Release Status: *** AVAILABLE ***

Introducing the Vasari Rebels:

After a long journey of 10,000 years, the vanguard of the Vasari forces arrives in Trader space. You must quickly establish a foothold and then expand outward to collect the resources you need. Unlike their Loyalist brethren, the Vasari Rebels feel their best chance for survival is to cooperate with other races and bring them along on their flight. While their preference is to work well with others, they are fully capable of managing any aggressor. Will you ally with the locals or destroy them? Many choices and dangers await in the darkness of this new region. Play as the Vasari Rebel faction in this latest content drop for Sins of a Solar Empire II!

Change Log

TEC Trade System:

• Added trade escorts. New research can unlock Garda and Harkca ships to follow trade ships and protect them if needed.

• Added trade ship kill bonus. Enemy players will now receive assets upon killing a trade ship.

• Added trade ship detection research. Trade ships can reveal gravity wells they are traveling through.

• Increased trade port income.

• Removed trade escorts from pip groups. Was misleading because they are not controllable, so when zoomed out the pip group would be selected but all actions would be ignored.

• Fixed trade income not being taxed.

• Improved a variety of tooltips to better explain how the TEC's trade system works.

• Added trade capacity table to planet tooltips. If the planet has any trade ports, makes it easier to see how trade is working when zoomed out.

Gameplay:

• First pass on rebalancing all combat stats (work in progress):

  • Revised hull & shield passive regen rates.

  • Added auto-cast to minor faction abilities.

• Using minor faction abilities now requires an envoy to be present so other players can deny enemy access to them.

• Increased market change thresholds by 4. The market will not fluctuate and go to very high demand as easily.

• Increased max planet item slots for some planets. Ice/volcanic/asteroid/pirate base/desert all have 1 extra slot at max logistics.

• Rebalanced gas giant:

  • Removed mining track levels.

  • Increased income rates from Gas Harvester components.

  • Removed TEC Military Lab as a buildable component on gas giants.

• Added an intermediate level to asteroid planet's logistics track that provides 4 civilian slots.

• Updated minimum asteroid counts.

• Improved Kol's Fusillade ability. Improved tracking rate will enable it to effectively engage corvettes with its medium autocannons, while improving weapon cooldown allows it to compete more effectively against (or complement) Rapid Autoloader for both synergy with Finest Hour and general DPS.

• Improved emergent fighting on the edge of the gravity well between Gardas and strikecraft.

• Updated Novalith ranges to be useful on the largest public map. Will need some further analysis based on map size.

• Added concurrent build queue of strikecraft. This normalizes the strikecraft build rate for late game and helps higher squadron count units to replenish.

• Increased titan item slots from 6 to 8.

• Added random y offset to asteroid placement.

• Added ai_behavior for units that auto-follow units to only follow units that are dealing with threats.

• Disabled some ships auto-follow behavior. Don't want these in the middle of combat unless directed by the player. (e.g., carrier cruisers)

• Added post_alignment_roll so units like the TEC corvette can bring side guns to bear while orbiting. His DPS was being cut to 50% effectiveness.

• Changed development mandate to 12 slots.

• Restricted max count on XP items in order to prevent 4 items on one ship resulting in silly leveling.

• Updated bounty_credits (roughly correlated with supply increases).

• Improved TEC starbase missile launch steering.

• Improved TEC starbase missile pitch angle.

• Improved missile target interception.

• Updated all weapon firing tolerance and arc data.

• Improved spawned ships in phase jump arrival behavior.

  • Will now come in closest to the factory instead a random position.

  • Arrival forward will now match the direction the unit came in so doesn't phase jump in and then have to rotate around to face into the gravity well.

• Added estimated incoming damage to help units avoid overkill. Attack orders/weapons will now switch targets to avoid wasting DPS.

• Allied Pirates with militia by default.

• Rebalanced marginal tax rates.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed and rebalanced taxation.

  • Global income sources weren't being taxed.

  • Trade income wasn't being taxed.

  • Margins weren't calculated correctly.

• Fixed carrier getting free kills for removing strikecraft in UI.

• Fixed carrier not tracking strikecraft spawned by buffs properly.

• Fixed garrison carrier strikecraft not also considered garrison units.

• Fixed instant use abilities breaking move in formation.

• Fixed new phase jumping in units not showing the phase jump exit effect on arrival.

• Fixed rally point user interface circles showing up for units that are not functional factories yet.

• Fixed spawn detached strikecraft action going over count.

• Fixed star bonus items not being added to stars.

• Fixed TEC rebel titan not always bombing planet.

• Targeted and AOE abilities that restore hull, shields, or antimatter can now only affect fully built units.

• Fixed unit_ai auto-following dead units.

• Fixed strikecraft attempting to travel 'inside' their carrier.

• Fixed units traveling at a speed faster than their desired speed not slowing down as fast as they could.

• Fixed weapons not always tracking a target when they should be able to.

