November 2024 - Ruins of War Update

Owned by Brian Clair
Last updated: Nov 21, 2024
12 min read

Welcome to ‘Ruins of War,' our November 2024 update for Sins of a Solar Empire II. As the name implies, this update includes new artwork that deals with the aftermath of major battles. Previously, you would see generic wreckage for large units in the game when they were destroyed. In this update you’ll find that every capital ship, titan and starbase features their own unique wreckage that can be collected by the victor for resources.

The November update isn’t just about debris visuals; we’ve also included two new tutorials, lots of balance changes, bug fixes, new icons, optimizations and more. Many of these changes came directly from the Sins II community - like the enhanced save game management features we’ve added. The ‘Ruins of War’ update also adds several new, non-colonizable gravity wells, new star types, and improvements to the early game to make things flow faster.

These are just the first of many monthly updates we plan to provide; we’ll be sharing an initial roadmap soon! Check out the full change notes below.

This update won't work with old save games and replays but you can still play them by using the previous version:

If you wish to finish up your game on the previous version, do the following:

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

  2. Click the gear icon in the upper right.

  3. Select Properties → Betas

  4. Select 'previous_edition' from the Beta Participation dropdown.

  5. Steam will update you to the latest files.

  6. To switch to latest repeat step 4 and select ‘None’

Version 1.30 Changelog

Release Status: *** RELEASED ***

Gameplay

  • Added tutorials for faction unique systems (i.e., Trade, Unity, Phase Resonance).

  • Added New Gravity Well Types

    • Plasma Storm - prevents strikecraft launches.

    • Magnetic Cloud - reduces linear acceleration by 50%.

    • Radiation Storm - disables passive regeneration of hull, armor and shields.

    • Particle Fountain - increases antimatter regeneration by 1 per second.

    • NOTE: These are not yet hooked up to all maps.

  • Added New Star Types

    • Blue giant

    • Orange star

    • Red dwarf

    • White dwarf

    • Black hole

  • Added Advent Titan Foundry structure. Advent titans are now built from this factory.

  • Balance Changes

    • Advent Domina Subjugator: The Domina is very under-utilized, primary due to the awkwardness of its ability usage. Cast ranges have been improved to help casting consistency on autocast; and Nullify has been improved in its overall effectiveness.

      • Suppression range increased from 6000 to 8000.

      • Nullify range increased from 7500 to 9500.

      • Nullify effect increased from 30 to 50 antimatter removed.

      • Nullify cooldown decreased from 20 to 15 seconds.

      • Nullify ability cost increased from 40 to 60 antimatter.

    • Advent Exoria Illuminator: The Exoria is intended to be the Advent answer to heavy cruisers and capital ships, but in practice it was doing too little for how hard it is to obtain. It still requires T3 research but should be much easier to mass once unlocked.

      • Build time reduced from 34 to 29 seconds.

      • Unit cost reduced from 655/145/0 to 575/125/0

      • Forward beam damage increased from 90 to 100.

      • Forward beam range increased from 8000 to 10000.

      • Side beam range increased from 4000 to 5000.

    • Vasari Kultorask Titan: The Kultorask has been dominating entire fleets with its enhanced Gravity Pulse, necessitating a significant nerf to uptime. This should account for cooldown reduction stacking, keeping the ability more of a short, sharp interruption rather than an outright lockdown.

      • Gravity Pulse ability cooldown scaling changed from 60/54/48 to 60/66/72 seconds.

      • Gravity Pulse antimatter cost scaling changed from 90/75/60 to 120/135/150.

      • Gravity Pulse disable duration scaling changed from 12/18/24 to 6/12/18.

      • Gravity Pulse slow duration scaling changed from 30/30/30 to 24/36/48.

    • Minor Faction Raids

      • Raid range on Minor Factions has been significantly reduced to minimize raid stacking.

        • All Minor Faction raid ranges reduced from 30 to 10 AU.

    • Ship Kill XP Rewards

      • Experience rewards for ship kills have been refactored to better account for the power of the ship, as well as the likihood that the ship class will suffer attrition. Where possible, ships of a similar class now have the same XP per Supply ratio between factions.

