[MOD] Distant Stars - Rebellion Alpha 0.13 Released! [17/06/13]

Published on January 5, 2009 By Nacey In Sins Modding

Article Link

Feedback of any kind is always welcome. Ideas, balance changes, and bug reporting of any kind is always useful!

Version 1.00 Released!

Make sure to ask for permission before republishing any part of this mod to the public!

Downloads

Rebellion Logo

1.05 + DLC Compatible:

0.12 ALPHA Release:
Full Download:
http://distantstars.mmobase.com/rebellion/Distant_Stars_(R)_ALPHA_0.13_[45189661].7z

Full Download MIRROR:
http://www.moddb.com/downloads/distant-stars-rebellion-alpha-013

MD5: 69486D2FCD3F35E46E6F5EF8C9F1634A

Diplomacy Logo

1.34 Compatible:

1.01 Release:
Full Download:
http://distantstars.mmobase.com/diplomacy/Distant_Stars_(D)_1.01_[45685832].7z

1.051 Compatible:

Beta 0.9951 Release:
Full Download:
http://distantstars.mmobase.com/entrenchment/DS_Entrenchment_Beta_0.9951_[36672852].7z

1.14 - 1.181 Compatible:

Version 1.01:
Full Download:
http://distantstars.mmobase.com/soase/Distant_Stars_v1.01_[453701567].7z

Make sure to ask for permission before republishing any part of this mod to the public!

Multiplayer Games:
We've setup a thread for everyone to organise their multiplayer games in and also setup example times and dates for most people to meet up and start games. These are what we hope to be the main times for people to be around and want to play games together.

The times are:
4pm EST (9pm GMT) Saturdays & Sundays
9pm EST (2am GMT) Saturdays & Sundays

If you want to organise other games please go ahead using the same topic to consolidate all the information in one place and hopefully get more games together within our community. These games are for PvP, PvAI & PvPvAIso come along and we'll get some games going!

Screenshots:
We've setup a thread so you can all post your screenshots to share with us the Distant Stars team and its players. Im sure we're all intrigued to see what kinds of battles and events you've all been having on the mod aswell.

Lore:
We know some of you guys love to role play whilst using Distant Stars, and here's a topic for you guys to post all of your role playing stories, character profiles and anything else you can imagine.

Maps:
Some of you avid map makers out there have produced some great maps but never really had them recognised because they've got lost. Well here's a topic for you to post a link to the download (we can even provide mirrors if necessary) a screenshot or two of the map for us all the preview and if enough people like it we'll even include the map in with the actual mod!

Please visit our website and for more information, change logs, downloads, and to report bugs. Our website can be found here: http://distantstars.mmobase.com

Bug Reporting

If you want to report a bug please use the Bug Report feature on our website:
http://distantstars.mmobase.com/?m=reportabug

Please include as much information as possible, if you have an error log feel free to post it on these forums and we'll take it from there. If you can reproduce the error please include the error log (read below to find out how to enable error logs) and include as much detail on how to reproduce the problem.

To enable logging:
Windows Vista/Windows 7:
C:\Documents and Settings\<Your Windows Username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Setting
or
Windows XP:
C:\Documents and settings\<Your Windows Username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Setting

Open the user.setting file (using Notepad, Wordpad or any text editor) and scroll down to the bottom 7 lines from the bottom is the line:
LogOutput FALSE
Change FALSE to TRUE
LogOutput TRUE

and from then on any Log files will be saved to the debug folder:
Windows Vista/Windows 7:
C:\Documents and Settings\<Your Windows Username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Debug
or
Windows XP:
C:\Documents and settings\<Your Windows Username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Debug

If you get these log files to us (you can just paste them in to a forum post) we can hopefully get your issues sorted.

Frequently Asked Questions

All files are compressed using 7Zip to shrink the download filesize. To extract these files you must use WinRAR or 7Zip.
Any Patches should overwrite the original install directory, either by extracting over the original folder, or cut/copy & pasting over the existing file/folder structure.

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.

2) The loading screens and portrait pictures dont appear properly, whats wrong?
i) This is an issue with ATI based graphics cards (rarely affects Nvidia based cards) we're looking in to the issue.

3) Why dont you support converting Distant Stars in to TXT format?
i) Quite simply many things can go wrong with converting your mod to TXT, we cant help you with something you've probably broken yourself.

4) Can I mod Distant Stars for myself?
i) Yes you can however please do not distribute our mod or our mod that you have edited to the public. You must ask for permission to do so, we will regrettably stop distributing our mod to all if users abuse our work.

