The v1.2 BETA for Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity/Diplomacy players is now available! This update makes some changes to the game's engine and other core systems, so we're opting to release it as a beta before making it final.

IF YOU ARE NOT COMFORTABLE WITH USING UN-FINISHED UPDATES, DO NOT INSTALL THE BETA.

Since this is a beta, it may be buggy and do unforeseen things. If you're not able/willing to help test this out and risk strange things happening, please wait until we release the final version.

WARNING: THE BETA WILL INVALIDATE YOUR EXISTING SAVE GAMES!

BETA 4 HOTFIX CHANGE LOG

Novalith should no longer cause infinite stacking debuffs on targets.

Research screens should now properly show fleet supply numbers based on game options.

Fixed a bug where autocast would not work for many abilities.

Fixed a data error where the Destra Cruiser had the wrong fleet cost.

BETA 4 CHANGE LOG

[ GAMEPLAY ]

Advent Destra Crusader heavy cruiser now costs the correct number of fleet points. Communal Labor will now passively decrease module build time with a buff that stacks on the orbit body with every constructor ship. (Buff will disappear if the constructor ship(s) are destroyed.)

Pirates Pirate raid level escalation has been slowed down slightly for better overall progression.

Diplomacy AI players will now place bounty on one another based on many factors including diplomatic relationship level, overall threat level and simply avoiding the raid in general (like most human players). This makes Diplomacy much more dynamic in general as you can really play factions off one another. Missions that target or are issued by players who are defeated during the mission timer are now automatically cleared with no penalty for non-completion to the other player.

General Detect Mines range for all scouts has been increased to 6,000 from 5,000. This should make it easier to clear out mine fields, assuming your ship doesn't jump in right on top of one. Added a new AIUseTargetCondition for AntimatterExceedsAmount. This is being used on ships that steal antimatter to prevent them from autocasting on targets that are out of antimatter. If there are other abilities that could use better or new AIUseTargetConditions, let us know Some fixes to make AIUseTargetConditions more effective based on feedback. More mesh file fixes based on community feedback (thanks to all). Various other minor tweaks.



We expect this to be the last beta update for v1.2 of Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity/Diplomacy. Please let us know of any major issues asap. Beta 4 will be released later today (Thursday - 3/10)

BETA 3 CHANGE LOG

[ GAMEPLAY ]

TEC Strikecraft destroyed by the Dunov's Magnetize ability now give XP as intended.

Vasari Jarrasul capital ship's colonize ability adjusted to avoid crash issue. Thanks to ZombieRus5 on this. Disruptor Nanites ability now stacks correctly off missile defense platforms.

Advent Defense Vessel fleet cost reduced back to 4 points from 5, as intended. Thanks to in-the-sun on this.

Pirates After the fifth pirate raid, pirates will be able to purchase two upgrade levels per raid if they have sufficient credits. (This is a work in progress to adjust scaling of Pirate strength.) Pirate planet's base population has been boosted slightly (for increased income). Fixed a memory access error in the Pirate mission system.

General Tips that weren't being properly loaded should now appear. Various fixes for old crash bugs (thanks to the community on these). Various fixes to mesh files (thanks to the community on these).



BETA 2 CHANGE LOG

[ GAMEPLAY ]

TEC The Marza's Incendiary Shells ability will now correctly refresh itself with each shot and stack up to 3 times, as intended.

Vasari Orkulus Phase Gate upgrade will now work at stars. The construction boost passive of the Jarrasul colony capital ship now spawns extra construction ships over time, as opposed to all at once, to try and avoid crashes in the physics system.

General Starbases with trade upgrades will now work properly at stars. Resolved a case where ships set to auto-explore would attempt to travel to other stars without phase jumping. We'll need more info on this one if there are other instances where players see this happen.