        • Advent Missionary Vessel XP value from 10 to 5.

        • Advent Vigilis Sentinel XP value from 90 to 60.

        • Advent Iconus Guardian XP value from 42 to 35.

        • Advent Seeker Vessel XP value from 5 to 2.

        • Advent Purge Vessel XP value from 30 to 60.

        • Pirate Rogue XP value from 50 to 56.

        • Pirate Pillager XP value from 36 to 60.

        • TEC Garda Flak Frigate XP value from 30 to 25.

        • TEC Protev Colony Frigate XP value from 6 to 5.

        • TEC Harcka Heavy Cruiser XP value from 100 to 91.

        • TEC Javelis LRM Cruiser XP value from 30 to 52.

        • TEC Hoshiko Robotics Cruiser XP value from 24 to 30.

        • TEC Prova Scout Corvette XP value from 5 to 2.

        • TEC Krosov Siege Frigate XP value from 55 to 60.

        • TEC Shriken Gunship Corvette XP value from 20 to 15.

        • TEC Ogrov Torpedo Cruiser XP value from 36 to 60.

        • Vasari Vulrak Penetrator XP value from 45 to 75.

        • Vasari Sulsurak Defensor XP value from 24 to 27.

        • Vasari Jarun Migrator XP value from 6 to 10.

        • Vasari Jusotra Fabricator XP value from 36 to 70.

        • Vasari Kortovas Overseer XP value from 120 to 100.

        • Vasari Ravastra Skirmisher XP value from 42 to 49.

        • Vasari Serevun Overseer XP value from 42 to 40.

        • Vasari Tosurak Raider XP value from 24 to 35.

        • Vasari Jikara Navigator XP value from 9 to 3.

        • Vasari Karrastra Destructor XP value from 36 to 90.

    • Strikecraft Rebalance: Strikecraft have been underperforming a little recently, partly due to excessive nerfs in the previous patch and partly due to unrefined attack patterns. Attack pattern tweaks should constitute a buff to un-microed damage output, while survivability buffs will help them last long enough to deal damage.

      • All bombers attack patterns and lock-on times adjusted to make attack patterns more reliably generate the DPS listed on the unit.

      • Advent Strikecraft:

        • Advent bomber hull points increased from 50 to 75.

        • Advent bomber build time reduced from 45 to 40 seconds.

        • Advent fighter hull points increased from 30 to 40.

        • Advent fighter build time reduced from 35 to 30 seconds.

      • TEC Strikecraft:

        • TEC hull points increased from 30 to 35.

        • TEC bomber armor increased from 40 to 50.

        • TEC fighter armor increased from 25 to 30.

      • Vasari Bombers:

        • Vasari hull points increased from 60 to 75.

        • Vasari bomber build time reduced from 90 to 75 seconds.

  • Pirates: TEC Primacy pirate-based strategies are incredibly potent, but are held up by the number of (essentially) free and expendable Pillagers they can access. Reducing both Pillager spawn rates and movement speeds should make this build less frustrating to play against.

    • Pirate Pillager max linear speed reduced from 750 to 650.

    • Pirate Mercenary Base Pillager spawn weight reduced from 2 to 1.

  • Phase Jump Speed Changes

    • Speed between gravity wells increased from 155,000 to 215,000.

    • Speed between stars increased from 215,000 to 752,500.

  • Rebalanced Homeworld Starting Levels

    • Advent

      • Was 1 Logistics, 2 Commerce, 1 Mining; Now 1 Logistics, 1 Defense, 2 Commerce, 3 Mining.

    • TEC

      • Was 1 Logistics, 2 Commerce, 1 Mining; Now 1 Logistics, 1 Defense, 4 Commerce, 2 Mining.

    • Vasari

      • First time colonization bonus now also gives +1 Defense.

  • Updated Unit Speeds: All ship engines have been rebalanced to give faster, smoother movement. The additional speed should help with tactical and strategic positioning and reactiveness, while refinements to other soft movement stats should make ship movement behaviour better while turning and assuming a formation. However, to keep maximum theoretical speed within reason, most external sources of speed improvement have been reduced in effectiveness.

