July 8, 2011 9:42:50 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Ironclad Games and Stardock Entertainment are pleased to present the change log for Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity/Diplomacy version 1.3! This is a major gameplay update for Sins that practically rewrites much of the original design and balance for the game.

NOTE: THIS UPDATE WILL BREAK SAVE GAMES AND REPLAYS

[ Gameplay ]

Updated Diplomacy System - Substantially redesigned and rebalanced all the additions made in the Diplomacy expansion.

- Substantially redesigned and rebalanced all the additions made in the Diplomacy expansion. Relationship Factors: Changed to be more granular/randomized, based more on racial lore and take more internal gameplay actions into account.



Diplomatic Inclination: Reduced to a range between -0.10 and +0.25, randomized on game start. This is a starting factor that represents pre-existing like/dislike between factions based on previous (lore) interactions.





Racial Inclination: Substantially revised to represent the amount of innate tension/hostility between the races at start of Diplomacy's timeline. Players of the same race will always like one another somewhat, whereas players of differing races will mistrust or hate one another to some degree based upon lore (i.e., Advent hate TEC, TEC hate Advent, Vasari tend to dislike other races to some extent as they're viewed as inferior).





Adjacent Territory: Penalty reduced based on distance between players.





Missions: Updated Mission system (See below). Value varies based on conditions. Mission relationship bonuses can count over the +10.0 limit towards Pacts.





Mission Rejections: Value decreased from -0.25 per rejection to -0.10; capped at -1.5.





Fleet Strength: A ratio between each player's total to used fleet points. Formula revised to be less influential.





Military Actions: Variable factor that is now immediately based on players' military actions.





Destroying another player's enemy's ships grants a bonus to relations (based on the fleet supply of the destroyed vessel).







Destroying another player's friend's ships gives a relations penalty (based on the fleet supply of the destroyed vessel).







Destroying enemy/friendly civilian or tactical structures or planets now grants a set relations bonus/penalty as appropriate.





Diplomatic Actions: Variable bonus or penalty that now updates throughout the game based on the players' non-military actions. Becoming closer with another player's enemies will make that player like you less and vice versa. Values are based on active treaties and pacts.





Resources Given: No major changes. Positive relations is based on the units provided with credits being worth the least and crystal the most. Resource relations bonuses degrade over time.





Envoy Bonus: No major changes to what this includes. See below for Envoy ability changes. Envoy bonuses count over the +10.0 limit towards Pacts and will degrade if the Envoy leaves the gravity well.





Research Bonus: Static relationship bonuses that now affect both the player doing the research and other players' opinions. Values have been reduced per tech level. The Research Bonus can count over the +10.0 limit towards Pacts.





AI Relationship Bonus: This value only affects AI players and gives AI to AI relations an increasing amount of relations over time, capped to a maximum. The speed of the increase is based on the AI's difficulty level.



Envoy Changes:



All Envoy cruisers fleet supply cost reduced from 12 to 8.





Envoy cruiser build time reduced to 63 seconds.





TEC Envoy Abilities





Worthy Cause - Now decreases building costs within the gravity well by 15% for 60 seconds in exchange for a +0.03 relationship bonus per use.







Arbitrate Tariff - Now increases trade and refinery ship income by 15% for 60 seconds in exchange for a +0.05 relationship bonus per use.







Settlers (Passive) - Now increases the planet's maximum population by 25% for as long as the envoy is in the gravity well (bonus immediately vanishes otherwise) in exchange for a +0.10 relationship bonus.





Vasari Envoy Abilities





Mutual Threat - Changed to tech level 3. Now increases ship build rates and resource extraction rates within the gravity well by 25% for 60 seconds in exchange for a +0.03 relationship bonus per use.







Nanomedicine Outreach - Changed to tech level 4. Now heals planets by +25 HP/sec over 40 seconds in exchange for a 0.05 relationship bonus.







Grant Amnesty - Replaced (see below).







Xeno Defense (Passive) - Added to tech level 5. Grants the planet +1,000 HP in exchange for a +0.10 relationship bonus. These HP are immediately lost if the Envoy leaves the gravity well.





Advent Envoy Abilities





Cultural Assistance - Now decreases planetary upgrade costs by 10% and upgrade time by 5% (under Planetary Development) for 60 seconds in exchange for a +0.03 relationship bonus per use.







Sacrifice - Replaced (see below).







Harmony - Added to tech level 4. Grants the gravity well a 5% bonus to passive antimatter, shield, and HP regen rates for 120 seconds in exchange for a +0.05 relationship bonus per use.







Quell Unrest - Replaced (see below).







Cultural Integrity - Added to tech level 5. Makes the gravity well's planet immune to bombardment for 45 seconds in exchange for a +0.10 relationship bonus per use.



Pacts:



Pacts will now automatically break - without relationship penalty - if the relationship between both players drops below a certain threshold (typically 4.0 points below the amount needed to establish the pact).





Pacts that are intentionally canceled by a player will now incur a -3.0 relationship penalty.





Pacts now require that both players achieve the minimum required relationship level to form an agreement.





TEC Pacts -





Trade Pact: Relationship requirement reduced to 10.0. Now grants a 15% bonus to trade income, a 10% bonus to trade/refinery ship HP, and +2 to base armor for trade/refinery ships.







Metal Pact: Discontinued (see below).







Efficiency Pact: Added to tech level 4; requires relationship of 11.0. Grants a 10% speed increase to structure and ship build rates.