Pirates Fixed mission timer bug where the timer wasn't properly syncing up to reality (i.e., the timer said a player couldn't place another mission when they could.) Pirates will now notify the player if they successfully complete a mission. Fixed a problem with pirate raid defs that could cause odd behavior for high level raids.

Misc Fixed some misspellings in various data files.



BETA 1 CHANGE LOG

[ Engine ]

The game engine has been updated in order to free up more texture memory. Players should generally use no more than 1.3 GB of RAM on Huge maps with all races represented now. We're very interested to see what everyone's experiences are with this, so please post back and let us know. You can find the total by alt-tabbing out of the game and hitting Ctrl+Shift+Escape, select the Processes tab and look for Sins of a Solar Empire Diplomacy.exe.

[ Gameplay ]

Pirates The Pirates system has been completely overhauled with this update. Rather than relying on random upgrades which could result in a huge power curve, the Pirates will now scale gradually in abilities, fleet size and power as a game progresses. The size of the Pirate fleet is now based off of the current raid level (Low, Guarded, Elevated, High, Highest) and there are now preset fleet compositions for each. Pirates now take into consideration the total amount of bounty on offer before sending out their fleets (at High and Highest raid levels). If there isn't enough booty on the table, the Pirates will send out a smaller fleet. This is to prevent 250 credit cheese scenarios that could spawn a massive Pirate incursion. Pirates have the opportunity to purchase upgrades after every launched raid. There are 20 levels of upgrades available to them which include bonuses to Armor, HP, Weapon Strength, Weapon Range; plus special abilities including Intercept, Quick Jump Calculation, Timed Explosives, Heavy Fallout, Embargo Planet and Sabotage Reactor. Basically if you let the Pirates live in a really long game, they will become very nasty indeed! The Pirate mission system via diplomacy has been updated. Players must now pay a pre-set credit amount to generate a raid (same fleet composition as for bounty-spawned raids). This eliminates the guesswork of paying too much/little and not quite knowing what you'll get (and makes issuing raids generally quicker). The Pirate base's population upgrade will now properly increase population growth rate.

TEC Balance Kol: Gauss Blast: Reduced AM cost from 75 to 50/55/60; increased damage from 325/650/975 to 400/725/1050. Flak Burst: Range changed from 2400/3000/3600 to 3000/3300/3600. Finest Hour: AM regen reduced from 5 to 3; HP regen increased from 10 to 15. Dunov: EMP: Range increased from 4500 to 4500/5000/5500; AM cost changed from 100/90/80 to 90/90/90; cooldown reduced from 50/45/40 to 40/35/30. Magnetize: Max affected strikecraft increased from 8/12/16 to 12/20/28. Marza: Incendiary Shells: Stacking limit increased from 1 to 3. Missile Barrage: Range reduced from 10,000 to 8,000. Hoshiko: Demolition Bots: Changed needsToFaceTarget TRUE to FALSE. Novalith Cannon: Cannon shots now cause a planet to suffer 100% reduced trade income. This effect will no longer stack.

Advent Balance Radiance: Animosity: Increased max targets from 8/16/32 to 12/24/36; effect now channels every second over 20 seconds instead of being an instant action so new targets entering the AoE are hit; auto-cast will only activate if 3 or more enemy ships are in range. Absorptive Armor: Increased armor bonus from 1/2/3 to 2/4/6. Rapture: Vertigo: Increased range from 4500 to 4500/5000/5500. Revelation: Guidance: Now a triggered, caster-based area of effect that affects friendly capital ships, frigates and structures. AM cost is now 90/100/110; range is 8000/8000/8000, cooldown is 50/50/50; buff applied grants 25%/25%/25% boost to ability cooldown rate, duration 20/30/40. Clairvoyance: Duration increased from 90/120/150 to 90/150/210. Communal Labor: Allows constructor ships to buff the rate of whatever a structure does (i.e., ship building) by flying within range of it. (NOTE: Sorry, this didn't make it into BETA 1.)

