Release Status: *** AVAILABLE ON TEST EDITION ***

Later this month we’ll be releasing our second DLC, Reinforcements, onto Steam and the Epic Games Store. While we hope everyone is looking forward to it, we’ve got plenty more to share right now!

Welcome to Eivonn’s Fine Update, which re-introduces our favorite used ship dealer as a new minor faction to the Sins II galaxy. Eivonn is all too happy to wheel and deal with those who want to purchase the finest ships of yesteryear. (All transactions final. No refunds.)

In addition to Eivonn, we’ve made a number of quality-of-life UI/UX improvements this month, added two additional maps, updated gameplay balance, and some AI updates. One of the first visual changes you’ll notice are all new map images on the lobby windows for non-scenarios. These now show the positions of the stars and planets on the map as a mini-preview.

Lastly, we want to call out what we hope will be a significant performance improvement for users in the late game. While Sins II was already far beyond the original overall, we’ve made new optimizations that should pretty dramatic (depending on your hardware) when massive fleets collide.

To Use the Test Edition

• On Epic Games

  • Install the Sins of a Solar Empire II - Test Edition product from your Library

• On Steam

  • Select ‘Sins of a Solar Empire II’ in your Steam Library.

  • Click the gear icon in the upper right.

  • Select Properties → Betas

  • Select 'test_edition' from the Beta Participation dropdown.

  • Steam will update you to the latest files.

Changelog

Gameplay

• Added Eivonn’s Fine Frigates minor faction which sells 3 older-class ships:

  • Remastered Cielo command cruiser.

  • Remastered Kodiak medium cruiser.

  • Remastered Arcova scout frigate.

• Added 2 converted maps from Sins: Rebellion - Storm Front and High Stakes.

• Significant late game performance and ‘hitching’ improvements were made in this update. This can result in up to double the performance depending on your hardware and game conditions (number of units, vfx, etc.). Special thanks to Kent R. for sending us his 18-hour save game!

• Updated ship loot spawns for capital ships and titans to more accurately reflect ship cost in both regular and Exotic resources. Ship loot will now always contain 10-30% of the regular resource build cost of a ship and has a chance to contain any of the Exotics used in construction of the unit.

• Rebalanced Aluxian Resurgence starting forces.

  • Added Kodiak, Cielo and Arcova to the Aluxian Resurgence fleet composition.

  • Removed Harcka and Prova from the Aluxian Resurgence fleet composition.

• TEC:

  • Added Novalith to TEC Enclave faction to facilitate the new factional victory condition (Reinforcements DLC).

  • Added max target cap to Marza Dreadnought Missile Barrage.

  • Krosov Siege Frigate:

    • Changed supply cost from 6 to 8.

    • Changed bombardment from 20s to 15s, damage changed from 40 to 25, population damage changed from 1.0 to 0.2.

  • Pirate Pillager:

    • Changed supply cost from 6 to 8.

    • Changed bombardment from 20s to 15s, damage changed from 50 to 20, population damage changed from 1.5 to 0.75.

  • Changed Kalev Gauss Frigate Gauss range from 10000 to 8000, reload from 6.5 to 12.5, damage from 50 to 75, target lock on time from 0.5s to 1.0s.

  • Changed Harcka Heavy Cruiser Heavy Autocannon damage from 20 to 25, Pierce from 300 to 250.

  • Javelis LRM Cruiser:

    • Changed Breaker Missile pierce from 500 to 450, damage from 75 to 200, hull from 15 to 5.

    • Changed Medium Missile pierce from 400 to 450.

  • Ogrov Torpedo Cruiser:

    • Reworked the Ogrov Torpedo Cruiser. This unit has proved too difficult to use in practice since its rework to a charge-based ability attack. Therefore, we are restoring its standard weapon and further emphasizing the very high alpha strike damage, slow firing nature of the unit. Its missile ability has been reworked to behave like a traditional antimatter ability - it was important to retain an ability in order to ensure more player control over this unit's otherwise awkward attack profile. It has increased in supply cost and retained its Exotic cost in order to limit the pace at which Ogrovs can be massed, and to keep capital ship annihilating single salvos an extreme late game occurrence.

