[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 3)

Spartan072

on Jan 10, 2009

Great addition, seriously fun! I cant wait till you mod this for entrenchment!

Oh btw, if you get around to modding entrenchment, fix the mines since you do the job of the devs, better than the devs...

Good Luck!

StarFallArmada

on Jan 10, 2009

Another bug report...though im not sure if its a bug exactly. The vasari heavy cruisers texture is all wonky, like somone put it on there sideways. There was also a TEC ship that was like this but i forgot which one. sorry. Good news is i havnt gotten a single minidump since i started playing with Pirates inactive. Once thats fixed the stability should be pretty good.

-Ue_Carbon

on Jan 11, 2009

Ok, after some more playing. Here is what Ive concluded. Ive only play as TEC so Im not much help with the other races.

None of the Caps attack strike craft. I dont see them attack and if there no flax to indicate it ive not seen the damage either when I look at the enemy fighters/bombers.

Dunvo still attacks like a Marza or Kol. ( I know you know about this one.)

Kol and Marza do not seem to attack reguarly with all their weapons. Its hit or miss some times they go guns ablazing sometime they only attack with half power or half weapons. Marza love to just sit and fire missles. Kol doesnt like to use side weapons.

Here is a suggestion, while your changing all these cool things why not moddify the Caps themself. Some of the abilites are overpowered or under. For example, Kol's Gauss Rail Gun (The description says armor piecing and well its affected by sheild migation etc etc. So why not add a reduce armor for X seconds.) I can give you more ideas if your interested. But I think there are some needed changes for every race Cap wise.

Ive noticed the reserching seems to be a bit odd cost wise. I know for example of course, that the hull upgrades for TEC increase in cost per lvl of research. But its funny is that to get lvl 10 of the first upgrade cost you an arm and leg but the next research is tiny compared to what I just paid. I hope that made sence. lol.

Got a question about the Diablo ship. Why does the TEC get a new ship and the other races dont? While I enjoy the ship for its help against the Advents fighter advantage. Instead of giving the TEC another ship why not just include upgrades to the orginal anti-fighter ship? Unless of course you plan to give the other races a new ship.

I need to play as the other 2 races to get their POV.

Kreshkyl

on Jan 11, 2009

P.S. This is by far my favorite mod, makes the research much more meaningful, the planet variety, and I really like the music, huge plus for me there. This Mod with Entrenchment should be top notch.

Nacey

on Jan 12, 2009

Thanks for the kind words about the MOD everyone, glad to see it's been so well recieved in the community, sorry about not replying for the last couple of days havent been too well but im back on the case

PATCH 2 will be released either tonight or tommorow for download and will include the Pirate raider fixes, for now I've uploaded a new gameplay.constants file that should be placed within the GameInfo directory which should fix this for now.

Kreshkyl

reply 9

Ok I modified the max pirate amount to 250 in the gameplay.constants file, and have yet to minidump in a 9hr+ game, so maybe that is a good fix, I'll keep you posted, and thanks mucho for the tip Phoenix_Avenger.

P.S. This is by far my favorite mod, makes the research much more meaningful, the planet variety, and I really like the music, huge plus for me there. This Mod with Entrenchment should be top notch.

You'll be glad to know the Pirate fix will be included in the next patch for Sins. Thanks for mentioning the fix Phoenix_Avenger I had figured it would be either the gameplay.constants or one of the later pirates ships file had corrupted between BIN & TXT conversion.

-Ue_Carbon

reply 8

Ok, after some more playing. Here is what Ive concluded. Ive only play as TEC so Im not much help with the other races.

None of the Caps attack strike craft. I dont see them attack and if there no flax to indicate it ive not seen the damage either when I look at the enemy fighters/bombers.

Dunvo still attacks like a Marza or Kol. ( I know you know about this one.)

Kol and Marza do not seem to attack reguarly with all their weapons. Its hit or miss some times they go guns ablazing sometime they only attack with half power or half weapons. Marza love to just sit and fire missles. Kol doesnt like to use side weapons.

Here is a suggestion, while your changing all these cool things why not moddify the Caps themself. Some of the abilites are overpowered or under. For example, Kol's Gauss Rail Gun (The description says armor piecing and well its affected by sheild migation etc etc. So why not add a reduce armor for X seconds.) I can give you more ideas if your interested. But I think there are some needed changes for every race Cap wise.

Ive noticed the reserching seems to be a bit odd cost wise. I know for example of course, that the hull upgrades for TEC increase in cost per lvl of research. But its funny is that to get lvl 10 of the first upgrade cost you an arm and leg but the next research is tiny compared to what I just paid. I hope that made sence. lol.