5) Your mod is in BIN format I can't edit the files, what can I do?
i) You can convert the mod to TXT format however we wont offer any support to versions of the mod that have been converted to TXT.

6) Why is Distant Stars distributed in BIN format?
i) Mods load faster in BIN format and are less likely to have issues in this format.

7) I'm having trouble installing the MOD, do you have any more instructions?
i) Carbon was kind enough to do some more advanced instructions out here.

8) Is there any way to make new maps for Distant Stars using GalaxyForge?
i) Within the Distant Stars Extras folder there is a folder called Galaxy Forge, Copy and Paste this folder (or its contents) over your original Galaxy Forge folder (or its contents) replacing any files if it asks you to. When you start Galaxy Forge next you'll be able to use all of our planets.

Or, the DIY approach (without custom icons):

ii) The GalaxyForge supplied by the devs will still work with our Mod, however to be able to access all of our planetary bonuses, templates, planet types and stars you will need to take our GalaxyScenarioDef.galaxyScenarioDef (found in the GameInfo folder of the mod) and place it in to your GalaxyForge folder, overwriting the original GalaxyScenarioDef.galaxyScenarioDef (if you still wish to make maps for the original game keep a backup of the original file). This will allow you to use all of the Galaxy changes included in our mod.

Note: Any maps made for Distant Stars will not work with other Mods. See #8.2 for DIY instructions for map making or take the appropriate files from Entrenchment, they're cross-client compatible.

Some statistics...

Since August 2009 to February 2011 we have had over...

400,000 Unique visits to the website
12,000GB (12TB) of data transferred from our website

That equates to over 60,000 Unique downloads of the entire mod, excluding the excess of 20,000 Patches downloaded.

Thanks to everyone that has supported us this far and making our mod as popular as it is!

dyMRNwSFh9gw

Comments (Page 101)

1501

TheRezonator

on Nov 06, 2009

two small glitches ive found:

1: when a frig factory or cap ship factory is destroyed while building something, the ship it was building is still visible after the structure is destroyed (this is without any of the extra mini mods enabled)

2: pirates tend to attack whomever they please. i had an asteroid 2 jumps away from a pirate base that had another phase lane to the local star. yet, the pirates attacked me instead of going the more direct route to the target with the most bounty...

other than that nothing yet, aside from the usual mini-dumps and crashes caused by the highest graphics settings, but on high there are no problems at all

well done!

1502

Ryat

on Nov 06, 2009

Twosteps

reply 1495

Quoting -Ue_Carbon,
reply 1494

And for MP its as stable as any SINS can be. Just make sure yall have the same checksum. Otherwise wont work.

By Checksum do you mean game version, or something else?

When you active the mod, in the upper right hand corner of the menu you will see a number (ex 34826167) this number has to be extact for all who are playing against each other. My suggestion is for everybody to keep a clean copy of DS will having a seperate to mess around with.

1503

Ryat

on Nov 06, 2009

Koiju

reply 1498

Great mod, thoguh one or two possible balance issues, mainly that tec seem a bit...handycapped earlyer game due to the 6 logistics slots for labs, i understand thats to balance the fact they now get +10 logistics total, but its a bit steep since it takes 6 civic labs to get that tech.

But then maybe thats the intention?

Anyway, just wanted to say that im glad the dynamic movement is going to be OPTIONAL, as I personly really don't like the sound of it, sounds like its going to be a right pita due to the various pbaoe capital ship buffs not hitting all your ships cos eveythings moving around too much!

[EDIT]: oh, is tehre an easy way i can 'remove' one of the new planet types? Personly i find urban planets to be a bit too OP and wouldnt mind being able to scrub them, at least from the 'random-colonizable' and 'random-mix' tables so they dont show up in my random maps.

I think you are playing an earlier version, the 0.90 (released on Wed 11/4) reduced the cost back to 4 points

yes there is a way to remove from the random area, go into galaxyscenariodef.entity file (warning make a copy of this file, one mistake here can ruin the game). under anything "random" remove the word "city"

1504

Thilock

on Nov 06, 2009

Just want to say thanks for a really great mod(s). Really impressive.

Though I have two questions.

1) The Advent Defend Laser structure cost 1000 credits. Is that on purpose or a bug?

2) Will there be a "normal tech tree" version of the mod for people who like a quick 1v1/2v2 small map?

regards

Thilock

1505

TheRezonator

on Nov 07, 2009

2) Will there be a "normal tech tree" version of the mod for people who like a quick 1v1/2v2 small map?

you arent meant to max the tech tree on small/quick games...