    • Advent Coronata Titan speed increased from 500 to 625

    • Advent Eradica Titan speed increased from 500 to 600

    • TEC Ankylon Titan speed increased from 450 to 575

    • TEC Ragnarov Titan speed increased from 450 to 600

    • Vasari Vorastra Titan speed increased from 420 to 540

    • Vasari Kultorask Titan speed increased from 420 to 600

    • Advent Radiance Battleship speed increased from 550 to 700

    • Advent Rapture Battlecruiser speed increased from 625 to 750

    • Advent Halcyon Carrier speed increased from 550 to 650

    • Advent Progenitor Mothership speed increased from 550 to 700

    • Advent Revelation Battlecruiser speed increased from 625 to 775

    • TEC Kol Battleship speed increased from 550 to 675

    • TEC Sova Carrier speed increased from 550 to 625

    • TEC Akkan Battlecruiser increased from 625 to 750

    • TEC Marza Dreadnought speed increased from 550 to 625

    • TEC Dunov Battlecruiser speed increased from 650 to 725

    • Vasari Kortul Devastator speed increased from 570 to 660

    • Vasari Skirantra Carrier speed increased from 510 to 600

    • Vasari Jarrasul evacuator speed increased from 510 to 600

    • Vasari Antorak Marauder speed increased from 570 to 720

    • Vasari Vulkoras Desolator speed increased from 570 to 660

    • Advent Aeria Drone Host speed increased from 550 to 700

    • Advent Vigilis Sentinel speed increased from 650 to 775

    • Advent Iconus Guardian speed increased from 550 to 800

    • Advent Destra Crusader speed increased from 650 to 700

    • Advent Exoria Illuminator speed increased from 650 to 800

    • Advent Domina Subjugator speed increased from 700 to 750

    • Advent Missionary Vessel speed increased from 750 to 800

    • Advent Disciple Vessel speed increased from 900 to 1100

    • Advent Tempest Vessel speed increased from 750 to 800

    • Advent Purge Vessel speed reduced from 750 to 700

    • Advent Seeker Vessel speed increased from 1200 to 1500

    • Advent Acolyte Corvette speed increased from 850 to 950

    • Pirate Corsair speed increased from 700 to 750

    • Pirate Rogue speed increased from 825 to 900

    • Pirate Pillager speed reduced from 750 to 650

    • TEC Percheron Carrier Cruiser speed increased from 550 to 650

    • TEC Harcka Heavy Cruiser speed increased from 650 to 800

    • TEC Javelis LRM Cruiser speed remains at 750

    • TEC Hoshiko Robotics Cruiser speed increased from 550 to 750

    • TEC Ogrov Torpedo Cruiser speed increased from 550 to 625

    • TEC Kalev Gauss Frigate speed increased from 650 to 800

    • TEC Garda Flak Frigate speed increased from 750 to 900

    • TEC Protev Colony Frigate speed increased from 750 to 800

    • TEC Cobalt Light Frigate speed increased from 900 to 1000

    • TEC Krosov Siege Frigate speed remains at 650

    • TEC Prova Scout Corvette speed increased from 1200 to 1500

    • TEC Shriken Gunship Corvette speed increased from 850 to 900

    • Vasari Vulrak Penetrator speed increased from 510 to 720

    • Vasari Lasurak Transporter speed increased from 510 to 600

    • Vasari Jarun Migrator speed increased from 570 to 720

    • Vasari Jusotra Fabricator speed increased from 570 to 660

    • Vasari Kortovas Oppressor speed increased from 630 to 720

    • Vasari Serevun Overseer speed increased from 630 to 660

    • Vasari Karrastra Destructor speed increased from 570 to 600

    • Vasari Ravastra Skirmisher speed increased from 840 to 960

    • Vasari Kanrak Assailant speed increased from 660 to 720

    • Vasari Sulsurak Defensor speed increased from 810 to 840

    • Vasari Tosurak Raider speed increased from 810 to 840

    • Vasari Jikara Navigator speed increased from 1020 to 1410

    • TEC Familiar Territory speed buff reduced from 10% to 5%

    • TEC Navigation Sub-Channels speed buff reduced from 25% to 15%

    • TEC Volatile Accelerants max speed reduced from 50% to 25%

    • Vasari Mobility Phase Resonance reworked to provide Phase Jump Speed at all levels instead of Max Sublight Speed. Max Sublight Speed is now provided on levels 3, 4 and 5.

