Don't mean to sound pushy, but was there going to be an update to this for Diplomacy released soon?  I'm planning on doing some major modding (again, 'cause I just got Diplomacy) but I'd rather wait if you all are going to update some files again.

yes, its the first download on the list, its been up for a while

(we will soon update that when the devs update diplomacy, which should be soon)

w00t! 100 pages

I've been a silent fan of this mod for a long time, but playing a bit last night gave me an idea that I really need to share. (probably not at the right time since you guys are very busy atm but I forget what I don't write)

I don't know if this is intended but I've noticed that when you give a mission to pirates to attack a planet, they seem to stay there and even reinforce (unconfirmed). (could also be a bug because the AI thinks it never completed the mission)

Anyway, this gave me an idea to make pirates more interesting on a strategic level. Kind of like ambassador ship, any of their ship could have an ability that render neutral planet lawless, making them less viable to colonise until decay of the effect, kinda like the diplomacy bonus you retain after your envoy ships leaves a planet. (less taxe income from corruption, less trade income from risk of raids, less culture spread rate from being unlawful)

so, this will be kinda like the novalith cannon: use it carefully because denial of territory works for everyone since the pirates will stay to defend this neutral heaven (surviving ships of the original attack basicly), making it harder to retake, plus it will be lawless for a certain time after the pirates are gone. For balance however, this should only happen when pirates are set on missions and not when they just go out for a normal raid to prevent this to happen too early in the game. If not, the first person to suffer from a pirate raid will never recover, most map having few planet to colonise early w/o tech requierement.

Anyway, just wanted to share this. Keep up the good work! I really enjoy this mod! By far my favorite.

Cheers! and back to silence  

If the devs release their update tomorrow, we should be updating on the evening not long after the official update is released all going well, I have alot of work I need to get done for you guys before tomorrow (as im busy all day tomorrow 'til the evening UK time which is usually when patches are released).

Another of the Silent Society of Distant Stars speaks?! is nothing sacred these days?
That is actually an interesting suggestion you have there, and infact its given me an idea for a similar pirate related planetary debuff. Definetely worth looking in to, thanks for the suggestion Sicarii.

We've finally hit the 100 page milestone, thanks to you all for supporting us for this long and hopefully a long time to come. I was doing some checking the other day and since January 1st 2010 we've used over 800GB of bandwidth, almost as much as we did in the entirety of last year in just two months (averaging over 20-30GB bandwidth usage per day in February alone).
Anyway back to work on the next patch for me, no time for my ramblings!

I was playing last night (with no crash, amazingly enough), and I was hit by no less than twelve pirate cap ships, and about 50+ other ships. A transcendancy starbase with two planetary defense transmitters, two fighter bays, and four repair bays are all it took to hold them off, but I was still a bit put back by it...  since there were four computers hitting four of my planets with 200+ ship fleets at the same time.

They weren't expecting to get thwomped and then my 8BB,6CA,2BC fleet w/ 100support ships start thwomping their homeworlds one by one. I swear it was like a wrecking ball.

Will vanilla Sins still be supported?

I want to ask for permission to use the mod for my first steps in modding. I want to create a quest map and i think your mod raises very much my chances of succeeding.

Also, as I am not a person who just asks and expects to receive for nothing, I wanted to contribute by uploading a fully functional Galaxy Forge for Diplomacy (That means all bonuses and artifacts work, although there are a few steps to be taken care of). I know that you (modders) of course have it, but there's no download link in the main post and i wanted to make map-creating a lot easier for the casual modders.

Now, about the Galaxy Forge. You need to overwrite the GalaxyScenarioDef from Distant Stars/Gameinfo folder with the one from the Galaxy Forge folder. After that, all will work like a charm

Here's the link -> http://www.filefront.com/15613845/GalaxyForge.zip

I hope you like it

eventually, getting entrenchment and now diplomacy is taking much of our time, plus what is in entrenchment adds some much to the game that anything for vanilla will not be nearly the same.