      • Re-added the Heavy Torpedo weapon as a 750 damage, 30-second reload attack.

      • Increased supply cost from 15 to 20.

      • Changed hull from 1875 to 2275, armor from 1200 to 1000, shield from 1000 to 1500.

      • Added 150 antimatter with a regeneration rate of 0.5.

      • Reworked the Super Heavy Torpedo ability into the ability Torpedo Targeting Override, which fires a longer range, but lower damage Heavy Torpedo.

  • Changed Missile Battery Medium Missile pierce from 400 to 450.

  • Changed Argonev Starbase Heavy Missile to Super Heavy Missile, damage from 700 to 1050, pierce from 500 to 750.

  • Changed TEC Bomber Light Missile pierce from 300 to 400.

  • Changed TEC Fighter Light Autocannon from 12 to 15.

  • Changed Autocannon Defense Platform from 300 to 250.

  • Changed Gauss Defense Platform from 150 to 300, pierce from 6.5 to 10.0.

  • Adjusted TEC Ablative Armor and Reactive Plating items to only apply to armor damage.

• Advent:

  • Increased Rapture Battlecruiser Malice max target count from 15 to 25.

  • Increased Advent Medium Beam Pierce from 400 to 450.

  • Increased Destra Crusader Superheavy Plasma damage per hit from 175 to 200.

  • Changed Exoria Illuminator Heavy Beam to Medium Beam (Pierce changed from 500 to 450), reload changed from 9s to 10s, damage per hit changed from 80 to 90.

  • Changed Exoria Illuminator Medium Beam to Light Beam (Pierce remains at 450 to 400).

  • Purge Vessel:

    • Changed supply cost from 5 to 7.

    • Changed bombardment plasma from 20s to 15s, damage changed from 40 to 25, population damage changed from 1.0 to 0.2.

  • Changed Advent Bomber Light Beam range from 3000 to 4000, Pierce from 300 to 400.

  • Changed Advent Interceptor Light Laser range from 2750 to 3000, damage from 8 to 10.

  • Soul Reclamation:

    • Fixed to trigger consistently.

    • Rebalanced - now has 4 tiers instead of 3: corvettes / frigates now provide 3 Focus on death, cruisers and structures provide 5, capitals and starbases provide 50, titans and command ships provide 300.

• Vasari:

  • Karrastra Destructor:

    • Changed supply cost from 9 to 12.

    • Changed bombardment beam from 15s to 12s, damage changed from 45 to 30, population damage changed from 1.15 to 0.24.

  • Kanrak Assailant:

    • Changed Charged Phase Missile from 500 to 510, damage changed from 80 to 90.

    • Changed Medium Phase Missile from 400 to 510, damage changed from 80 to 60.

  • Kultorask Titan:

    • Rebalanced Kultorask - the Kultorask has been capable of dealing considerable DPS, absorbing significant incoming fire and also disabling entire enemy fleets all at the same time; single handedly reducing a battle to a stat check that it will typically win. In order to focus its identity and create design space for other units in the Vasari roster, it is being rebalanced to focus more on scaling survivability and movement control. We will be carefully monitoring the impact of these changes on the usage and power level of the Kultorask.

      • Nano Leech:

        • Antimatter Drain changed from 3/6/9 per second to 1.2/2.4/3.6 per second.

        • Antimatter Restore changed from 1/2/3/ to 0.3/0.6/0.9.

        • Damage Rate changed from 6/12/18 to 12/24/36.

        • Hull/Armor Restoration Rate changed from 1/2/3 to 3/6/9.

        • Antimatter Cost changed from 180/150/120 to 120/144/168.