    • Vasari Mobility Phase Resonance phase jump speed scale changed to 12%, 18%, 24%, 30%, 36%

    • Vasari Mobility Phase Resonance max speed scale changed to 0%, 0%, 6%, 12%, 18%

    • Vasari Antorak Marauder Distort Gravity max speed scale changed from 8%, 16%, 24% to 6%, 12%, 18%

    • Vasari Antorak Marauder Distort Gravity turn speed scale changed from 8%, 16%, 24%, to 12%, 24%, 36%

  • Fixed AI scuttling only factories at a planet to make room for other structures.

  • Changed weapon and ability cooldowns to no longer update while the unit is in phase space (i.e., Phase Shifter or while Phase Jumping).

  • Fixed the exploit of selling and re-equipping items to reset their cooldown by tracking the cooldown state when items are sold or fully consumed.

  • Added stack limit on Temple of Pilgrimage.

  • Added always_check_is_dead_soon to point defense weapons.

  • Minor Factions

    • In order to reduce Minor Faction raid stacking, we’ve implemented a new planet item-based range system. This system comes with several new items and has also been added to several old ones.

      • Added Advent Heathen Quarter with 15 AU MF range.

      • Added TEC Auxiliary Supply depot with 15 AU MF range.

      • TEC Pirate Mercenary Base now has 15 AU range for Pirates only.

      • Added Pirate Smugglers Den with 10 AU range for Pirates only. The Smuggler’s Den replaces the Looting Crew in the Pirate Influence item shop. Looting Crew now appears in the Pirate auction pool instead.

      • Vasari Exodus Embassy now has 12 AU MF range.

      • Vasari Alliance Embassy now has 18 AU MF range.

Art

  • New Custom Debris

    • Added TEC capital ship, starbase and titan debris.

    • Added Advent capital ship, starbase and titan debris.

    • Added Vasari capital ship, starbase and titan debris.

  • Added Advent Titan Factory model and VFX.

  • Added new gas giant textures.

  • Updated TEC Garda frigate.

  • Updated TEC debris textures.

  • Updated TEC scout corvette.

  • Updated Advent heavy factory structure.

  • Updated Advent colony capital ship.

  • Updated Advent interceptor strikecraft.

  • Updated Advent missile frigate.

  • Updated ship loot meshes.

  • Removed old art for Vasari jump immunity tooltip.

  • 30.3 - Added back planet gas giant rings.

  • 30.3 - Updated crystalline planet materials.

  • 30.3 - Added hud and tooltip pictures for new gravity well planet bonuses.

UI

  • Save Game QoL Features

    • Added ability to control autosave intervals.

    • Added ability to set number of autosaves allowed per game (game will keep autosaving, but will simply overwrite the oldest).

    • Added button to delete all saves in a category.

    • Added button to open the save directory in a user’s file explorer.

  • Added additional text filter terms to improve research search.

  • Added search terms for inter-star phase jump techs.

  • Added resurrectable unit information to planet & ability tooltips.

  • Added/updated research subject icons for TEC, Vasari and Advent.

  • Added damage and pierce to torpedo/missile tooltips.

  • Added new options to disable strike craft and torpedo meshes.

  • Added main view icons for new gravity well types.

  • Improved empire exotics summary tooltip: When building exotics, it now shows the final total exotics instead of the number being built. (i.e., 1->3 instead of 1->2)

  • Localized cycle sub-selection keybinding name.

  • Removed Stop command from fleet units that can’t attack.

  • Reverted keyboard input modifiers to left/right agnostic version. There are too many new issues with only considering left CTRL/ALT/Shift.

  • Tooltips:

    • Added buildable planet types to unit items.

    • Added transmute line to research tooltips where the planet item transmutes assets.

    • Fixed Twin Fortresses limit.

    • Removed incorrect art for Vasari jump immunity ability tooltip.

    • Added suppression to buff tooltip.

