[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 258)

3856

Dashotosho

on Nov 07, 2010

Ryat

reply 3855

Actually the pirates in Diplomacy are currently a bit broken. I had to nerf them. Sad I know. There is a patch currently in the works for mid-Nov. that is suppose to fix it and when that comes I will have to redo the pirates. But yeah, wait a bit.

Wait hang on, Ryat is saying pirates need a nerf? Must be an imposter!

Thanks for the advice. How about the 'extra hard' or whatever difficulty computer? They worth anything?

3857

Ryat

on Nov 07, 2010

Well, if you wanted a smarter AI, somewhat. I do feel that their intelligence was increased a small bit. Not much but enough to notice. The TEC are much tougher to deal with vs starbases as the AI now builds Orgovs in large amounts. The other two not so much as their siege weapons are not as effective (though the Advent can strip you of support structures quickly) or non existence (Vasari). They do get a huge increase in resource and research so they are harder to deal with but not on a long term basis.

3858

Dashotosho

on Nov 08, 2010

Cool, again thanks for the info. I'll hold off for a bit I suppose.

3859

TheChronicToast

on Nov 09, 2010

I don't suppose there is any easy way to increase the pirate spawn time AND make the pirates weaker in DS? I know the time between raids has been mentioned before but I can't seem to find the post.

Biggest issue that my friends and I run into as casual players is that the game goes good until the pirates and their capital ship show up. We get blown away and its game over.

3860

Stant123

on Nov 09, 2010

Both can be done in the gameplay.constants file.

Search for the line pirateRaidDef

After you find that, look for the lines:

maxSupply - reducing that will reduce the max number of ships brought in each raid
minSendRaidTime - Increasing this value, obviously increases the time between raids, but you should also keep this number below the maxSendRaidTime. You could always increase both though.

You can also do little tweaks to the raid compositions themselves, this would allow you to severely weaken the early game raids, yet increase the later game ones.

3861

TheChronicToast

on Nov 10, 2010

Thanks Stant. I'm looking for something that is a bit more laid back and doesn't necessarily involve a huge pirate capital ship every time ... '

3862

Stant123

on Nov 10, 2010

Right, those little tweaks I was referring to would be changing the spawn probability of the various pirate ships. Capital ships listed could be removed, changing the ship count accordingly, of course, or just given a very low spawn probability.

3863

hooahguy

on Nov 10, 2010

This isnt exactly DS related, but I just put up a fanfic that features SoaSE w/ DS. It also features Mass Effect.

For those who want to read it, its here:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6466212/2/Surging_Rifts_a_ME_SoaSE_crossover_story

3864

TheChronicToast

on Nov 12, 2010

Stant, I'll be working on a small 'mod' to incorporate for standard sins and then also a version for DS that affects the pirates as we discussed above. I'll post here with my results.

3865

LimeyMan

on Nov 13, 2010

hooahguy

reply 3863

This isnt exactly DS related, but I just put up a fanfic that features SoaSE w/ DS. It also features Mass Effect.

For those who want to read it, its here:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6466212/2/Surging_Rifts_a_ME_SoaSE_crossover_story

There is a HUGE DS related Fanfic (ongoing) over HERE though. Have fun reading this lot!

3866

-Ue_Carbon

on Nov 13, 2010

Have a other problem with these map... on the center blue star, these with the six pirates bass around, some abilities are dissabled... by example, it is impossible to build starbase ( but possible to lay mines )... it is great since it make very difficult to keep the center of the map...

Unfortunaly, one of the AI player have the same with his own blue sun... these called "Rigil kentaurus"... the AI there is not able to fortify his sun and it become my primary target... having very fast two zone make it easy to beat the remaining AI... not sure that it was wished...

Anyway, it is a very good insane map... so much long jump line that sometime, i loose one planet due to a strong culture at the other side of the universe... and for Vasari, almost impossible to keep the center of the map ( the pirate base ) due to strong culture there from everywhere and Vasari not being able to build one single civilian structure ( more easy for TEC with the right research )... don't complain about it, difficulty is good and fun... just complain about the weakened AI due to his sun...

By the way, good work from Carbon on these map... first one that i see who is really 3D and not flat...[/quote]

Im glad there are people who like my odd maps. Thanks for the feedback. I had a few more maps Ive made but didnt release them b/c after the AI Horde map issues, I figured best not release anymore crappy maps.

yeah there will always be 1 system that has the magnetic sun. Kinda a disadvanage but since the positions are set to random you never know who will get it. I could update it to fix that issue if its that much of problem. I wanted to change the center to a Black hole sun. Just to make it even harder to take the center and have access to all the systems. *shrugs*

Question: do gunships, or w/e they are called, target bombers? In the description it says that they are good against strike craft, but are they also good against bombers?

Yes, but they do better damage to fighters b/c of the damage type. Against bombers spam their abilites are what they do the best. Debuff the bombers giving their target longer to survive or allowing flak/fighters to more damage to them quicker.

[quote who="Ryat" reply="3852" id="2818799"]Carbon wanted to kill the elite fighters. Not sure if Nacey has/is going to implement it.

Yeah, I have a vendetta against SC. IMHO they break balance way to easy. IF I had it my way you see a massive SC reduction. But thats just me, and its not my mod. I hate how the orginial game is about he who has the most bombers/SC wins. This is amplifed in the mod due to research and such. When I get some free time after I catch up on lore/my current mod work/and other game related work. I will see about maybe handing out part of my version of DS, that has my vision of SC balance.

3867

woolysockofdoom

on Nov 13, 2010

I'm actually only curious about these size of planet updates, specifically I see the presence of a Moon size. I'm curious if these sizes present themselves within gravity wells, for instance could a gas giant now have a colonizeable ice moon in it's gravity well?

3868

Nacey

on Nov 14, 2010

woolysockofdoom

reply 3867

Sadly that's not possible due to the way the game works. What they basically are, are smaller versions of the planets with lower resources and smaller gravity wells.

Yes! that's right people I am still here Sorry its been such a very long time since I posted last it has been one hell of a few months for me irl starting multiple jobs and continuing my training as a Cisco qualified networks engineer so as you can imagine its been busy and sadly its caused the DS work to fall well behind where I had hoped it would be.

However, now I have everything (for the most part) IRL in to a set routine I can press on and get DS finished up to its final 1.0 versions for SoaSE, Entrenchment and Diplomacy. I was holding off a little due to the new patch they announced that was in the works however now that has been delayed 'til January I'll be finishing DS up before then with the help of the team.

A release did go out a little while ago for testing to Ryat and Carbon which is seemingly running a lot smoother and with a much lower memory usage than previous versions of DS however many more optimizations are planned. The final releases will also be including Large Address Aware (LAA) .exe's for all three versions of SOASE for those that have and would like SOASE/DS to use more RAM.

Again, apologies for not getting back to you all sooner but don't worry the work hasn't stopped

3869

Ryat

on Nov 14, 2010

he is still alive

beyond IM that is

3870

-Ue_Carbon

on Nov 14, 2010

Hell has frozen over.

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