Distant Stars Mod Blog


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

 

Entrenchment Logo

1.051 Compatible:

Beta 0.9951 Release:
Full Download:
http://distantstars.mmobase.com/entrenchment/DS_Entrenchment_Beta_0.9951_[36672852].7z

SoaSE Logo

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 450)
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on Jan 07, 2012

Hey nice work guys, with the new version.

 Just been playing a bit and noticed on the pirate starbase, pirate section, it is rendering a bit glazed. I didn't notice this before, might be the bright blue sky box that makes it more evident. In any case I will have to fix this. The Pirate base itself looks fine so it must be tangents or something like that. I will see what I can do.

on Jan 07, 2012

Hey. Loving the latest version, but there's one little thing that's bugged me for awhile.

Trade and refinery ships, quite some time ago, were reduced in numbers and beefed up in effect in order to ease stress on the game. Trade ports went from deploying 5 ships to deploying 1 ship with 5x the effect. I understand why this change was made, but the actual trade ships themselves are still about the size of a basic frigate.

I'd like to see huge bulk freighters and merchant liners, practically the size of capital ships.

on Jan 07, 2012

@SZ0 - hello, long time no see dude. Yeah if you want to improve that or anything else feel free.

@JimStarluck - Don't think that is in the works for us. We never pay attention really to the trade ship themselves. It isn't hard to fit in different models on your own though.

on Jan 07, 2012

Found it! It was in the -cl file, it had no alpha. Some thing else seemed a bit odd with that file. Perhaps I got files mixed my end but the file in the DS download I got was sized incorrectly also. Might be worth checking.

Anyway I made a new file that fixes the problem PlanetPirateBase-cl

on Jan 08, 2012

How do I reduce the size of Gas Giants/Dwarfs and their gravity wells?

on Jan 08, 2012

Is there any list of changed features from vanilla to this mod? Im tempted to play it but id like to know whats actually different first.

on Jan 08, 2012

JimStarluck
I'd like to see huge bulk freighters and merchant liners, practically the size of capital ships.

None of the ships are built to scale with each other.  Just pretend they're the same size. 

justinian66
How do I reduce the size of Gas Giants/Dwarfs and their gravity wells?

For the planet, you have to adjust the size of the mesh (both planet meshes, not included in DS but you can pull copies from the core game, as well as the 4 proto planet meshes which are included with DS), this is much easier if you have softimage, 3ds max, or something as the text version won't make any sense unless you actually can tell who is who by looking at lines of code in the matrix.

As for the size of the gravity well, that is much much simpler.  Open up a text version of the entity, there are several in the gas giants case, near the bottom you will see lines for moveAreaRadius and hyperspaceExitRadius.  You'll want to reduce those numbers.

Once you've done all of that business, the best thing to do is create a mod called little giants or whatever, in that mod folder, you'll need a GameInfo folder and a Mesh folder, and you'll have to put your edited files into their respective folders.  Then when you're in the game and at the mod menu, make yours the very top of the list.

on Jan 08, 2012

damaslaus
Is there any list of changed features from vanilla to this mod? Im tempted to play it but id like to know whats actually different first.

As per the OP 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

 

If that doesn't float your boat, then try my little project over here:

http://sinsdistantstars.wikia.com/wiki/SoaSE_Distant_Stars_Wiki

 

on Jan 09, 2012

I hope this isn't a dumb question but here I go. lol

 

How can I make DS maps for diplomacy? I downloaded DS 1.00 for diplomacy and went to find the extras folder where the OP says it is located and it wasn't there. Does this mean that making maps for DS Diplomacy isn't supported? Or does the version with entrenchment or regular sins have what I need?

 

EDIT: By "it" I mean galaxy forge

on Jan 09, 2012

 

Stant's released the extras and it should be in this. Happy map making, upload some to the map site(it's slow as Christmas but there's a lot of them up there...some nutty ones too with over 1k planets as well -.-;   )

Anyhow, that should get you going

on Jan 10, 2012

senort11
How can I make DS maps for diplomacy?

For the record, if you want to make maps, all you need to do is copy the galaxyscenariodef file out of any mod to make a map for it.  Things like icons in the forge are a bonus.

 

BT's link is now wrong, see this post:

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/335474/page/271/#3055017

 

on Jan 10, 2012

You still need to grab the original Galaxy Forge, Just incase you didnt know that. What we provide is stuff the supplment GF so you can make maps that include everything we added.

on Jan 10, 2012

Thanks for all the help!

Unfortunately, DS 1.00, and all included minimods in the add-on pack cause minidump crashes when I try to enable them in the game. :/ I've tried deleting the ironclad games folder from my appdata and that did not work. I have no idea what's wrong and searching the forum has come up with very limited help.

Do you guys have any idea as to what might be going on here? I purchased Trinity through Steam if that helps at all. I know I have version 1.34 of diplomacy.

EDIT: Well, the mod started working on it's own randomly. So I tried to add all the mini-mods back in to see if they would work too, and they didn't. I am still getting minidumps. However, after trying many combinations of mini-mods and DS, I have found that having Powerful Pirates and/or the Laserbeam mod active. The game does not crash with any of the other mini-mods enabled, including the PP compatibility mods for DM and Flagship. 

on Jan 10, 2012

what are your graphic settings and when in game does it crash?

on Jan 10, 2012

Have you tried a re-download?

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