[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 159)

2371

Ryat

on Feb 10, 2010

No they do not stack

as to the rebalancing of the caps, we did a little of both. Some caps (like the carriers) got their firepower reduced back to vanillia (their elite craft more than make up for the firepower) while others got a mild buff. Also we decreased across the board the hitpoints so you don't have 20,000+ monsters running around. Armor was increased a bit though mostly through research.

2372

RestlessMind

on Feb 11, 2010

Hey, I wanna complement the team of this mod on their "Origin Defense" thing. I like that. Really makes for great last-stands.

2373

Nacey

on Feb 11, 2010

Hey guys sorry its been a while since i've done an update as the others have mentioned I've been rather busy as of late with many things.
Now to get down to some of the issues people have been having:

- The missing strings for the capture ships ability is because that ability no longer exists in entrenchment and wont exist in diplomacy after the next patch (the Entrenchment version is further ahead than Diplomacy in many respects development wise)
- The TEC Capital Ship Factory we thought looked better originally
- The Capital Ships have been entirely overhauled in many many ways, Increased HP, AM, Damage, Weapons, Strikecraft, amongst other things, as Ryat mentioned the Carriers dont do more damage themselves but their strikecraft more than make up for it, the Carriers also now have anti-strikecraft weaponry.
- Planetary Defenses in Diplomacy arent the entirely finalised revisions from what I recall
- Lag experienced is more than likely down to graphical issues due to the much improved particle effects/graphics mods DS uses, if your having issues with them try lowering your settings, and if you've changed your game from BIN to TXT format, simple answer is: dont, it increases load times for the game.
- The Allure of the Unity research shouldnt be causing any crashes (have tested internally many times, the only difference between default Diplomacy and DS Diplomacy is an extra two levels of research which wont cause a crash)

As ever, if people are using converted from BIN to TXT versions of the MOD we really cant help you all that well because at the end of the day many things can go wrong when it has been converted, mis-conversions are commonplace, extra lines at the ends of or in the middle of files also cause great issues, there are many things that can go wrong.

We're currently working on many fixes internally for the Diplomacy build (for the most part getting it up to date with Entrenchment is the main goal) we're working on both Diplomacy and Entrenchment atm so theres alot of work that needs to be done, despite this we should be getting a patch out to you all within the next week all going well.

2374

Star Dragon

on Feb 11, 2010

adecoy95

reply 2369

...i have noticed that the planetary defense building is not very powerful, perhaps i am doing it wrong tho, do they stack if i build more than one?

The value really starts to show after it's been upgraded through research and you're facing off against a large invasion (such as Pirates) because it hits multiple ships continuously. Against a small force, it will still do damage but the missiles don't focus-fire so it doesn't seem as great. I would suggest supporting it with a variety of defenses, including mines, an upgraded starbase, a hanger or two, some repair facilities, a phase jump inhibitor, and some well-placed turrets with their specials researched. Not much will get through that assuming you can get some reinforcements there in decent time.

2375

RestlessMind

on Feb 11, 2010

I think it would be really neat if you guys released the mod in separate packages; one for planets, one for ship changes, one for sound... and then whichever parts each person wants can be put together or kept apart. Because not everyone wants to have the crazy lagtastical (at least, on our computers) effects with the planets.

2376

luckynv

on Feb 11, 2010

The only lag I notice is when there has been a certain number of ships are built globally, not entirely sure what it is but I played 5v5 with AI and normal fleet (4000 with max supply)

it was about 2hrs in before it started crawling, like time dilation where 10 seconds would pass in real but maybe 7 seconds had passed in-game

game start speeding up when fleets were getting decimated.

using an i5-750 @ 4GHz, GTX260, Win7 x64, 4GB RAM

2377

NarHar

on Feb 11, 2010

well the lag on my side (playing with DIPLOMACY 1.00) i am not sure why it is happening, all i can say is, when playing with entrenchment 1.05 it laggs less.

(or it might be due to the fact that the map i play on there are like 10+ pirate bases with a huge amount of ships, along with 3 other AIs, anyone can clear up if this might be why?)

2378

-Ue_Carbon

on Feb 11, 2010

Also if your experienceing a large ammount of lag end game, I personaly suggest triming your empire tree. Or killing it as much as possible. I use to expereience massive lag mid to end game when I left SINS auto pin just about everything. My FPS went from 60+ to 15 while watching a battle. Through trial and error I found when I reduced my empire tree to the bare bones or nothing my FPS and lag went away.

I thing its b/c the game has to show hundred's of Icon in the empire tree, which takes CPU power.

Anyhow I suggest everyone try to keep their empire tree neat and trimed. The less you have pinned the less it will lag.

2379

coinich

on Feb 11, 2010

Out of curiosity, is all support for DS going to move to Diplomacy for now?

2380

-Ue_Carbon

on Feb 11, 2010

coinich

reply 2379

Out of curiosity, is all support for DS going to move to Diplomacy for now?

For the time being we are still working on Entrenchment and Diplomancy. More than likely as long as both stay some what the same coding wise. Though in time Im sure IC will open more moddable stuff in Diplomacy just like they did in Entrechment leaving us to work with one till we get what we want then going back and attempting to update the other as best we can

2381

SpardaSon21

on Feb 11, 2010

Were any of the Pacts modified by you guys in the Diplomacy version?

2382

RestlessMind

on Feb 11, 2010

What program did you guys use to turn the entity files into "bin"? I want to modify them.

2383

harpo99999

on Feb 11, 2010

restless the program used would be convertdata_expansion.exe, and one of the wrappers for the convertdata's like mine

harpo

2384

RestlessMind

on Feb 11, 2010

Oh, I see. Well, I have CovertData_Diplomacy0.85, in the same folder as "sinstextbinner", and I opened the sinstextbinner program and went to the GameInfo folder of Distant Stars (which is on my desktop) and I get this error:

convertdata not found for the expansion chosen. looked for convertdata?originalsins.exe here, and did not find it. please copy it into this location

What's the matter?

2385

NarHar

on Feb 11, 2010

-Ue_Carbon

reply 2378

Have you reduced your graphic to anything less than Highest. Highest will crash the game. All ways have all ways will. With everything the Mod adds the the game Highest settings will push you past the 2 GB limit.

Also if your experienceing a large ammount of lag end game, I personaly suggest triming your empire tree. Or killing it as much as possible. I use to expereience massive lag mid to end game when I left SINS auto pin just about everything. My FPS went from 60+ to 15 while watching a battle. Through trial and error I found when I reduced my empire tree to the bare bones or nothing my FPS and lag went away.

I thing its b/c the game has to show hundred's of Icon in the empire tree, which takes CPU power.

Anyhow I suggest everyone try to keep their empire tree neat and trimed. The less you have pinned the less it will lag.

here is what i got for you:

-my graphics are at High settings;

-I am curently playing in a 1v1 with 5 pirate bases in the map, so far so good, no lagg.

-you mean the icons wich how what planets you have and what structures/units are within then gravity well? how do you get rid of theses icons?

Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:

Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums.
Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
It's simple, and FREE!