@Masakary - No problem man, thanks for asking and yeah we wouldn't mind a refreshed version of Galaxy Forge for DS appreciate the hard work

have some Karma man

Yesterday, me and my friend were playing a map I made, it had all the planet types and a secret cluster, consisting of 2 Ancient Citadels and the Consiousness of The Unity ( I know I can't type), which were insanely hard to get to, aquire and defend, because I thought they would be cool and usefull and very powerful and valuable things to own, until I found out the the Unity was nothing more than a planet and that the Citadels were empty. Please increase the the chance that Ancient Citadels house artifacts and give the Unity something special, for starters a substantial size increase, so that it's not the same size as a star base and some special bonus, ability, or it having an artifact only it has, and it will always have, that adds something, that is totally advent, like 50% more strikecraft for all squadrons, or a faster shield regeneration rate, you get the idea.

yeah, those things were from another mod we incorporated into DS

can't effect the artifact thing (thats only a universal modifer) but we will see about the other ideas

Honestly, if you use the forge you can force the citadel or any other place to spawn an artifact. (Using Masakary's Forge you can add in any planet bonus you want as well. Refer to reply number 2482 for the link.) Editing the planet's properties and changing a couple things can make it happen.  You lose the randomness of the artifact being spawned, but then again, does it really matter if you know every citadel you come across will spawn an artifact?  Random artifacts is what all of the other planets are for.  Just add a cluster of citadels and spawn all of the artifacts that way.  Not being a code monkey, I can't reliably edit anything for you to make it happen the way you want, otherwise I would.  Here's some images to refer to.

and just so you can see the in-game result

Artifact on every one.

Edit:  Now that I think about it...  If you do it this way and still want them to be somewhat random, create 12 citadels, assign each one an artifact, connect all 12 to a star or planet that will always show up in the game (like a hub and spoke wheel design), and then change each citadel's spawn probability to some randomly chosen number like .38 (gives a 38% spawn chance).  Then each time you load the game, the citadels themselves will be randomly in the game.  Sometimes you'll have a few, sometimes none, in rare cases all of them...  It should vary which ones show up each time you play it.

Thank you so much, +1 Karma for the help, also while we are on the subject: being an Advent player, I can sure as hell dig the planet type you added, but what about the other races, maybe the TEC could have a Galactic Trade, but to make it interessting, instead of it increasing trade income (kinda obvious) it will lower the Fleet Upkeep, how does this make sence, well imagine a gigantic space station (it will use the trade port model) that handles all of the accounting of the empire, redistributes resources where they are needed most, logically distributes money so that ship crews that aren't doing anything are not recieving the same amount of creds as the frontline fleet, works closely with scientist to better exploit new energy sources. To make ti balanced, all races will be able to take it, and this ability will be upgradeable and it will cost a lot.

Vassari will have a Stellar Porticulus, which will allow them to jump to any object, that they have been to, from it's gravity well, for a big cost and will not be able to jump ships smaller than a cruiser, so that it's balanced. Model whatever you pick.

And ofcourse the Advent as I posted above might have a shield regen increase for all their ships, or extra strike craft squadrons or more craft per squadron, anything which will be usefull. Also please redo the model, as I was thinking of having the same starbase model, only bigger and with a temple of communion in the centre, that would look ballin'.

If I have any more ideas I will post.

Seems some rather interesting things are involved in the Diplomacy edition.

In regards to GalaxyForge New...

Where do you find out what all of these bonuses DO? I can't find a list anywhere... or maybe my googleprowess sucks. I mean, Bonuses like:

BigAss, Atmo+, Black, CorroA, Design J/1/2, HardAss, Impure C/M, Lions, Looks +/-, Military, Smug +/-, WarTorn, Wood, Wood again, and Wood++ ???

I'd like a full list of just what all of these bonuses do.

This mod looks really cool, and I can't wait to try it out.  Unfortuneately, every time I try applying it in Diplo (v1.00, in the correct folder and everything), Sins just locks up and does nothing.  Checksum value is correct, and its fine up until I hit the "apply changes" button.  Tried this several times, but after the 2nd force reboot cuz my display was stuck on frozen Sins and wouldn't alt-tab or bring up the desktop I came here.  I've got the right version, in the right folder, playing w/ the right version, and for some reason it just doesn't wanna give

Did you update? I am not sure, because I haven't tried it after I updated, but did you update today?

We really had nothing to do with the planet types. They all came from either Celstial Bodies or Sins Plus. The Advent Citadel and (place mispelled word here) of the Unity are from CB. They were made for a single map they made for that mod. We can see about maybe adding something to them and maybe the other races special planets,though Im not sure if we want to add anymore planet types.

You and me both! All of them came from Sins Plus. So if there is a list of them is sure to buried with that mod. You can convert them to txt and take a look at each one. But there are about 100 or so. I'll look around for a list when I get a chance.

If you have updated to 1.01, DS wont work.

Nice mod guys!

Have a couple of questions. First, will the minimods included in the extras folder for the entrenchment version work with the diplomacy version? I'm guessing not, but thought I'd ask anyways.

