[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 367)

5491

Draakjacht

on Jul 16, 2011

Vindictus is nice cause you can solo. Just hard in some places. And it's not purely a stat based RPG. The play is something like Soul Reaver or Gothic, where you have to make combos, block, evade, etc. An action game. So it's nice cause my class could easily enough take down the biggest SOB in the game cause I focus on blocking and counters, but if someone using my class never takes the time to master counters, they'll get crushed all the same. I've noticed the devs seem to worry more about balancing with respect to how easily classes take on the biggest of level bosses.

5492

Stant123

on Jul 16, 2011

This community would completely fail the maturity test. =]

5493

Draakjacht

on Jul 16, 2011

Yeah, and age is not a great determiner.

I was playing Left 4 Dead with a full party, one of which was a 30-40 year old guy who liked to play willy-nilly. it was working amazingly well until we got to the last moment when a horde of zombies and one tank zombie were going to converge upon us if we didn't rush to a boat at the end of a pier. We all rush for it and everyone except him manages to rush onto the boat without meeting resistance. He was right behind us and decided to stop at the end of the pier and provide 'cover'. Had he kept moving, that would be it.

Instead, we turn around and he's firing near point blank into a horde and so we're just stunned he's that stupid. The tank jumps into the fray and backhands him off the pier and way off into the water. So he has to swim up the shore and get around to the mouth of the pier to get to safety. Well, we start firing, but couldn't manage to kill the tank before it walked out into the water and drowned him.

So he ends up dead and the game decides that the rest of us are to the checkpoint, so bon voyage. He starts bitching that we let him die. One person tells him that we were trying to shoot the thing, to which he bitches that we didn't start firing till the tank was on him. I tell him that if he kept moving, all would be well. He kept trying to gripe and I logged off.

So... yeah, I think most gamers would be gone bye bye.

5494

BadTune

on Jul 16, 2011

in spades no less!

but at least we're civil about our immaturity

Also, had an idea for a tech tweak. Is there a way to attach a, upgrade to the command point research?

example: have the number of capital ships max out at 4-8 and from there on the upgrades add either antimatter supply/armor points/command points<number of squadrons> to each capital ship making them far stronger contenders with the more advanced their crew research grows?

those are just possible examples as well, many things could be added in place of those.

5495

Ryat

on Jul 16, 2011

Yes it is possible.

5496

Twilight_Storm

on Jul 16, 2011

BadTune, that's so awesome I may cry. If it's not possible, I'm in favor of a new Military Research that does this.

-Twilight Storm

5497

BadTune

on Jul 16, 2011

Twilight_Storm

reply 5496

BadTune, that's so awesome I may cry. If it's not possible, I'm in favor of a new Military Research that does this.

-Twilight Storm

no one has ever taken to one of my ideas that well lol

anyway, I posted the idea here instead of a new thread because, DS level researches and ships have the fire power and the health bars to take such a change and grin right back at it

Edit & unrelated side not: are the planetary ring "appearance values" somewhere in the planet entity files or are they in a separate data file like the asteroid field data? I'm tinkering with an "embellishments" mod lol making the cars on the planets between elevators super tiny, slow and AMUNDANT lol also trying to get the strike craft tails to linger, so far I managed to make them thinner somehow ;

5498

Joebenz

on Jul 17, 2011

Is there another file that is related to the skyboxes other that the skybox.manifest and SkyBoxProperties.skyboxbackdropdata? because i deleted the SkyboxBackdrop2DistantStars.dds and SkyboxBackdrop1DistantStars.dds and edited the two skybox files so that the game would not load them. But yet the game says that these files are missing.

Am i missing something here?

EDIT: NVM found it. The skybox files are also stated in each Star.entity files

5499

Stant123

on Jul 17, 2011

BadTune

reply 5497

are the planetary ring "appearance values" somewhere in the planet entity files or are they in a separate data file like the asteroid field data?

I want to say DustCloudsDef.renderingDef file for that stuff... Just like the asteroid field data, it's referenced from each entity file in the mesh info section, right under the reference for the asteroid field data.

asteroidTemplate "Sparse"
dustCloudTemplate "Sparse"

5500

BadTune

on Jul 17, 2011

hmmm so I'd change Sparse to Abundant or Frequent?

5501

Soldier Crush

on Jul 17, 2011

hmmm... i can not get powerfull pirates to even load with entrenchment it just immediately does a minidump, I have followed instructions and my game is updated.

5502

BadTune

on Jul 17, 2011

Think ryat's still updating that, I'm waiting for it too =X

New Post: I tinkered with some of the values in that file you mentioned that could possibly be fore the rings. But, no apparent changes when adding to the values or taking away from them

also, i inverted the colors on the "DS skyboxes" TOO DAMN BRIGHT lol

5503

Stant123

on Jul 17, 2011

BadTune

reply 5500

hmmm so I'd change Sparse to Abundant or Frequent?

Try: Sparse, Dense, GrittySparse, GrittyDense, GrittyDump, PuffySparse, PuffyDense, IceSafe

That might be for the clouds and not the rings though. Keep an eye on both just to be sure.

5504

BadTune

on Jul 17, 2011

there wasn't a change in the rings for what I altered, did find the values to reduce/raise the amount of asteroids in the fields though

5505

XBWillem

on Jul 17, 2011

Stant123

reply 5454

The first problem is that you're running B3 and the patch. You are causing yourself unnecessary problems by doing that. The patch is only for those who are upgrading from B2 to B3 so they don't have to download the whole thing all over again if they don't want to. So delete that and play the game again with only the Beta 3 release.

Problem number two, about the portraits, I assume you have an ATI graphics card since the only people who have this issue have those. If you do, this is an issue with the core game and beyond our ability to fix. If you don't have one, then you may have a problem with one of the files that tells the game what pictures to look at and how to display them... In any case, make sure your directx is up to date. http://www.softwarepatch.com/windows/directx.html

Problem three about the icons... If you have an ATI card, then most likely it's not reading the .dds format properly, in which case you can download the following links and put them in the mod's texture folder deleting the files of the same name that have the .dds extension:

http://distantstars.mmobase.com/other/Icons_planets.tga
http://distantstars.mmobase.com/other/Icons_planetsPictures.tga
http://distantstars.mmobase.com/other/Icons_planetsSmall.tga

Those are older files but shouldn't make any difference because none of those files have been changed in a long time.

An alternative, which is also recommended, is to download the updated version of the Multiple Stars Graphics Mod from Boshimi (which an older version is included in the mod but became broken with one of the recent updates to the core game). http://www.mediafire.com/?c31g4muiyl3un51 Download it and run it as a mod on top of DS until the next release which will have it included in the main mod.

I have everything you pointed out in this post. There are still no changes. First I installed the newest version of the mod, without the patch. No changes. Then I downloaded the three files, replaced the .dds with the .tga in the Textures folder of the mod. No changes. Then I installed the MSGM and ran that on top of Distant Stars. No changes!

What else can I do?

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