Allquixotic

Mod Project Hosting/Mirroring in Sins Modding Sins Forums

Folks, I own a dedicated server with a symmetric 100MBPS uplink and a large bandwidth quota. I notice people hosting their mods on extremely dubious sites such as filefront and rapidshare -- these sites are incredibly annoying because of the ads and popups and waiting, and they're always trying to get you to sign up for some membership. That said, I am willing to host a limited number of mods on my server for an indefinite time. As a hosted mod, you will be able to upload the

Modding DOA in Beta? in Sins Modding Sins Forums

Hello, I am using the latest beta version of Sins (according to Impulse), 1.09[b].038 I'm not modifying any parts of the GameInfo. I'm just copying a single file from the shipped Reference Data into my mod's GameInfo folder: CAPITALSHIP_TECHCOLONY.entity -- unmodified filesystem-level copy. But when I load my mod, Sins crashes (hence the DOA = Dead on Arrival in the post title). Have they really changed the entity files so fundamentally that a 1.05 entity file (in text format, not

Reply to Over 18,000 screenshots in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote]A standard codec is something that you don't need to download to play.[/quote] I couldn't possibly disagree stronger. What "standard" are you basing your assumptions on? Microsoft's whim for which codecs they ship with their OS? Link me to a standards body that decides which codecs must get shipped with an OS, please. What's wrong, can't find one? That's because [b]there isn't one[/b]. The codecs you get when you install Windows are the codecs that Microsoft felt they could l

Reply to Over 18,000 screenshots in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

[quote] Nice battle! Will they accept this format on youtube and gametrailers.com? [/quote] MPEG4 submitted to Youtube is evidently re-encoded to H.264 320x200. The only way to submit a video to Youtube without it being re-encoded is to submit it at H.264 320x200, e.g. the exact specs they want. And even then, I'm not sure if they "blindly" re-encode it pointlessly, degrading quality further, or whether they simply say "OK, you pass our

Reply to fleet screenshots in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

See [link="https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/?aid=167007"]This Link[/link]! This should really wow supcomfan

Over 18,000 screenshots in Sins of a Solar Empire Sins Forums

Hi everyone, I've just posted a video to my website with high-detail footage of a "pretty big" battle. Since we've recently been attacked by the 14 year-olds of doom crying "I want more screenshots!", I decided to make a video to tease said audience. The purpose of this video is mainly to give an overview of a standard fleet battle to those who can't play SOASE. For those who *can* play SOASE, this video will probably not be too exciting, unless you just enjoy watching others p

Idea: Simple Algorithm for Unique Empire Symbols in Beta Feedback Sins Forums

In single player games, I think there should be an algorithm to automatically cause the randomly-generated AI's symbols/icons/logos to be unique. Several times I have noticed that two AIs have the same symbol, or one of them has the same symbol as me. I can change them now, but that's just tedium. 1. The *default* behavior should be: (a) Randomly select a symbol out of the list for each AI, all at once. (b) Starting with the player and iterating through the AIs, compare each AI'

Reply to Planetary Shield generators and Allegiance in Beta Feedback Sins Forums

I'm in support of the original post, but I agree with Pithlit that ships shouldn't touch allegiance at all. Another 10% allegiance from Planetary Shields would allow a very far away colony to have 35% allegiance. That's not too bad, even in porcupine terms! -Allquixotic

Reply to Civilian Traffic: The Cruise Liner in Beta Feedback Sins Forums

This is a great idea, and would add a lot of depth to this aspect of the game. +1

Reply to Research - forcing diversification in Beta Feedback Sins Forums

I mostly like the research system as it is. As others have stated, getting to the end of the tree is not that easy - particularly if you research all the little nooks and crannies. There is already a degree of (military) specialization, although I'll admit there is next to no specialization/diversification in the Civil segment. On the one hand, Kodiaks, battleships and Cobalts use the autocannon weapons, which have a long and expensive research line. Bombers, LRM frigates, Dunovs and Ma

Reply to Mouse scrolling? in Beta Feedback Sins Forums

ironwill96, Thanks for posting the solution here. I wasn't aware of the other thread where Blair posted a workaround; I appreciate your diligence in re-posting it here. -allquixotic

Reply to Planetary Defense Rethink in Beta Feedback Stardock Forums

Another vote in favor of planet-bound defenses. Rather than having them only destructible via Krosovs and capships, why not make the individual weapon platforms targetable? They should be large enough platforms that you can see them on the surface in order to click on them. If you want a weapon deadly enough to take out a battlecruiser with 1000 people on board, you need a pretty large footprint! Obviously the regular ship-to-ship guns would auto-target the nearest planetary defense if there's n

Reply to Who wants more single point static defenses? in Beta Feedback Stardock Forums

Hi, I support the gist of this thread. The AI is not a challenging adversary, especially when it comes to defense, so any arguments that your defenses are currently effective are dubious. Just think about how long it takes you to conquer an AI home planet with 16 or so gauss platforms clumped together. Do they even come close to destroying your battleships? They don't for me. Many people have argued that it should be required to throw ships at a planet to defend it. Th

Reply to Suggestion: fewer ships, so that each is more valuable and empire is more manageable in Beta Feedback Sins Forums