Also, did the Pirate capships and starbase get a major upgrade between the entrenchment and diplomacy versions? After finishing up a map last night, I decided to try and take out the pirate base. My fleet, almost 20 capships all max or near max levelled, with large support complement, and fully research upgraded, was decimated by the defenders, with just 5 capships and a much smaller supporting fleet on top of its starbase. I know the pirate base is supposed to be hard to take out, but I don't remember it ever being quite that tough.

Anddd the patch is fially here, sorry for the slow release guys. It's been a long day!

Diplomacy only release:
Patch:
http://distantstars.mmobase.com/diplomacy/Distant_Stars_(D)_Beta_0.6_Patch_[36815926].7z
Full Download:
Currently uploading, will be available on the 19th patch up from Beta 0.5 'til tomorrow.

Distant Stars (D) Beta 0.6 Change Log:
- Diplomacy 1.01 Compatibility
- Complete Replication of current Entrenchment settings
- New Planetary size icons
- Incorporating Diplomacy 1.01 Changes
- As always other misc changes
- Fixing portrait pictures*
*There is a known issue with the portrait pictures, working on fixing it for the next patch

I warn you all now there was only one internal patch which didnt include the majority of changes that this patch applies so they havent been tested as thoroughly as usual, however the patch should be as reliable as our normal work, just a quick heads up incase it doesnt. If you do find any issues, you know where to find us and we'll fix the issues asap.

As always, Enjoy!

The mini-mods wont work with Diplomacy just yet if you plainly copy them across to the other (the next release of Diplomacy will start to include the mini-mods again) as Diplomacy adds some new lines in to the files the minimods use.

The pirates being so overpowered as they were (Pre Beta 0.6) was due to the developers additions in Diplomacy which added in Pirate research causing the Pirates to become incredibly powerful and sadly until they patched the Pirates there wasnt much we could do to stem the problem. The new patch should help with this somewhat.

Huzzah!

You want the bonuses???  Ok.

Non-Colonizable Space        Condition

Asteroid Belt (Dwarf/Huge)    Erratic Debris (Chance to hit -20%)
Black Hole            Grav damage 1/2 (range 16k/8k, dam 20/500), grav pull 1/2 (range 19k/10k, max speed +3k/6k, accel -3k/6k)
Deep Space            Cabin fever (wep cool -15% wep range -15% dam out +10% hit chance -15% hull restore -5% shield restore -5% max speed -7% accel +7%)
Magnetic Cloud            Abilities Disabled
Nebula                Chance to hit -30%
Plasma Storm (Dwarf/Giant)    Strike Craft Launch Disabled
Ship Graveyard           
Space Junk (Dwarf/Huge)        Scrap Materials (Hull Restore +10%)
Wormhole            Wormhole Interference (Wep cooldown +5%, Chance to hit -5%)


Star Conditions:        Target

Light Pulsar Radiation    range 10000, damage 5 (Companion White)
Light Solar Radiation    antimatter restored 1.3/sec (companion RedYellowGreenBlue)
Magnetic Storms        Abilities Disabled (Blue Magnetar/Companion 2meta)
Pulsar Radiation    range 10000, damage 10 (White)
Solar radiation        antimatter restored 2.5/sec (RedYellowGreenBlue)


Planet Conditions:            Target        Function

Ancient Planetary Shield (Relic)    All        Cannot be bombarded or captured (4 min on/off)
Asteroid Debris                All        Wep Range +5%, Damage reduction -5%
Barren world                All        Hull restore +3/5%, Phase jump charge rate -3/5%
Careless targeting            All        Wep cooldown +5/8%, shield restore -5/8%
Extended hours                All        Wep cooldown -3/8%, Hull restore rate +3/8%
Free Reign                All        Hit Chance -5%, Hull Restore +5%
Huge Industrial Factories (indus)    Friendly        Ship build rate +40%
Mass Casualties                All        Wep cooldown -5/8/10%, damage reduction -5/8/10%
Origin Defense                Friendly        Damage Output+10%, Damage Reduction -5%
Overgrown Land                All        Max Speed +3/5/8%, Acceleration +3/5/8%, Phase jump charge time -3/5/8%
Paradise                All        Max Speed +15%, Acceleration +15%, Phase jump charge up rate +15%
Pirate Origins                All        Wep cooldown +5%, hit chance -5%
Solar Reflection            All        Antimatter restore .5/.8/1/sec, Wep Cooldown -5/8/10%
Storm Season (Swamps)            All        Uncolonizable (8 minutes on/off)
Targeting Array Network            Friendly        Weapon range +50/65%, Damage output +10/15%, Chance to hit +50/65%
Toxic Gases                All        Antimatter restore +.3/.8/sec, Shield mitigation -5/10%
Urban Colonization            All        Wep Range +3/5%, Max Speed -3/5%, Acceleration -3/5%
Violent Gases                All        Damage output +5%, Hull restore -5%
Volcanic Ions                All        Antimatter restore .5/.8/1/sec, Wep Range -5/8/10%


