Mostly used for map makers if they want to make a starting planet a pirate base.

Yeah, dumb question.  I figured that out after I saw "IceHome" and "VolcanicHome."  Thanks for the prompt reply.  One last question before I pass out: where do I put the map to avoid the "instant defeat" message?  I've tried moving it all around, but I've read on here that the Users\username\Appdata is no good.  That's the only place I can find the Distant Stars map names.  I'll try pasting it everywhere feasible and see if any of it works.  Thanks again for the help!

Ah, looks like C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\GalaxyForge did the trick.  Sorry to bother.

More specifically, pirate home is guaranteed 2 of each resource asteroid, the other is not, the home version has more population upgrades, civil slot increases, and artifact search levels, and the normal one has 2 guaranteed bonuses (black market and plundered booty) whereas the home has neither.

Played my first really long match (200 planets, versus 8 hard, one unfair, FFA), and one thing struck me. After some time- even with low income rates, ships are so expensive I can pump them out non-stop anyway, which is something I'd hoped to avoid, to some extent. The time it takes for one average fleet to die on such a large map is very close to the time it takes to build a new one, and with the resource rates, I'd just end up spitting them out without any issue anyway.

So I'd like to propose a change to make larger games more costly even as they progressed and you got a ton of planets and thus income. I first thought of lower income rates, but that makes games horribly slow at the start. So rather, how does the idea of continuously increasing capital ship costs sound? I.e. first costs x amount of resources, then the next costs x+y resources, and the next x+y+z resources and so on. Seeing as how it's already in effect in some way (with the first one being free and all), I'd like it for at least to be considered, pretty please?

Pro and Con. Pro: It would make longer games a little harder, though probably not noticeably. Con: No sense of realistic economics.

I have no idea which way I would go on this. Odds are that, since I play the entire early game with 2 caps, I would never feel the pinch.

Well, income rates are what you make of it.  Adding in trade ports and doing the research for population and trade obviously increase the rates.  Late game you're supposed to have a powerful empire that can pump out the ships unless you're getting your ass kicked and losing planets left and right.  You can always abandon planets deep inside your empire and scuttle trade ports if you want to reduce your income rates.  I suspect, you'd be the only one doing it though.

I assume the whole deal using fleet supply upkeep as a percentage rather then a flat cost was a method to gut your wallet later in the game and essentially does the same thing.  Think about it, max fleet supply for someone with 300/sec income means their fleet upkeep is costing them 225 credits/sec.  Max fleet supply for someone with 2200/sec income costs them 1650 credits/sec.  What benefit does the higher cost get you?  Absolutely nothing, the 300 guy can field the exact same fleet as the 2200 guy even though the 2200 guy's remaining income is still higher then the total income of the 300 guy.  In real life the higher cost would gain you a hell of a much nicer, better equipped, better staffed, gigantic fleet over your opponent.  In sins, not so much.

Two problems with the x+y+z thing, first, it's not possible.  The game has no way of differentiating the cost of a ship based on the number you have built.   It reads a file that says this ship costs this much, and then stores in memory as you play you have this much supply available and you've used this much.  The two are unrelated, where expenses are concerned.

Second, when you build something, the more times you do it, the better you get at it and the cheaper it usually gets because you're faster and you refine your methods and needed materials lists so you have less waste, and as you expand you gain access to more resources and can pick and choose the cheapest supplier.  So if anything, the later you get in a game, the cheaper ships should end up being not more expensive.

Didn't really think about that last point, but it's true. The M1 Garand (for those of you who know me, yes, I'm going there) originally used milled trigger components with a certain heft to them. As the war went on, John modified the design to incorporate machine stamped trigger housings and created small hole, which reduced the amount of metal used while not harming the structural integrity of the components. This allowed them to go from ~6,000 made in 1938 to ~1.5 million in 1942.

In Sins, after about 5 hours of gaming, I should be able to make near double what our unit cap is at.

damn you Draakjacht for bringing guns again to the forefront of a conversation

oops sorry was channeling tseb there for a moment

I take it you've noticed the rivalry there too.

Well, what better way to draw parallels than with a wartime statistic?

