Distant Stars Mod Blog


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

 

Entrenchment Logo

1.051 Compatible:

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

SoaSE Logo

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 126)
562 PagesFirst 124 125 126 127 128  Last
on Dec 27, 2009

Are you patching?


Those instruction are for patching, b/c we Nacey has been cleaning up the clutter and code it was easier if you delete the entire folder then just replace the folder with the one that patch give you. Otherwise you have to go through each folder and pick out 10's of files to delete. So your replacing the old GameInfo file for example with the new on on that specific patch. I do hope that makes sense.


If not post back I'll get you up and running some how!!!!!


Im liking this purple color.

on Dec 28, 2009

Thank you, Ryat & -Ue_Carbon.  I should have checked on your site, my mistake.  Nice catch!  I'll admit I'm a little sad my research was for naught, but at least I don't have to hold off on enslaving any more worlds on my flight from THE ULTIMATE EVIL!!!! 

PS - I played waaaay too much SC2 when I was younger.

on Dec 28, 2009

Understood - it works fine when it was installed.  The DELETETHESEFILESFIRST readme is included in the full installation link, so that's where my confusion developed.

 

Thanks again!  Great mod!

on Dec 28, 2009

OnlyMaestro
Understood - it works fine when it was installed.  The DELETETHESEFILESFIRST readme is included in the full installation link, so that's where my confusion developed.

Thanks again!  Great mod!

Yeah that was my bad it kinda snuck in there when I was making the compressed files the next iteration wont have that ofcourse

on Dec 28, 2009

the vasari are running from "THE ULTIMATE EVIL!!!"... ROFL!

that was such a great game.

on Dec 28, 2009

I knew Care Bears were evil....

on Dec 28, 2009

*pwns Care Bears from 4 km w/ my "Temporal Impulse Weapon" (an awesome 1-shot (reloadable) pistol that fires shots that can be affected by time manipulation)*

on Dec 28, 2009

love the work your doing with this mod.

on Dec 29, 2009

I like the hat, thats a nice hat

on Dec 29, 2009

*bursts into song*

Where'd you get that hat?
Oh, where'd you get that tie?
Isn't it a knobby one,
Just a proper style.
I would like to have one
Just the same as that.

on Dec 29, 2009

hey, i was just playing a game on the Systems of War Map... and the fleets were all screwy... so cap ships were located at the bottom of the selection instead of at the top, even when you set them as fleet leader etc... is that a mod issue or a map issue or what?

second, ive noticed that ship graveyard ships get attacked by normal ships and captured ships... this is a real waste, can it be fixed pwease?

last... after playing a bit with the new mines... scouts are no longer effecient in wiping them out... the only thing left to do is spam scouts and suicide them... are there any plans in the works for a new ship or something, somehow to balance mines better? like, a minefield backed up with a SB or turrets or something will destroy scouts and flak before they've had a chance to clear much space and its much faster to suicide them so...

atm, mines are really good, massively powerful and it does make me think twice before storming a planet without intel, however, when even the designed counter doesnt work as anything other than cannon fodder...

thanks in advance

on Dec 29, 2009

TheRezonator
hey, i was just playing a game on the Systems of War Map... and the fleets were all screwy... so cap ships were located at the bottom of the selection instead of at the top, even when you set them as fleet leader etc... is that a mod issue or a map issue or what?

yeah, that occasionally happens not sure why

TheRezonator

second, ive noticed that ship graveyard ships get attacked by normal ships and captured ships... this is a real waste, can it be fixed pwease?

that has been a long standing issue, If we make them invulnerable until captured then the AI flips out on them, so we leave them in their current state so you have to act fast

[quote who="TheRezonator" reply="1886" id="2490428",]
last... after playing a bit with the new mines... scouts are no longer effecient in wiping them out... the only thing left to do is spam scouts and suicide them... are there any plans in the works for a new ship or something, somehow to balance mines better? like, a minefield backed up with a SB or turrets or something will destroy scouts and flak before they've had a chance to clear much space and its much faster to suicide them so...

atm, mines are really good, massively powerful and it does make me think twice before storming a planet without intel, however, when even the designed counter doesnt work as anything other than cannon fodder...

 [/quote]

Agree, we are working on it

on Dec 29, 2009

second, ive noticed that ship graveyard ships get attacked by normal ships and captured ships... this is a real waste, can it be fixed pwease?

I already had put this bug when this was initially released and I remember I don't remember whether Ryat or Nacey said that it was suppose to be like this....

on Dec 29, 2009

It's supposed to be like that to avoid bigger, nastier bugs.

 

*like the AI trying to attack an invulnerable ship.

on Dec 29, 2009

Hai!

 

I downloaded your mod to try it out, but having some trouble getting it to work (0.99 and running through entrenchment 1.041). I followed the instructions - put the two mod-folders in my user\appdata\local etc. (Distant starts main mod and Powerful Pirates) The two mods show up in-game so I assume the pathway is correct.

I select the mods and click enable on both (in the Powerful Pirate text-info it states to move the pirate-mod to the top -and so I did) and try to start a game. First I selected one of the new Distant Star maps MarsWars - as soon as it loads I get a message that both me and the AI are defeated and the game ends.

I then tested a vanilla-map & it worked. Only issue was that the mod didn't seem to be active - all units had vanilla-stats & there was no extra stuff in the research tree. Also the pirates seemed like normal.

Not sure where I made a mistake. There is a text-file in the mod-folder where both mods are called "EnabledMods" - should I edit that perhaps? Also in the Distant Star mod -apart from the readme.txt there was also a file called "DELETETHESEFILESFIRST.txt". The contents in that text-file confused me. It mentions that I'm supposed to delete all folders which I didn't. Could this be the issue? I just thought the mod remakes alot of stats and stuff and it felt weird actually removing all the data apart from sound and textures - wouldn't that mean nothing gamechanging apart from the two mentioned folders would be replaced?

 

Or wait.. Does the text mean replacing stuff in the vanilla folder? Bwut.. Then it means I can't play vanilla anymore online? /utterly confused

562 PagesFirst 124 125 126 127 128  Last