What exactly are these issues? I use exclusively ATI cards and the Planet Mesh issue was the first Graphical Glitch I've ever had with Sins since I bought it in 08.

I had the same issue with some of the planets textures looking messed up. I came the the same conclusion, after removing the mesh files "posted below" the planets went back to normal.  I suspect it has to do with this batch file you guys gave us to remove the older files. I think that the two are related to the issue happening.

This is the bactch file you guys gave us.

del "Dip Rebalance v1.2\Textures\PlanetDesert01-cl.dds"
del "Dip Rebalance v1.2\PlanetDesert01-da.dds"
del "Dip Rebalance v1.2\PlanetDesert02-cl.dds"
del "Dip Rebalance v1.2\PlanetDesert02-da.dds"
del "Dip Rebalance v1.2\Textures\Planetgas0-cl.dds"
del "Dip Rebalance v1.2\Textures\Planetgas0-da.dds"
del "Dip Rebalance v1.2\Textures\Planetgas1-cl.dds"
del "Dip Rebalance v1.2\Textures\Planetgas1-da.dds"
del "Dip Rebalance v1.2\Textures\planetglow.dds"
del "Dip Rebalance v1.2\Textures\PlanetIce01-cl.dds"
del "Dip Rebalance v1.2\Textures\PlanetIce01-da.dds"
del "Dip Rebalance v1.2\Textures\PlanetIce02-cl.dds"
del "Dip Rebalance v1.2\Textures\PlanetIce02-da.dds"
del "Dip Rebalance v1.2\Textures\PlanetTerran01-cl.dds"
del "Dip Rebalance v1.2\Textures\PlanetTerran01-da.dds"
del "Dip Rebalance v1.2\Textures\PlanetTerran02-cl.dds"
del "Dip Rebalance v1.2\Textures\PlanetTerran02-da.dds"
del "Dip Rebalance v1.2\Textures\PlanetVolcanic01-cl.dds"
del "Dip Rebalance v1.2\Textures\PlanetVolcanic01-da.dds"
del "Dip Rebalance v1.2\Textures\PlanetVolcanic02-cl.dds"
del "Dip Rebalance v1.2\Textures\PlanetVolcanic02-da.dds"

Will let Nacey know when I contact him again.

The portraits being off centered or otherwise messed up.  ATI cards have been doing this for a very long time.

I did know about the mesh files being broken in B2 I sadly missed removing them before releasing B2 to the public and didnt suffer from that issue myself so it didnt get picked up, I only realised afterwards when thinking back "I removed the textures so why bother with the custom meshs?" hence their deletion (its fixed in my local copy which im currently referring to as B3 but it may just turn out to be 1.0 depending on how things go!)

Apologies for not suggesting it sooner I had just seen screenshots of the planet icons and didnt realise it was the look of the planet that was being affected too

But yes ATI cards do often render .dds files (mainly the player portrait files) incorrectly and thats something I have no idea how to really fix see'ing as the Direct X fix didnt work and converting them to .tga files will likely have no effect either.

Thanks for all the testing guys all helps to make it perfect ready for the next release!

Question: Is it possible to have a random event consisting of a ship jumping into a random grav well?

Glad to help out. So far I haven't run into any other problems whatsoever, and I'm glad that I haven't been hit with this mysterious .dds problem. 

So, not to sound like an ungrateful kid, but are there any plans for the Vasari Flagship, graphically? The other two flagships, despite being kitbashes, flow together really well and look like logical designs for their races, while still remaining unique. The Vasari one...not so much. Most of the time I'm unable to tell it from a Kortul, then I get a smack in the face when I flip to a different view and theres that seemingly random protrusion, and it really breaks up the model.

Obviously this should be taken as the observation of a random bystander, and not as a serious criticism, considering that I don't know the first thing about Sins Modding. (though, if you can use it, I might be able to whip something up in blender later this week.)

Yeah I might have to change that up a bit. Have a similar issue as well with it.

What about SivCorp's Hellion mashup?

That might work out better. Does he have an ability point (4 is what I use) at the front of the ship between those tusks?

I've PM'd him to see if he still has his models. If it doesn't have them I should be able to add ability points as needed.

Forgive me if this has already been suggested, but I have an idea.  I only play TEC, so I may be wrong about the other races, but I've noticed that only the military and civilian trees have final level researches, nothing for the defense or diplomacy trees.  Perhaps a final level diplomacy could be something like "officer exchange program" that increases the effectiveness of all pacts, or allows you to trade ships with allies (no idea how to make that work though).  I've put a little more thought into the Defense final level, it could be one of several things.  Another ability for the starbase, but i think they have enough.  Maybe something like "defensive mandate"  that increases tactical slots, or gives starbases one or two more ability points.  And my personal favorites, either an upgrade to the planet based defenses (seriously, have you seen how long it takes them just to take out a couple siege frigates) or yet another buff to the lowly gauss cannon, making it a credible threat. (this especially because of the limited numbers you can have, to make space for all those other tactical structures that take more points).  Well, that's my brainstorm.  Now it's in your hands.

Some nice ideas Retsof90. Will look into them though the trade ships one is impossible TBH.

You should play as them a few times, helps you learn how to play your faction better when you know the enemies strengths and weaknesses, as well as how suggestions for improvements to one faction causes balance issues for the other two factions.

If by final level you mean 8th tier research items then you're not quite right.  The TEC has 1 for Military, 2 for Civilian, and 1 for Diplomacy.  The Advent have 1 for Hostility, 1 for Harmony, and 2 for Understanding.  The Vasari have 1 for Warfare, 2 for Empire, and 1 for Manipulation.  The Defense, Security, and Fortification trees stop at the seventh tier.

Pacts are hard coded and we can't mess with them, otherwise we'd have made them much better a long time ago.  Trading ships can be done in a round about way by making all ships capturable, but then it means your enemies can capture your ships too, which would be a bad thing.   Of course, Advent can already take your ships from you if they so desire so making all ships capturable would remove the uniqueness of the Rapture's Dominate ability.

I'm not sure if any more upgrade abilities can be added however there are a couple ability slots left on the starbase itself.  But like you said, they've already got enough stuff.

Giving the TEC more tactical slots would mean that they have upgrades for both, logistic and tactical slots...  Unless the other two got both upgrades as well, I don't think it would be fair.  Besides, the Vasari have a pact item that does this.  So make a Vasari friend.  ;]  As for the starbase ability points increase, I believe those are hardcoded as well.

Yes it does take time, planet defenses are supposed to slow the opposition down buying your fleet time to come back or support your fleet elements already present, not outright destroy another fleet, otherwise, no one would be able to take out a player with the economy to build up those defenses and there would be no way to achieve a military victory which is the by far most common win condition.

Another buff?  They already have rate of fire increases, range increases, burst rockets for hitting multiple targets at the same time, and the meson bolt cannon which reduces opponents armor rating for a short time...  It already is the most upgraded defensive weapon in the game.  It's hardly lowly, however, the glaring shortcoming is that it's immobile and even after the range increases, still don't cover much space, unlike the hanger defenses that field strike craft, or the orbital defense control that can hit anything in most of the gravity well, but at the cost of 1 tac slot point compared to the 4 and 10 respectively, and the ability to field them right from the start of the game without having to spend time and money building research stations and doing the actual unlocking research, they really are quite powerful for a good amount of time as well as for the price and slot count.  You really shouldn't be relying on them in later stages of the game when most people will just go right around them and a better defense option is always the starbase.

Okay, thanks.