This is a great mod, but the game crashes on me after 10 mins of play. Anyone have a fix for this?

I'm aware, it's just the way I like to run things.

Xer0 \^/

Turn your graphics down.

Edit:

Frequently Asked Questions

1) My game keeps crashing, is there anything I can do to stop it?
i) Are you running the game on maximum (highest) settings? if so, lower them to High or Medium, there is a known issue with the game using up too much memory, there is nothing we can do about this, also no matter how powerful your pc is, it is affected by this issue no matter the pc it is not above this crashing issue, it is a game problem not a hardware one, so quite simply lower your settings. If you still have an issue with crashing see point two.
ii) Give us as detailed information as possible about the crash, what was happening at the time of the crash, what races, ships, abilities were involved. If you can supply a Debug Log (see above for more information about logging) and post a bug report on our website.

dongsweep: Turn down your graphics, and turn OFF the skyboxes.

Xer0 \^/

For me skyboxes and a large tech tree do it. Turning off skyboxes and unnecessary details (clouds and debris if you continue to have problems) do a lot. In game, trimming the tech tree is a must. I set only fleets to auto-pin. Starbases automatically pin one way or another, but you can unpin them as soon as you finish upgrading them. With planets and such not cluttering up the side of your screen, you get better fps, more battle visibility, and faster fleet management.

Kinda fixed the issue....I copied the files from BailknightsGraphicMod-Ent1.05-R1 and added to the DS folder. Instead of every 10 mins it crashes after 40 mins or so.

will turn off skyboxes and see will it last longer or stop the crashing

So you added something already included...

Turning stuff down or off will only help it last longer.  Nothing short of rewriting the executable will stop the crashes.  The problem is the game simply runs out of memory.  The more stuff you have turned on, the faster it reaches that point.

The problem is being worked on in another fashion...

The Sins Optimization Project

Once the major parts of the game are optimized, I'm sure all the modding teams will incorporate the improvements in this mod.  That 2 GB Ram wall is being brought down quickly now.  (1.5 and holding in Diplomacy)

*climbs back up out of smoking remains of a computer* Okay! so, that didn't work. Was trying to fix the "OMG there's a tear in space and time!!" mesh goof up when running opti and DS together. Mini-dumped-very-hard @_@, copying over the skybox mesh  alone didn't work,(well it sorta did,  but it created extra paths and the 2 new skyboxes in the DS folder are listed as 1 and 2 and the ones in opti are 1 -8 so yeah >.>) anyway it worked for a while but with the files like that it made the game drag hard too(though that was my fault for editing the mod before deactivating it*hits self on the head in duh moment*) so, I can't copy over the skyboxproperties.skyboxbackdropdata files 'cause, then it would deactivate the ones in ds and I can't say I hate them(though they are a tad bright*rubs eyes*) they are interesting and I like them for that fact lol. so the only thing I can come up with is alterign the opti's mod and or DS mod's skyboxproperties file though I have no means or such to do so lol, so I come here with that request, or at least give you the heads up for that adding opti to DS plan, it one more thing you don't have to find out by stumbling around ^^

Tune~

(Official Distant Stars Member steps up to public release box)

This is an official announcement regarding The Sins Optimization Project. We are currently working the mod into our own for the sake of better game. It is our hope that with this combined with the many optimizations that we have already developed ourselves will improve the game and mod that we have all come to love and enjoy.

That is all.

(Official Distant Stars Member steps up to public release box)

Baba-booey baba-booey Howard Stern's penis baba-booey baba-booey

That is all.

Hahahaha.

Hey all, I just Downloaded DS mod, but i cant seem to activate it. Every time I activate it from the mod list the game freezes and a minidump error occures.  can anyone tell me whats wrong?

I have the original SoaSE, v1.05 and i downloaded the most recent version os DS.

This is why. You need Entrechment and/or Diplomacy. The vanilla (original) SINS version is not up to date, even then it required you to have 1.14 - 1.181. Which you cant get unless you archived it. And since your running 1.05 then Im guessing you not updated at all using Impulse. I know there was a small attempt from a few people to get a working Vanilla version for the 1.19+ version of SINS.

You will need to update your version at the very least to even think about getting it to work with Vanilla Sins.