Got a question about the Diablo ship. Why does the TEC get a new ship and the other races dont? While I enjoy the ship for its help against the Advents fighter advantage. Instead of giving the TEC another ship why not just include upgrades to the orginal anti-fighter ship? Unless of course you plan to give the other races a new ship.

I need to play as the other 2 races to get their POV.

Great suggestions as always UE-Carbon, the Dunov is now working correctly, the problem was caused by a modifcation made by Skyline while good it was made in the later stages of his development so it wasnt fully tested. The front cannons & missile launchers of the Dunov were increased in power and so were the Left & Right rail's of the ships weaponry however the front + front exceeded a single side of the ships attack power and as such it just faced the ships instead.

I'll take a look in to the KOL + Marza from your description it sound's like a "range" issue with the game's AI & the ship being unable to fire all of it's guns at X range.

Your suggestions for tweaks or adjusting the capital ship abilities would be more than welcome id love to hear your ideas on them.

I had also noticed about the research however due to the way the game's research works there isnt really a way to compensate for this as far as I've seen (I'll look in to it further once I get the next patch out). The research currently scales from the original price (automatically by a set percentage from the original cost) so due to the amount of research there is in total the price's dont seem to scale well.

The TEC were given the new ship (the Diablo as you mentioned) the Vasari get a new ability on one of their ships which is the Mobile Phase Disrupter, the Advent however didnt gain much of an advantage (apart from a slight boost over the TEC & Vasari to their squadrons' capabilities).

StarFallArmada

reply 7

I have taken a look at the Vasari Heavy Cruisers (textures & entity files) and couldn't see anything wrong with them however I will keep looking in to this problem and find a fix asap (probably PATCH 3 now).

Spartan072

reply 6

Great addition, seriously fun! I cant wait till you mod this for entrenchment!

Oh btw, if you get around to modding entrenchment, fix the mines since you do the job of the devs, better than the devs...

Good Luck!

I will certainely be bringing this to entrenchment it will ofcourse have a few balance issues in the first few iterations to the expansion however im sure we'll be able to work them out.

rayuki

reply 4

so will this only work with 1.12 and 1.05?

not 1.11?

This MOD is compatible with game versions 1.1x as far as I'am aware 1.11 to 1.12 were minor fixes & tweaks made to the game by the developers nothing that would affect the MOD's functionality.

StarFallArmada

on Jan 12, 2009

Nacey

reply 10

This MOD is compatible with game versions 1.1x as far as I'am aware 1.11 to 1.12 were minor fixes & tweaks made to the game by the developers nothing that would affect the MOD's functionality.

I play it on 1.12 without any problems besides the one ive mentioned. So as far as pre- entrenchment its kid tested and mother approved

rayuki

on Jan 13, 2009

yep got it working on 1.12 and its my favourite mod so far! love the variety of planets and extra upgrades for the research.

one thing i would like to see though is since there are more research upgrades maybe increase the level cap of capital ships? and maybe a bit hard to do but maybe a small level thing for other types of ships?

but so far my favourite mod. i like the startrek mod but i get bored playing it now because it doesn't have the variety of planets you have lol, maybe you guys could join forces

-Ue_Carbon

on Jan 13, 2009

Your suggestions for tweaks or adjusting the capital ship abilities would be more than welcome id love to hear your ideas on them.

I will have to PM you or how ever is the best way getting hold of you. Just let me know. I will start to compile my thoughts.

CharlesLeverett

on Jan 13, 2009

I believe I found a bug, I am currently trying to add additional research to the distant star mod so hyperspace speed can be increased (this is for my own personal enjoyment, but if you like the idea I'll give you the files, though its simple enough I figured its been left out as a game balancing issue), anyway as I was running the devolpers EXE I created a game playing the Vasari, and got the following error

ResearchWindow GridPoint Duplication:
RESEARCHSUBJECT_ABILITYACCESS_FULLJUMPBLOCKERPHASE
RESEARCHSUBJECT_ABILITYACCESS_PHASECLOAK

Its a simple fix, just gotta do a bit of rearranging with the research

CharlesLeverett

on Jan 13, 2009

Actually when activating the mod with the devolpes exe I do get a few errors, but I can't tell how they affect game play, I will list them here though just in case.

Failed to convert '' to an enum value.- I think I get this error even when just starting the game with no mod

Entity Ref not found: RESEARCHSUBJECT_ABILITYACCESS_SHIELDEMITTER

Planet 'PlanetCity' has a bonus that exceeds the maximum artifact upgrade level: PlanetBonusSubT

Planet 'PlanetCity' has a bonus that exceeds the maximum artifact upgrade level: PlanetBonusSubT- I think it threw this error twice?

