name"\local settings\application data\. For Vista users its C:\Users\"your user name"\AppData\Local\.  BACK UP any other mods, and screenshots BEFORE you do this. This will ensure there are no stray older version, and/or beta files are in your sins installation.

Disable "Ship Mesh Highlight Filter" in your options\effects Otherwise you will see some wierd lighting problems with modded ships. We have not had time to adapt the modded ships to use this feature yet.

Disable any and all Team Color settings. There is a bug in how Sins renders team color in 1.1. It affects both the mod, and the default sins models. The Team Colors bleed through on the entire mesh. Both vanilla game ships, and modded ships are affected by this. Ironclad switched the specular, and team color shaders with the 1.1+ updates, but it seems like they failed to implement the code to render them correctly. Turn team color on and off to see for yourself. The mod doesnt use team colors anyway so you do not need this feature enabled. Ill post a bug report about this later.

The mod has been tested only on the US English version of sins. Other languages may, or may not work. If you are using a language other than English rename the "English.str" file in the mods strings folder to whatever language you are useing. Example: "German.str" if you are using the German language version.

Future planned updates:

SoA 2 0.04 will concentraite on adding all of the factions proper Research trees, Ability's, Structures, Defenses, and balance tweaks if needed.

SoA 2 0.05 will be the final spit, and polish of the mod before going into the final version. Anything that we couldnt get to do in the previous versions will be done here. Model, and texture tweaks, effects, sounds, more balancing, etc. will be all be refined if needed.

Enjoy the latest release of SoA 2

Major Stress,

Darkshimmer,

Trekmods,

Digital Underground.