Exploration Bonus:            Function

Abandoned Smugglers Base        Tax income +1, trade income +40%
Active smugglers base            tax income -2, trade income -60%
Adhesive resin                trade incone +25%, dev build cost +10%
Ancient planetary shield (damaged)    Planet health +700
Ancient planetary shield (working)    Planet health +2000
Automated defense droids        Max pop -100, Pop growth -100%
Beautiful population            culture spread +40%, trade income +20%, pop growth +30%
Black Market (pirate)            trade income +500%
Breathable Atmosphere            Max pop +200, Dev build cost/rate +50%/+50%, pop growth +20%
Brilliantly designed buildings        max pop +250, planet health +500, pop growth +20%
Caustic Atmosphere            Max pop -15, Dev Built Cost -20%
Completely hollow core            Gravity well radius -66%
Completely Overgrown            Max pop -100, Planet health +800, Development build rate -90%, Pop growth -50%
Conductive Mantle            Culture spread +25%
Constant flooding            Max pop -20, dev build cost -40%, Dev build rate -40%
Construction Droids            Struct Build rate +50%, Dev build rate +100%, Extra constructors +3
Corrosive atmosphere            planet health -100, trade inc -1, dev build cost -50%
Deadly Secret                Max Pop -1000, Planet health -10000
Dense Canopy                planet health +600
Dense Jungle                Max pop -10, Dev build rate -75%, Pop growth -30%
Dense Molten Core            Grav well +33%
Diseased Planet                Max pop -20, tax income -2, trade income -50%, struct build rate -100%, dev build rate -100%, pop growth -90%
Entertainment Hub            Culture spread rate +10%, Tax income +1/sec
Expert Agrarian Society            Trade income +10%
Expert metal miners            metal extraction rate +50%
Expert crystal miners            crystal extraction rate +50%
Extremely valuable timber        trade income +50%
Floating Fauna                Max Pop -5, Trade income +30%
Floating islands (Gas giant)        Max pop +25
Foul Smell                Culture spread -20%, Max pop -20, trade income -10%, Dev build rate -30%, pop growth -10%
Fresh water oceans            max pop +50, trade income +75%, pop growth +30%
Frequent Meteorites (Asteroids)        Max pop -20, Metal/Crystal extraction rate +30%
Friendly Religious Population        Culture spread rate +60%, population growth +20%
Frozen gas core                Max population +5, Planet health +300
Frozen over                Dev build rate -75%
Galactic Trade Center (Urban)        (normal/dwarf/giant/moon) Tax income +3/2/4/1/sec, trade income +40/30/50/30%, pop growth +20%
Gas storms                Max pop -5, Planet health -200, pop growth -25%
Geothermal Hot Spots            Logi slots +4
Giant Fungi Forests            max pop -10, trade inc +40%, dev build cost -20%
Gravitational Anomoly            Logi slots -4, Tac slots -5, Grav well raiis -100%
Gravitational Boon            Logi slots +4, Tac slots +5, Grav well radius +100%
Habitable Cavern System            max pop +15, Planet health +500
Helium Rich Atmosphere            Trade income +25%
Hideous Population            culture spread rate -20%, trade inc -50%, pop growth -30%
High security protocols            Tac slots +5, Trade income -20%
Hostile Religious Population        culture spread -30%, tax income -1
Huge Comm station array            Culture spread +100%, Tac slots -8
Huge crystal processing plant        trade income +10%, crystal extraction +200%
Huge herds of cattle            max pop +40, tax inc +0.5, trade +20%, pop growth +20%
Huge metal processing plant        trade income +10%, metal extraction rate +200%
Impure Crystal                trade income -10%, crystal extraction rate -60%
Impure metal                Trade income -5%, Metal extraction rate -60%
Indigenous Carnivores            max pop -20, dev build rate -20%, pop growth -60%
Indigenous satellites            Culture spread rate +20%
Industrial Wasteland            Culture spread -30%, Metal/Crystal extraction rate +30%
Ionic Storms (Gas giant?)        Max pop -20, Trade income +10%
Kalanite deposits            trade income +20%
Massive Pure glaciers            Trade income +30%
Mega Fauna                Max pop -15, Trade income +25%
Militaristic population            planet health +1000, log slots -4, tac slots +10, tax -2, trade -20%, extra constructors 1