Vasari Balance Jarrasul: Colonize: Now grants additional constructor frigates instead of a structure build rate bonus. Gives 1/2/3 constructor frigates for 360/480/600 seconds. Skirantra: Scramble Bombers: Reduced expiry time from 120 to 75; reduced cooldown time from 35 to 30. Antorak: Distort Gravity: Reduced cooldown from 45 to 40. Vulkoras: Phase Missile Swarm: Increased range from 5000 to 6500; increased max targets from 3/5/7 to 4/8/12. Assault Specialization: Increased bonus damage from 60/120/180 to 90/180/270. Stilakus Subverter: Shield Disruption: Reduced Phase Missile Block reduction from 25% to 20%; reduced Shield Mitigation Reduction from 10% to 8%. Distortion Field: Reduced radius from 2000 to 1600. Kostura Cannon: Will no longer damage and stun enemy ships. Orkulus: Debris Vortex will now only activate when debris is in range of the effect. Debris Vortex's second level will now unlock correctly. Raider Xenophobia: Tech moved to level 5; reduced from 2 upgrade levels to 1; will now reduce the Pirate fleet size sent against the player by 1 level (i.e., an Elevated level fleet size becomes a Guarded level fleet). Pinpoint Bombardment: Increased range bonus from 0.1333 per level to 0.6667 per level.

Diplomacy System The Aggressiveness Rating for all players has been changed to be a random value between -1.5 to +2 (from -2 to +2). The calculation for Military Presence has been updated to look at the ratio of the players' used fleet points instead of just overall fleet points. This should make the overall diplomatic rating more balanced overall, especially at higher difficulty levels. We'll be looking for feedback on this. Added a new Trade Bonus modifier for diplomatic relations. Players who have a Trade Alliance will slowly gain a positive diplomatic relations bonus with one another as trade ships reach foreign ports up to a maximum of +2. If the Trade Alliance is ended, this bonus will decrease gradually back to 0.



[ AI ]

The AI will no longer max out all of its gravity wells with mines. Mine building is now based on AI type. This should help reduce memory use and improve performance.

Fixed bug where the AI would form a Pact, break it, and then immediately reform it if the players' relationship value dropped to a certain level repeatedly.

The AI will no longer send Envoys to non-aligned gravity wells where the player controls a resource (i.e., if you controlled a neutral extractor at an asteroid belt).

AI players will no longer "spam" the player with mission requests after a mission has been rejected. Each rejection will cause the AI to wait four minutes before offering another mission (culmulative up to 10 times for each consecutive rejection).

[ Interface ]

The far planet icons that show up when far stars are visible are now turned off by default. Hovering your mouse over the far star icon will now show the far planet icons (if visible). Alternatively, holding down ALT will now show all visible far planet icons.

[ Misc. ]

Fixed a couple errors in the entity files that would cause the game to crash.

Ability PhaseOutHull will now play the proper sound effect.

Adjusted max dot for graphics to 0.95 from 1. This should largely eliminate the strange white lines that would appear for some players on the edges of ships/structures. Special thanks to Aractain and Kitkun for this info!

Missions can now be rejected so long as there's at least half the original mission time remaining.

To update to the BETA, run the Impulse client and once you're logged in, click the blue button in the upper-left corner. Check "Show pre-release versions" and that will display the beta update. Update the game via the Update or My Games tab and that's it.

How to provide feedback

For gameplay related feedback, please post it in a new thread on these forums. One issue per thread, please - that'll make it easier to keep track of things.

If you encounter a crash or a multiplayer desync we will need you to send in some information to sinssupport@stardock.com.

For crashes: Send us your PC's dxdiag report, the Sins mini-dump file, and your latest save game. Please also provide us with any information or details you can about what was going on before the game crashed and if the issue is reproducible.

For desyncs: We will need the last saves for all the players involved and as detailed a description of what was going on at the time the desync occured. Also, please indicate if the desync is reproducible from your last save point.