Technical Preview 2 Changelog

Release Status: *** AVAILABLE ***

Just in time for the holidays is our next major update for Sins of a Solar Empire II! This second Technical Preview includes the TEC Rebels, new units, culture, a new research system and much more.

New Faction

• Added initial content for TEC Rebel faction

New Units

• Added TEC Sova capital ship

• Added TEC Marza capital ship

• Added TEC Dunov capital ship

• Added TEC Neruda Envoy

• Added TEC Argonev starbase

• Added Phase Inhibitor

New Ship Components

• Added Exotic Salvage Policy: insures the capital ship so that exotics used in its manufacture are automatically recovered in the event the ship is destroyed

  • Your initial free capital ship comes with this insurance in its inventory. the goal is to make it much easier to rebuild your capital ship if it was destroyed early in the game

• Added Mobile Argonev Starbase: grants capital ships the ability to deploy starbases at remote locations

New Planet Components

• Added Munitions Plant: grants bonus dps to allied structures and starbases in orbit

• Remade Autonomous Refinery:

  • improves orbital resource extraction rates

  • only available on certain planet types (e.g. asteroids)

New Map

• Added 5 player random medium map

• Renamed the previous map with a "_custom" postfix to indicate it was a custom hand-made design (as opposed to randomly generated)

New Culture

• Added initial TEC culture content

New Research System:

• Added first pass of new research system and interface. Still incomplete but gives a better idea of the direction we are heading. Focus is on the gameplay of research and the structure of the interface (not the aesthetics).

Gameplay

• Orbital resource extractor structures are now dependent on research, not mining track levels

• Switched Kol's Finest Hour to deal a percentage of damage dealt as splash damage rather than a fixed amount

• Fixed Energized Space planet bonus bad data

• Fix derelict loot spawning inside stars

• Fixed upgraded Retrofit Bay not repairing corvettes and frigates

• Changed item building to allow queuing of items if their prerequisite items are queued, but only build them if those prerequisites are finished

• Fixed Media Conglomerate buff not being removed when item is removed

Models

• Update TEC Exotic Refinery mesh

• Updated TEC Gauss Defense mesh

• Updated TEC Retrofit Bay mesh

• Updated TEC Heavy Factory mesh

• Updated TEC Light Factory mesh

• Updated Pirate Pillager mesh

• Update experiment with TEC Kol textures (testing new detail and scale cues)

Rendering

• FPS optimizations: Some hardware combinations could receive 5x to 50x fps improvement

• Fixed dynamic light discontinuities (e.g., when bombing a planet)

Balance

• Nothing of consequence unless it was part of a complete system change

• Not a priority at this stage

User Interface

• Added new bottom bar structure for ships and planets:

  • Added ship and structure build groups to help with organization

  • Added planet bonus and artifact buttons

  • Removed planet asset rates from window (info still available on tooltip)

  • Removed set rally point button (right click to set rally points or use related ship component)

  • Added advanced planet window

  • Moved excavation to be with other track buttons

  • Adjusted advanced and carrier bottom bars to leave room for build queue

  • Added new exotic window

  • Improved fleet supply window

  • Improved colonized planet window

  • Escape menu can now be accessed from the root window by pressing the escape key

  • Added close button to escape menu

  • Added temporary new scuttle interface:

    • Select all units to scuttle, press 'delete' key to scuttle en masse

    • You may need to delete \AppData\Local\sins2_pre_alpha\settings\input_bindings.json

    • If you made other key binding edits, you can also edit the file manually:
      -"toggle_scuttle_units": [
      {
      "keyboard_key": "del"
      }],

  • Added dpi settings to settings->user interface window

  • Fixed various dpi issues

  • Removed extra background from buttons

  • Added various background windows

  • Added disabled state to npc reward buttons

  • Added focused_text_color

  • Added garrison tooltip icons (main view icons will be coming at a later date)

  • Added highlighted state to default button

  • Added item_prerequisites to item_tooltip

  • Added pirate portraits

  • Added merchant and miner npc player portraits

  • Added new exotic pictures

  • Adjusted the spacing of the top bar on the title screen

  • Added ability to customize cursors for different npc rewards (e.g., pirate raid vs others)

  • Attached name and culture indicator properly to picture window

  • Updated notification icons

  • Fixed notification spacing

  • Fixed auction button spacing

  • Darkened assorted hud frames

  • Updated structure of some front-end screens

  • Cleaned up some front-end layout issues

  • Fixed tooltip flickering when over an extractor AND canceled extractor

  • Fixed culture indicator tooltip showing up when unit not visible

  • Suppressed culture rate tooltip value rendering if the rate is zero

  • Fixed missing nightmare difficulty icon

  • Fixed npc auction bid button alignment

  • Fixed Advent and Vasari player icons showing up for TEC

  • Fixed random hud components never getting focused

  • Fixed top bar buttons being active when they shouldn't be

  • Fixed ultimate exotic reward icon binding

  • Fixed unit bars in ship window not showing shields and antimatter

  • Fixed units without gui (e.g., debris) getting into bookmark window

  • Fixed camera panning

  • Fixed waiting for exotic on tooltip for newly built structures

  • Hide player icons on meshes when cursor over by default

  • Improved unit name text entry behavior

  • Added lock and open icons

  • Added icons and layout for the discord, forum, and guide

  • Added new test cursors

  • Added npc reward targeting UI (can customize cursors for different npc rewards (pirate raid vs others))

Effects

• Experiment with TEC Kol exhaust particles (testing new particle behaviors)

• Experiment with TEC Kol Heavy Gauss effects (testing new particle behaviors)

• Added placeholder muzzle effect for Kol beam

• Added particle effects spawned from beam effects

• Added beam duration to muzzle effects

• Added placeholder effects for Research Station PSIDAR

• Added placeholder projectile effect to EMP Droids

• Added variation seeding to particle_effects so there is less perfectly synchronized behavior (e.g., dual barrel muzzle flashes)

• Fixed acceleration of particles not being cleared

Audio

• Added missile impact sfx alternates

• Added physical heavy hull impact sfx alternates

• Added physical medium hull impact sfx alternates

• Added physical light hull impact sfx alternates

• Added more music

• Updated capitalship death explosion sfx

• Updated cruiser death sfx

• Updated TEC capital ship exhaust sfx

• Updated TEC frigate death sfx

• Updated TEC strikecraft death sfx

• Updated TEC corvette death sfx

Crashes

• Fixed crash in exotic_tooltip

• Fixed crash in planet tooltip

• Fixed crash when dragging ship items in production window

• Fixed common assert(is_unit) (very likely to cause crashes)

Misc

• Removed garrison ships from player regular ship unit limit

• Added trigger events and action to support modifying pending damage as it is registered

• Add text-based rendering_system settings to help track down video card issues

• Fixed acquire research tier exotic reservations not being cleaned up

• Fixed various misleading strings

• Fixed various string misspellings

• Fixed militia attacking derelict guardians

• Added ignoring of old save games that could cause crashes

• Fixed missing "delete" key binding for Scuttle action

• Fixed unable to rename ships and planets

• Fixed tooltip overlapping bottom bar at lower resolutions

• Fix list box inverted scrolling with mouse scroll wheel

• Fixed all Point Defense weapons not acquiring best possible target

• Fixed Starbase beams and missiles being enabled prematurely

• Fixed Dunov only firing 1 missile per volley

• Fixed Dunov and Sova attack alignments

• Improved Kol, Dunov, and Sova firing arcs

• Adjusted research balance slightly

• Adjusted economy slightly