Moon                    Logi slots +4, grav well +25%, Structure build rate +10%
Moons                    Logi slots +8, Grav well +50%, Structure build rate +20%
Natural Radiation            Dev build rate -40%, Pop Growth -80%
Natural Thermal Lift            Structure build rate +25%
Old military outpost            Planet health +1000, tac slots +10, extra constructors +1
Orbital Construction Specialists    Log/Tac slots +4, Struct build cost/rate +30/50%, Extra Constructors +2
Penal Colony                Structure build cost +20%, Structure build rate -30%
Perfect holiday destination (paradise)    Culture spread rate +100%
Persistent Dust Storms            pop growth -25%
Pharmaceutical Flora            Trade income +20%, Pop growth +20%
Planetary Construction Specialists    Planet health +200, Development build cost/rate +30/+50%
Planetary Insurgency            culture spread -20%, planet health -150, tax -2, trade -30%, metal/crystal rate -50%, struct/dev cost -20%, struct/dev rate -60%, pop growth -30%
Planetary revolt            culture spread -10% planet health -100 tax -1 trade -10% metal/crystal rate -20% strct/dev build rate -30% pop grwth -10%
Pleasent Rodents            culture spread +40%, trade +20%
Plundered booty (pirate)        tax income +3.5
Porous Core                Grav well -33%
Precious Stones                Culture spread rate +20%, Logi slots +4, Trade income +50%
Priceless timber            culture spread +20%, trade income +80%
Raiders Outpost                Metal extraction +20%, Extra constructors 1
Scented plants                Culture spread rate +20%, trade income +20%
Seismic Activity            pop -20, planet health -100, tax -1, dev build cost/rate -30%/-10%
Signal interference            Culture spread rate -20%
Slaves                    trade income +10%, struct build cost +30%, dev build cost/rate +50%/+20%
Solar Energy Harvesting            Max pop +15
Space Ponies                Space Ponies!
Spice trade                Culture spread rate +5%, Trade income +10%
Stable Debris Field            trade income +20%
Storm ridden planet            max pop -50, dev build cost/rate -20%, pop growth -40%
Strong Building Materials        planet health +500, trade income +10%, dev build rate -20%
Submerged colony            Max pop +140, Planet health +800
Subterrainian Colony            Max pop +80, Planet health +1500
Super Dense Core            grav well radius +66%
Super Pure Crystal            Crystal Extraction rate +200%
Super Pure Metal            Metal extraction rate +200%
Thaw Cells                max pop +25
Thick Atmosphere            Planet health +1200
Tibanna gas (gas giant?)        tac slots +2, trade income +5%
Toxic Fallout                Max pop -30, Pop Growth -25%
Traces of oxygen            Max pop +50, pop growth +20%
Tundra Farms                Max pop +25
Unstable ground                Dev build cost/rate -50%/-20%
Valuable timber                Trade income +30%, Dev build cost +10%
Vermin Infestation            Tax income -1, trade income -30%, Dev build cost/rate -20%/-20%
War torn planet                culure spread -40%, planet health -200, logi/tac slots -4/-6, trade/metal/crystal -30%/-20%/-20% struct build -40%, dev build/cost -20%/-60%, pop growth -50%
Weapons test facility            Max pop -20, Tac slots +8
Well designed buildings            Max pop +100, planet health +200

Most of them are pretty self explanitory for which bonus gives them, rodents- is vermin infestation, rodents+ is pleasent rodents...  A note about the dev build cost and structure build cost, when I first started making this list a couple months ago, I was just going off of visuals...  in the game if it said cost 40% in red I wrote it as -40% to keep it similar to all of the other bonuses when in fact it's actually an increase in cost.

Wow, someone does take serious notes. Thanks Stant!

Everything minus the Exploration Bonuses we added or was in the orginal game. Most of the Explorations Bonuses came from Sins Plus. And maybe a few from CB. So, it seems Ive gotten all of them minus one....Dame space ponies. Go figure right?

Thanks for the quick response, and the latest patch. I can't wait to try it out!

Also, Space Ponies, WTF?

Space ponies... What do you think the Vasari are running from?  They're here too...  Be afraid...  Be very afraid....  =D