• Fixed AI being able to send pirate raids to planets it has never detected.

• Fixed scouts stuck in loop trying to explore a planet they can't reach.

• Fixed strikecraft not able to return to carrier.

• Fixed starbase not always buildable around asteroids.

• Fixed newly joined fleet ships not always following the fleet leader.

• Fixed abilities that spawn units allowing you to go over supply.

• Fixed missiles being displaced by the unit firing them.

• Fixed bug allowing Colonize ability to free upgrade planet tracks higher than current research allows.

• Fixed Colonize ability giving invalid target warnings for planets with no detection. This was giving knowledge to players that they shouldn’t have as they planet still looks colonizable (the new planet owner isn’t known yet).

• Fixed issues with auto-using market during purchase. This wasn’t accounting for the price of the unit being purchased to see if assets could be bought or sold; it just checked that the player assets wouldn’t go below zero on any one transaction. For example, if cost was 100 credits and 100 metal, player had 100 credits and no metal, the game would try to buy 100 metal causing credits to go below 100.

• Fixed jump inhibitor applying debuff before building is finished.

• Fixed planet_icon_bounty main view setting not being used properly.

• Fixed remote starbase waiting for exotics being visible and targetable by enemy.

• Fixed spelling of “Experience”

• Fixed long running beam weapon effects persisting after target death.

• Reverted anti-armor beam duration back to 25 seconds. The beam will now go away properly when target dies.

• Spawned self-building units no longer wait for exotics. They can’t wait because self-building units cannot be auto-queued, so the spawned starbase will just sit there not building.

• Fixed missiles not impacting with a dead unit that hasn’t fully exploded yet.

• Fixed Vasari phase missile defense no rotating.

• Fixed Vasari capital ships firing the wrong missiles and using the wrong bombardment beam particle.

Crashes and Asserts:

• Fixed 'unit has no physics' crash.

• Fixed detection_provided buffs and released units crash.

• Fixed build unit from fleet crash.

• Fixed nullptr crash in buff creation runtime validation.

HUD:

• Fixed enemy player fleet icons showing up while phase jumping.

• Updated last detected ship stats at gravity wells when phase lanes are detected. This makes PSIDAR and other forms of lane detection much more useful, as now the last detected pip group(s) beside planets will be updated as ships arrive and leave gravity wells. This removes the need to constantly watch phase lanes and mentally do the bookkeeping.

• Added error message when attempting to create fleet with units that cannot join. Ex. select construction frigate and attempting to create fleet with it.

• Added new TEC research field backgrounds.

• Added separate notifications for building starbase, titan, and capital ship items. Previously all were considered "ship" items.

• Added total supply value to fleet tooltips.

• Fixed bounty not showing up for undetected planets.

• Fixed broken pip group UI for phase lane unit groups.

• Fixed fleet build window not always appearing when clicking fleet icon.

• Fixed fleet window not popping up in some circumstances when clicking the fleet icon.

• Fixed star bonus items not showing up in HUD.

• Improved bounty value text colors: White = enemy, red/yellow = self/ally.

• Improved passive ability buttons: no longer appear clickable and make click sounds.

• Removed garrison icon underlay from strikecraft.

• Improved research text filter hints.

• Fixed research links not being merged when going to the same subject.

• Renamed minor faction names to be shorter and avoid overlap in the minor faction dialog.

• Added Fleet Supply value to fleet pip_group_tooltip.

• Added “Always show planet names” setting.

• Added setting to control phase lane group icons. Disabled by default as there are too many situations when they don’t look good.

• Fixed titan item slots overflowing ship window dialog border.

• Hid empty item slots on units you don’t own.

• Rounded up max hull and shield points to multiples of 5.

• Added main view icon underlay for Vasari local garrison units (Defensive Uplink).

User Interface:

• Added right-click to stop building structures. Previously could only CTRL+right-click to stop AND destroy existing structures. Now not holding CTRL will fall back to expected behavior of canceling construction.

• Excluded fleet icon from bandboxing. This makes it much easier to bandbox and add other ships to a fleet.

• Fixed strafing camera detaching from units while phase jumping.

• Improved camera going off into space.

• Fixed middle mouse button for pan not working when cursor over GUI elements.

• Fixed all 3D UI not blending properly.

• Fixed unit targeted abilities not working on gravity well positions.

Tooltips:

• Changed unit_items to support tooltips for multiple improved abilities.

• Improved a wide variety of tooltips.

• Added advanced input types to build structure tooltip:

  • Hold CTRL to auto-place.

  • Hold CTRL+right-click to quick scuttle.

• Added consume/build exotic count colors.

• Added setting for advanced tooltips enabled by default.

• Added tooltip to drag and remove item from inventory.

• Added tooltip to toggle autocast with right-click.

• Fixed corrupt minor faction auction tooltip. Player bid amounts were going out of bounds.

