4.10.0 is now live! This news post goes over the team's new members, includes a lengthy change log, and talks about the mod's plans for the future.

Posted by Lavo on Sep 9th, 2015

Before I go into the changelog, I wish to take a moment to welcome and introduce SoGE’s newest staff members. First we have Wawac, who has helped reorganize and sort the garbled mess that used to be our HUD icon sheets, in addition to making a ton of new icons. Second we have another icon wizard, Service_Disconnect. This wonderful individual has created unit pictures for all of SoGE’s planets, and has made a handful of new ability icons; going forward, he will be helping with new ability icons, concepts, and ideas. Lastly, we have mmeier1986, who has made a number of Sins programs, and scripts to help check for and fix a handful of errors. Going forwards he will be continuing this work and helping squish more issues over time.

Change Log:

Reduced AI’s bonuses, and also heavily reduced the chance of having a brain dead Easy or Normal AI. These two AI settings are now much more reliable, while not being overly difficult, or toothless.

Added in new tech trees for Alliance, Yuuzhan Vong, and New Republic.

Added several new abilities, and tweaks to Alliance, and Yuuzhan Vong, allowing for new play styles, such as ambush/hit-and-run tactics, and movement warfare, respectfully. The Alliance’s scout has the ability to cloak itself from enemy sensors, rendering it temporarily invulnerable. It also gains the ability to lay listening posts, which reveals the gravity well they're placed in, and later on can be used to create a HoloNet connection (aka. Phase node). The MC80 Wingless can also create a HoloNet connection via an ability. The Yuuzhan Vong are now extremely fast in hyperspace, all of their planets have a HoloNet connection upon colonization, they get all un-owned mines instantly build upon colonization, and gain access to a powerful tracking beacon ability, which when placed on enemy ships will reveal whatever hostile worlds they orbit, and create HoloNet connections for the Vong player to use.

Added in a number of new planet, ship, and structure pictures, as well as new icons.

Added in new specular (aka. light) maps, and bump maps, for a number of ships.

Improved the textures for a number of units, including but not limited to: Executor SSD, MC80 Home One, MC80B, MC90, MC40, Strike Cruiser, and XQ1 hangar defense.

Re-scaled all ships, save fighters, with reference to the ISD. In 95% of cases, the models were increased in size, ranging from 11% to around 42%. Exceptions to the “canon” scaling include, but are not limited to: Lambda, Sentinel, GR75, C9799, CR90, CR92a/Assassin, MC80 Home One, and MC80B.

Added in new models for several ships, including but not limited to: Venator, Victory SD, and MC80 Liberty.

Added in new color textures for some models, such as the ISD line.

Added in more powerful rear firing weapons for the MC80 Liberty, MC80 Home One, MC80 Wingless, MC40, MC90, and Geonosian SDN, allowing for full weapon coverage for those ships.

Added in unique pacts for all factions.

Added in a filler ability for ships without levelable abilities to act as an XP sink.

Added in hangar bay shields for a number of ships, and structures.

Removed Endurance fleet carrier, changed Majestic drastically into a frigate entity which houses a number of fighters, while still being a combat-capable cruiser.

Removed TradeFed II frigate from CIS due to needless overlap with Recusant.

Removed MC80a from Alliance lineup due to needless overlap with MC80 Liberty.

Switched Venator-class SD-Command for Victory I-class SD-Command.

Redid Lucrehulk DCS’ Droid Control Signal ability.

Removed range buff from all super-capital Fleet Command abilities, save the MC80 Home One. For the MC80 Home One’s range buff, tweaked it such that it will not stack with the range bonus granted by Coordinated Targeting.

Increased beam radius for Superlaser and Ion Dispersal Cannon abilities.

Did a number of other balance tweaks and coding fixes that unfortunately escape my memory.



Future Plans:

With this version released a year after the previous release, and with this release being seemingly sudden, undoubtedly some are questioning what the future has in mind for SoGE. Outside of the possible model improvement, and possible new abilities/research items, there is one elephant in the room that has never been properly addressed, and that is the mod’s performance. Simply put, SoGE’s performance in comparison to its peers is lackluster, and leaves much to be desired.

To that end, the next big endeavor, a multi-month long project, is the complete rebuild of the mod, to eliminate any and all resource leaks, and fix bugs that have yet to be squashed. SoGE is a very old mod, with work having started on it for the original -- not expansion -- Sins, and the current version was originally ported over from Entrenchment. As a result, there are multiple devil's hiding in the shadows, from ages long gone. This project will not be done quickly; with Sins of the Prophets I set up, and started a rebuild project which took a considerable amount of time. However, the end result was a mod that runs far, far more smoothly, and one that can be played with errors enabled. It is my hope that SoGE will reap similar benefits, and allow for a much smoother experience in the future.