1506

Thraka

on Nov 07, 2009

I'm playing the entrentchemnt version (0.851 or whatever it was) and I noticed in the last few games that the AI was not researching any upgrades. Anyone else seen this? All the cap ships and starbases had the exact same HP as starting values.

I have just upgraded to .90 though. Man research seems totally different. Since things don't have as many research items, do they take longer to research? I liked that it took a long time to get through an item. It forced you to pick and choose what you wanted to focus on because it was a heavy time and money investment. Has that disappeared?

1507

Ryat

on Nov 08, 2009

There have been some major changes with 0.90. The biggest is the research. The original author of the mod skyline kinda went overboard with a lot of the research and messed up a lot of the balance of the game as well as creating a lot of unnecessary research points (seriously, it took 6 research points to get only 3 upgrades for cap ship training). Also the problem of the AI unable to handle the research was also a major factor (we did what we could with the gameplay constants file of the AI but that was not enought). So we basically went back to square one and just doubled everything to start out at a good balance point. Now we do plan on increasing the research at certain points but the more streamline research helps out a lot with the AI and anybody who plays MP with the mod.

1508

Koiju

on Nov 08, 2009

Ryat

reply 1503

I think you are playing an earlier version, the 0.90 (released on Wed 11/4) reduced the cost back to 4 points

yes there is a way to remove from the random area, go into galaxyscenariodef.entity file (warning make a copy of this file, one mistake here can ruin the game). under anything "random" remove the word "city"

Ah, thanks

Yeah, from the above post it looks like i do, I'm playing the entrenchment one, and I have 10 stages of research for the basic shield upgrade as advent, which from the previous post sounds like it's the old way.

Is it safe to just over-wright the folder for the previous version, or should i delete it and make a new one for the new version? Or more to the point, where is 0.90? The distant Stars website says 0.859 is the latest version.

1509

Ryat

on Nov 08, 2009

http://distantstars.mmobase.com/entrenchment/DS_Entrenchment_Beta_0.90_[34826167].7z

this is the complete full download so you can just delete your old version and unzip and put this in, Nacey has not updated the other website yet, will let him know.

1510

Koiju

on Nov 08, 2009

Ryat

reply 1509

http://distantstars.mmobase.com/entrenchment/DS_Entrenchment_Beta_0.90_[34826167].7z

this is the complete full download so you can just delete your old version and unzip and put this in, Nacey has not updated the other website yet, will let him know.

Ah, thanks very much

1511

Thraka

on Nov 08, 2009

even with .90 I played a hard computer 1 on 1 and things still seemed way off. They built tons of carriers yet only a handful ever built fighters. After two hours of play, they only built a tiny amount of defense. I only saw one planet that had two defense platforms, nothing else ouf of their 10 or so owned places did they build any kind of defense.

But truthfully I don't know what the computer is like in normal sins:ent anymore anyway. Maybe they are just as dumb? I really only want to play with the mod. Does anyone else play against the computer?

1512

Ryat

on Nov 08, 2009

hmmmm odd, I usually get some good AIs

try doing a complete full download and see if that fixes it

http://distantstars.mmobase.com/entrenchment/DS_Entrenchment_Beta_0.90_[34826167].7z

1513

Thraka

on Nov 08, 2009

Will do, thanks for the post

1514

Koiju

on Nov 08, 2009

rayadrel

reply 1499

Actually with Dynamic, fleets tend to stick together and fight cohesively, more so I dare say than vanilla where they park themselves in odd locations.

The only real problems I notice are the afiremention flying through starbases (mostly a cosmetic issue) and when fighting one-on-one capships tend to behave stupidly (flying off in wide arcs out of weapons range for no reason(.

You should at least try it, it makes fleet battles hella fun, it's also possible to do flyby raids with, say, a few capships vs. a much bigger fleet and have them survive. I had a great time harassing a fleet that was coming for my planet for example.

Sorry rayadrel, I gave it a proper go, both some small battles and a large fleet battle (I took down a pirate base) and my fears were confirmed, dynamic movement is horrible, I cannot micromanage at all, my fleet flys all over the place, barely ever being in range of my cap ship abilities, and it doesn't even look good, I think it looks a bit silly to be honest, my capital ship captains think they are in fighters >.>

It gets worse with solanas adjudicators, which now rather than sitting nicely out of range bombarding the enemies defenses, they instead charge in like they are bombers and get themselves blown up.

So I'm still very glad it's optional, I really don't like dynamic movement, lol.

1515

Javierpedreira

on Nov 09, 2009

Mmm I think Cap Ships shouldnt dogfight It would be more realistic dont you think?.

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