• Fixed unwanted user interface helper lines showing up on item tooltips. For example, star bonus items shouldn't get the "drag out to remove" tooltip. Likewise, garrison items that you don't own shouldn't have "click to change garrison orders".

• Improved cannot be combined with item tooltip:

  • Item per line with icon, more extensible and compact, consistent with error message.

  • Not red by default as confusing when not conflicting with other items.

• Improved carrier slot button tooltip:

  • No longer shows no available supply red error message.

  • Using all carrier capacity isn't needed as lack of available supply is sufficient. Show strikecraft icon/name instead of carrier name.

• Improved exotics in purchase tooltip:

  • Split up the exotics to build and exotics to consume from inventory better. The former (exotics to build) now fits in with other costs better and no longer has exotics split per line.

  • Now aggregates the cost of one type together to get it on one line.

  • The exotics to consume (from inventory) is now after the final price so it looks like it is just part of the final price (credits/metal/crystal/exotics).

• Improved needed_items in item tooltip. No longer 3 different sections all saying the same thing when missing needed items. For example, starbase hull 2 needing hull 1.

• Improved pirate raid event strings.

• Improved raid event notification tooltip:

  • Added time remaining.

  • Added sorted planets with bounties.

  • Added keybindings (click and hold spacebar) as separate lines.

• Improved research required tooltip. Converted to more consistent flat list of subjects with icons, consistent with failed query rendering.

• Fixed tooltip second column values being sometimes squished.

• Added enemy occupied asteroids to tooltips and button. Avoids confusion as to why extractors can't be built (an enemy extractor still exists).

• Added ships and planets that are able to build an item in the research tooltip.

• Fixed tooltip for drag-and-drop item removal showing up on artifacts and planet bonuses.

• Fixed tooltip assert when planets have an item providing bonus max item slots.

• Fixed remote starbase item exotic cost tooltip. Tooltip was saying the ability cost assets/exotics to use which it doesn’t because the price is in the item itself.

Models:

• Added build point for Sova. Ships will now visually build in bay.

• Fixed missile firing order on Javelis.

• Updated various bounding boxes and spheres.

• Fixed Pirate planet mesh outline.

Visual Effects:

• Added extraction effects.

• Added construction effects.

• Added factory construction effects.

• Added radiation bomb effects.

• Added various particle effects.

• Converted all effects for UV noise.

• Converted external_color effects.

• Edited factory construction particle effect.

• Fixed particle effect initial alpha values.

• Optimized various effects.

• Updated pirate exhaust.

• Fixed missile death explosions not showing if in icon form on death.

• Added player colors to some buff effects.

• Fixed enemy ships phase jumping arrival rarely showing exit effects.

• Updated TEC exotic factory flairs.

• Added and updated various Vasari effects.

• Added Phase Resonator model.

• Updated models for:

  • Vasari battleship

  • Vasari anti-armor cruiser

  • Vasari bomber

  • Vasari carrier capital ship

  • Vasari colony capital ship

  • Vasari construction ship

  • Vasari exotic factory

  • Vasari heavy cruiser

  • Vasari long-range frigate

  • Vasari marauder capital ship

  • Vasari overseer

  • Vasari siege capital ship

  • Vasar siege cruiser

  • Vasari rebel titan

  • Vasari phase missiles

  • TEC autocannon defense

  • TEC interceptor strikecraft

• Updated Vasari shield texture

• Added and updated a wide variety of Vasari weapon and ability effects.

Audio:

• Split phase jump SFX into 4 sections: Chargeup, Entry, Travel, and Exit.

• Updated phase jump chargeup sound effect a touch longer to better match visuals in-game.

• Added one-off phase jump event sounds for charge and enter phase jump.

• Added player sound fallbacks for missing dialog.

Modding:

• Added support for multiple child meshes from items.

• Added a variety of new particle editing features.

• Added permissions for building, launching, and docking strikecraft.

• Added on_buff_stacking_limit_met trigger event.

• Added ability to have garrisons that cannot leave the gravity_well.

• Added capability to mark units as not able to join formations.

• Improved unit child mesh system. Child meshes are now defined at the unit level with either required or hidden by unit items. Previously the unit item definition had the child mesh, but this was less flexible. It was only possible to add child meshes with items, not hide them with items. In the future there may be other constraints (ex., research) to show child meshes. Also makes more sense that the mesh points are defined in the unit, not the item.

• Added ‘cruiser' as a target_filter_unit_type.

Misc:

• Enabled post-game summary dialog (very early work in progress).

• Components on ships and planets are now referred to as "Items" instead of "Components".

• Made lobby option buttons not focusable.

• Fixed resolution drop box not working properly when applying changes.

• Fixed front-end lobby chat text going out of bounds at DPI < 1.

• Fixed research tier buttons corrupt at non-standard DPIs.

• Removed planet maintenance from post-game stats screen.

• Disabled starfield skybox.