      • Gravity Pulse:

        • No longer slows enemy weapon reload. Instead, it slows enemy phase jump charge-up time in addition to its normal linear speed penalty. When striking a target that has Nano Leech applied, it will now only disable movement and phase jumping, leaving weapons, abilities, regeneration, strikecraft handling and factory function untouched.

  • Changed Tosurak Raider Light Phase Missile from 300 to 420.

  • Changed Vasari Bomber Light Phase Missile from 300 to 420.

  • Changed Vasari Heavy Fighter Light Beam from 36 to 30.

  • Vasari Exodus Mobile Research Complex research speed reduced from 120% to 60%.

AI

• Diplomatic AI

  • Reduced AI-to-AI alliance chance rate by 50% in the early game.

  • Improved odds of the human player being able to ally with an AI.

  • Increased effective value of bonus assets by the human player when making deals with AI players.

  • Note: These are all short-term improvements until we overhaul the diplomacy system in the next major update. They’re meant to help prevent the AI players from instantly ganging up on the human(s) to the exclusion of all else.

• Fixed bug that was keeping AI players from expanding.

• Fixed bug that caused turrets to not take shots of opportunity.

UI / UX

• Added a slow glow effect to all research subjects that are unlocked.

• Added text to the Fleet Command window tabs when they’re empty to guide the player on what they’re for.

• Added Tooltip Delay settings to User Interface options. Tooltips can now be totally disabled, or their appearance can be customized with a delay (in milliseconds) [User Requested].

• Added Quick Save / Quick Load buttons to single-player Escape menu.

• Added new loading screens.

• Added AI type to Diplomacy player tooltips (i.e., defensive/aggressive). This lets you know which was picked if you selected Random during setup.

• Added a dynamic second row for structures in the Colonized Planets window if the structure count exceeds the first row.

• Added brown dwarf main view icon.

• Updated single-player and multiplayer front end UI to better utilize space. Also replaced map images with preview layouts for the map.

• Updated unit camera distance and icon transition values.

• Updated Welcome dialog so that it only displays when there’s new information, instead of every time you start the game.

• Updated Research windows to darken locked research tiers columns.

• Updated a number of icons throughout the game to better represent their related tech/ability/use.

• Hooked up new research subject frame for ones you’ve completed.

Misc. / Bug Fixes

• Fixed reputation_ability_cooldown_duration modifier not working.

• Fixed augment_damage action_type not functioning as expected. This affected abilities like Animosity (Radiance Battleship), Precision Targeting (Marza Dreadnought), Assault Specialization (Vulkoras Desolator) not adding bonus damage as intended.

• Deployable units will now use planet slots when they’re not special operation units by default. For example, if you use a “Deploy Phase Gate“ item, the deployed phase gate will consume as many planet slots on the planet as if you were to build one. This change sets us up to do more cool things in future updates.

• Fixed bug that was keeping AI players from expanding.

• Fixed crash caused by Stripped to the Core when stripping your capital planet.

• Updated English strings for spelling/grammar/readability.

• Updated to latest Epic SDK for that version of the game.

Modding

• Added new enum for abilities ability_action_will_ignore_gravity_well_unit_limits which allows for deployable unit items to use a flag to ignore gravity well tag limits.

  • When not set, non-special operation units will use slots.

• Added ability to use is_phase_lane_stabilizer in buffs through unit mutation.

• (Reinforcements DLC) Added enums for Factional Victory Conditions:

  • add_factional_objective

  • remove_factional_objective

• Added Hangar hardpoints to unit_items. Hangar points now function similarly to weapons and are only active if the required item is installed. Mods must update their data files for this change.

• Added new unit_constraint type: gravity_well_contains_unit_type. This allows abilities to only be activated in specific gravity well types (like stars).

• Added new unit_constraint type: is_in_gravity_well_or_adjacent_phase_lane. This allows abilities to target ships in adjacent phase lanes.

• Added a dynamic second row for structures in the Colonized Planets window if the structure count exceeds the first row.

• Fixed bug that allowed AI players to try and build capital ships it didn’t yet research. This effectively locked the AI player from doing anything.