It has been pointed out elsewhere it is often very difficult to select a specific ship or few from a large battle. This is often because there are 50 ships per side and many of them are clumped together. If the fleets were much smaller it would be much easier to move away that frigate or cruiser that is taking a beating (or to better position a few flak frigates near areas that need defence against bombers for instance).<

Reply to What do you like about Sins? in Beta Feedback Sins Forums

A good thing is that the AI appears to be thinking. If you take locked teams and have allies, they'll try to help you as long as they're strong. In fact, if your teammates stay alive because the other AIs in your system are busy with you, your ally will eventually have several battlegroups going around - a bunch of cruisers and maybe a capship each. One time the pirates made it all the way to my homeworld with minimal damage (didn't build Phase Disruptors this game), and I totally forg

Reply to Interface and Gameplay Suggestions in Beta Feedback Sins Forums

* I am finding the Dunov cap ship to be useful in packs. I was having problems with enemy fighters, but the magnetic field can destroy multiple fighters (or all of them!). It also has the shield regen, and it seems to use all abilities intelligently; it will use the higher level skill that reduces anti-matter usage to 25% at the beginning, then the other skills are cheap. I also take the Akkan when I expect to colonize (and for its targeting computers). I fin

Reply to CyberMage Crash Issue in Beta Feedback Sins Forums

3. I won't venture into a BIOS flash I wasn't suggesting a BIOS flash. Chipset drivers are kernel-mode device drivers, much like your video card driver from NVidia. Microsoft's Update does not always offer the very latest chipset drivers through Windows Update -- exactly like they don't offer the latest Nvidia drivers. Would you justify not updating your Nvidia drivers because Microsoft isn't offering them through Windows Update? -- Didn't think s

Reply to Sun Defense? in Beta Feedback Sins Forums

Paradoxnt: There was a lot of discussion on this a while back. The problem with Star 'Ownership' and crazy numbers of powerful tactical structures is that the game becomes unbalanced (and potentially stalemated between 2 or more star systems). The developers won't be allowing UBER fortresses in the star's gravity well for this reason. Still, it would be nice to see star's gravity wells become contested zones. One way that we looked at would

Reply to CyberMage Crash Issue in Beta Feedback Sins Forums

Wow, thanks for pulling this one out of there. And thanks for your prompt followup, CyberMage. I'd be willing to help you troubleshoot this, in exchange for a virtual beer if I come up with an idea that fixes it. Can you start by restating for us the things you've tried to get this fixed? Have you 1. Used a different version of the nvidia drivers (an older version; a new/beta

Reply to Empire Tree Modification, subdivision of aural notifications and a few other goodies... in Beta Feedback Sins Forums

Interesting. I was wondering why shield mitigation goes up when something takes rapid damage! I knew that "Shield Mitigation" couldn't be a bad thing; I just never made this connection as such. Very informative. However - would you agree with me that there is a distinct tactical advantage to taking out a key enemy battleship by focus-firing? Say, the Akkan and its targeting advantages, or the Sova whose bombers are harassing your Kodiaks? I understand now that t

Reply to Multiple star systems in Beta Feedback Sins Forums

Ah, its distributed by team rather than per player. Two teams will always be in the same system. There, he's explained all your screenshots. So here's what he meant: 1. If non-locked teams is enabled, and the game starts as an FFA, then everyone is considered to be a team of 1. 2. The pairing algorithm puts at least two "teams" in each solar system. Hence, if there are only two teams, then two teams of any size will all end up jammed

Reply to [AI Behavior] Scout Ships in Beta Feedback Sins Forums

In computer science graph theory, this scenario is called "depth-first search" versus "breadth-first search". Extraordinarily, this is directly applicable to SINS. A depth-first search involves going down a single "leg" of the path from the starting point, until you either reach a cycle (come back home) or get to the end of the graph. A breadth-first search involves what the scouts currently do - they explore all the planets around your homeworld first, then move out to planets

Reply to Empire Tree Modification, subdivision of aural notifications and a few other goodies... in Beta Feedback Sins Forums

Empire Tree Variation A thought for a further variation on the Empire Tree. An ability to filter by actively contested planets would be very useful for finding battles and devoting my attention to where the battles are being played out. It could also have a coloured bar indicating size of fleets and value... I know I'm hitting a contentious point in a rock, paper, scissors game but if a points system was used for

Reply to Planet management in Beta Feedback Sins Forums

Good point! The game provides an excellent zooming feature for large-scale management, but there is an impedance when you're doing a specific "hunt" for something. I think it was designed with the hope that, as events unfold, things will just... grab your attention... and this will guide where you're zooming. But in your case, you've got a strategy to boost your fleet capacity, and need information en masse . Hence the colony window was born in GC2. I'm with you on this idea, alth

Reply to What would you like me to Test? in Beta Feedback Sins Forums

I would like to see a video showcaseing hilarious sounds modded into the game by replacing files... Sorry; what does this have to do with the original post? I think BA is addressing the developers. What is your priority right now for gameplay testing? I am not a developer (at least not for Ironclad <img src="http://images.stardock.com/gc2/T_DL/smiles/Wink.gif" border