Missile Pact: Discontinued (see below).







Armor Pact: Added to tech level 5; requires relationship of 13.0. Grants +2 to base armor, 20% bonus HP per Armor Point to a maximum of 200 HP. Affects ships and starbases only (does not affect squadrons).







Siege Pact: Requires relationship of 14.5. Now increases planetary bombing damage by 10%, reduces bombing damage to owned planets by 10%, reduced population killed by bombing on owned planets by 10% and increases planetary bombing range by 5%.







Advanced Thrusters Pact: Added to tech level 7; requires relationship of 16.0. Boosts capital ship speed and maneuverability by 15%.







Supply Pact: Requires relationship of 18.0. Now reduces fleet supply upkeep costs by 15% and increases fleet supply by 100.





Vasari Pacts -





Resource Pact: Requires relationship of 11.0. Now grants a 10% bonus to metal and crystal extraction rates and a 15% bonus to refinery ship cargo capacity.







Pricing Pact: New Pact added to tech level 4; requires relationship level of 12.0. Grants a 10% reduction to purchase prices on the black market for metal/crystal.







Phase Pact: Requires relationship level of 14.0. Now grants the use of ally phase gate/stabilizer connections, gives a 10% reduction to phase space jump range (within the gravity well), and decreases phase jump charge times by 20%.







Nano Technology Pact: Discontinued.







Tactical Pact: Requires a relationship of 15.0. Now gives a 10% bonus to base weapon damage from tactical structures, increases tactical structure HP by 5% and increases tactical structure base armor by +2.







Structure Pact: Discontinued.







Pulse Pact: Added to tech level 7; requires relationship of 18.0. Grants a 10% bonus to weapon cooldown for Wave, FlashBeam, Plasma, LaserPsi, PulseGun and LaserTech weapon types.







Armament Pact: Requires relationship of 19.0. Now grants +1 targets per bank for all capital ships and starbases.





Advent Pacts -





Research Pact: Requires relationship of 10.5. Now grants a 15% bonus to research speed and reduces research costs by 5%.







Culture Pact: Moved to tech level 5; requires relationship of 11.5. Now grants a 5% bonus to maximum planet allegiance from culture, a 5% bonus to culture resistance, and a 2% bonus to weapon damage while in your culture.







Antimatter Pact: Moved to tech level 6; requires relationship of 13.0. Now increases antimatter capacity by 20% and increases passive antimatter regen rate by 5%.







Mass Reduction Pact: Added to tech level 5; requires relationship of 15.0. Reduces the mass for capital ships by 10%.







Beam Pact: Discontinued.







Energy Pact: Added to tech level 7; requires relationship of 17.5. Grants a 10% bonus to weapon damage for LaserPsi, LaserTech, FlashBeam, Beam, Wave, PulseGun and Plasma weapon types.







Anima Pact: Discontinued.







Shield Pact: Requires relationship of 18.0. Now grants a 10% bonus to maximum shield points, a 5% bonus to passive shield point regen, and a 10% phase missile block.



Missions:



Updated the Mission system to make it easier to understand/use, especially for AI players.





Missions now have fixed costs and rewards based on mission type and level.





Added Destroy Capital Ships mission type.





Added Send Envoy mission type.





Increased mission times substantially based on mission difficulty.





Reduced Mission Rejection penalty from -0.25 to -0.10 with a cap of -1.50 total.





Added reward bonus for completing missions based on current relationship levels. The higher your relationship with another player, the greater the bonus.





Mission failure relationship penalties are now half the reward by default.





Updated Resource Missions to give variable relationship rewards based on the amount and type of resources requested. Note - Both players must research the required tech before resource missions can be given/accepted.





Created new AI decision tree that allows AI players to better evaluate missions and decide if they will attempt to complete them or not. AI players will now immediately reject a mission they don't intend to attempt.



Treaties: Now require that both players have the minimum required relationship level.



Updated various flavor text to make more sense with the changes.



Added a bunch of new race specific flavor text for missions and pacts.



Changed late game research that negated racial inclination penalty to only reduce it by 75%.



Added second research level to each race's third relationship tech and rebalanced each.



Allies may now send each other missions in locked team games.

Constructor Frigates: Added new ability called Deconstruct. Will automatically cause constructors to tear down enemy structures within the gravity well (when you conquer a planet) so long as it can't fire back. Gives the current owner 5% of the structure's original construction cost.

Fixed bug in the Pirate Manifest for research and sound issues.

Increased Advent Illuminator front bank damage from 53.5 to 64.2.

Increased the antimatter reserves and passive regen rates on all race's hangar bays.

Time between AIs offering the player a mission has been increased from 3 minutes to 5 minutes (after completing or rejecting a mission).

Starbase trade research costs rebalanced for their respective tech levels.

Advent starbase culture upgrade research cost increased for its respective tech level.

Increased the cost of the Vasari starbase Phase Stabilizer research to match its tech level.

Fixed a bug (we hope) where the Pirate Mission timer wasn't getting respected for player assigned missions.

[ Graphics ]

Added new icon for Deconstruct.

Added new icons for new Pacts and Envoy abilities.

Added shield meshes for all race's Envoy cruisers.

[ Interface ]

Updated Relationship screen to be less confusing. Should make it clearer what's being shown and how to interpret the info.

Updated Relationship InfoCards: They now display both factions' current relations with one another, use proper faction icons and player colors.

[ AI ]