Planet 'PlanetCity' references a non-existant bonus: doesn't list the bonus

Planet 'PlanetIndustrial' has a bonus that exceeds the maximum artifact upgrade level: PlanetBonusOutpost

Nacey

on Jan 14, 2009

Patch 2 Has now been released (download link can be found at the bottom of the main post) it contains all of Patch 1's changes and Patch 2's changes together in one package, I'll be uploading a complete download shortly for those new to downloading the MOD.

CharlesLeverett

reply 15

Failed to convert '' to an enum value.- I think I get this error even when just starting the game with no mod

Entity Ref not found: RESEARCHSUBJECT_ABILITYACCESS_SHIELDEMITTER

Planet 'PlanetCity' has a bonus that exceeds the maximum artifact upgrade level: PlanetBonusSubT

Planet 'PlanetCity' has a bonus that exceeds the maximum artifact upgrade level: PlanetBonusSubT- I think it threw this error twice?

Planet 'PlanetCity' references a non-existant bonus: doesn't list the bonus

Planet 'PlanetIndustrial' has a bonus that exceeds the maximum artifact upgrade level: PlanetBonusOutpost

Thanks for reporting them, I did already know of them they didnt jeprodise the gameplay in anyway however the PlanetCity & PlanetIndustrial errors have now been fixed. The ShieldEmitter bug does still exist however it does not jeprodise gameplay as it is an unfinished ability & not used by any unit (a remnant of the previous developers work).

CharlesLeverett

reply 14

ResearchWindow GridPoint Duplication:
RESEARCHSUBJECT_ABILITYACCESS_FULLJUMPBLOCKERPHASE
RESEARCHSUBJECT_ABILITYACCESS_PHASECLOAK

Thanks for reporting those I was unaware of them, I added them to the fix for Patch 2 (just released).

-Ue_Carbon

on Jan 14, 2009

Woot!! new patch!!!!

I can play with My elite Dunvos again!!!! Oh I add you to MSN I hope. Lol if I did it right.

Thanks for the hard work you have put into the mod so far! If there is anything a newb like myself can help with let me know.

Madeiner

on Jan 15, 2009

Here's the Mesh errors that have been noticed before:

The first image shows the differences between unmodded and modded game, with and without the option "Ship Mesh highlight" in the game Effects menu.

The second image shows how NOT all ships have this problem: some ship do not have ANY color meshes at all.
You can see a Psi Heavy cruiser that is completely colored, and in the background a Psi Frigate Carrier that lacks any kind of color (it's on the same team). You can also see a fully-colored Psi battleship on the left.

I'm trying to pinpoint the bug.

I am now sure that it's something to do with the "Pipelineeffects" folder. Trying to track down the exact file...

Edit: Problem solved. The files responsible for this effects are: /PipelineEffect/GS_Ship.fx and /PipelineEffect/GS_ShipBuilding.fx

Overwriting those with the original game files solves the issue.

I think that the problematic lines are:

float4 GetColorWithTeamColorSample(float2 texCoord, float4 colorSample, float4 dataSample)
{
    float4 teamColorScalar = (colorSample.a * g_TeamColor.a);

    #ifdef IsDebug
    teamColorScalar *= TeamColorScalar;
    #endif

    colorSample *= (1.f - teamColorScalar);
    colorSample += (g_TeamColor * teamColorScalar);

    return colorSample;
}

while the modded ones read:

float4 GetColorWithTeamColorSample(float2 texCoord, float4 colorSample, float4 dataSample)
{
   float4 teamColorScalar = (dataSample.r * g_TeamColor.a);

    #ifdef IsDebug
   teamColorScalar *= TeamColorScalar;
   #endif

   colorSample *= (1.f - teamColorScalar);
   colorSample += (g_TeamColor * teamColorScalar);

   return colorSample;
}

I'm not 100% sure about this though, haven't tried to rewrite those lines

CharlesLeverett

on Jan 15, 2009

Maybe it something to do with my computer but it seems that the explosions are back to being unmodded, just regular flames, do atmosphere jetting out, or cool explosions. Did a mod get taken out on patch 2?

Wow, doh, I forgot to load the mod.... how stupid of me, nm

vamky

on Jan 16, 2009

Hello

I really want to try out this excellent mod for sins 1.1+, but I can not download the mod from the link given, could you upload the mod for sin 1.1+ and patch tho filefront please@@?

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!