  • Updated player has lost overlay.

  • Updated language selection dropdown to have a larger margin to prevent over-scrolling.

  • Adjusted size and layout of market buttons to better accommodate non-English strings.

Bug Fixes

  • Added check to between_gravity_well_range in main view UI so as to not override the circle drawn by GUI data.

  • Added condition to structure tooltip to show culture added by structure only after research requirements are done, if needed.

  • Added stack limit on Temple of Pilgrimage (Advent).

  • Attached has_artifact boolean from galaxy_chart to galaxy generation.

  • Updated total income tooltip to calculate transmuted assets (Advent).

  • Changed default serialization for show_current_gravity_well_resurrectable_unit_data.

  • Fixed attack commands stopping incoming reinforcing units.

  • Fixed crash due to AI controller assuming a fixture was a planet.

  • Fixed frame rate delimiter not working properly.

  • Fixed making purchases using market to buy resources not working some of the time. If both metal and crystal are needed and have enough credits for both, wasn’t being handled.

  • Fixed point defense not switching off torpedoes (missiles) that will soon be dead.

  • Fixed sync error due to dark skybox setting.

  • Fixed up various misspellings.

  • Fixed weapons not firing on almost dead units due to incoming damage. For example, if a large number of missiles were incoming, light frigates wouldn’t fire on a target. Now only non-order tracking weapons evaluate incoming damage. Also, we refactored weapon code to avoid evaluate_target being done redundantly for tracking targets. Now this is done only once when picking targets and the result is passed down.

  • Removed double playing vfx on Vasari antiarmor ability.

  • Fixed Eradica’s Unyielding Will preventing the titan from being dealt further damage if it was at 0 hull when the invulnerability expired.

  • Fixed abilities and items with has_missing_hull constraint that weren’t autocasting at the intended missing threshold.

  • Fixed memory pool crash.

  • 30.3 - Fixed particle fx pop in/out when viewing gravity well particle fx at a glancing angle.

  • 30.3 - Fixed bug that allowed users to spend more credits than they actually had on market purchases.

  • 30.3 - Fixed bug that caused anyof property to give validation errors on things that are valid.

  • 30.3 - Fixed autosave bug that was causing out of memory (memalloc) errors.

  • 30.3 - Updated Eradica titan’s Unyielding Will action constraint check to properly go invulnerable when health goes to 0.

VFX

  • Added debris vfx for capital ships, titans and starbases.

  • Added Greater Temple of Purification effects.

  • Added HUD replay visibility icons.

  • Added icons for titan armor.

  • Added starbase component icons.

  • Added TEC starbase factory effect.

  • Added titan component icons.

  • Added Advent debris vfx.

  • Added Advent Domination cast vfx.

  • Added Advent missile impact vfx.

  • Added Advent projection vfx.

  • Added Advent Exotic Refinery active vfx.

  • Added debris vfx.

  • Added Advent titan factory vfx.

  • Fixed ‘pizza slices’ textures bug.

  • Updated TEC and Vasari titans to use tooltip pics.

  • Adjusted Chastic Burst brightness.

  • Updated TEC Explosive Burst vfx.

  • Optimized missile hit vfx.

  • Updated Vasari Phase Cannon vfx.

  • Updated TEC Piercing Shot muzzle vfx.

  • Updated planet explosion vfx.

  • Updated research backgrounds.

  • Updated threat avoidance icons.

  • Updated Advent beam weapon impact vfx.

  • Updated wormhole vfx.

  • Fixed destroyed planet particles not fading out.

  • 30.3 - Updated titan phase exit vfx.

Modding

  • Added JSON schema for uniforms and galaxy charts, as well as updated other schemas.

  • Added remove_pickable_players for better mod merging support. For example, if there are two mods that are related but optional, both want to remove the base players, using overwrite_pickable_players would stomp on each other.

  • Added can_have_any_strikecraft_launched unit permission type.

  • Added can_use_missile_weapons unit permission type.

  • Fixed crash due to bad data in mods.

  • The modding exe - sins2_dev.exe is now included in the base game install. Steam users can use the Stardock Launcher to toggle it via the carrot next to the Play button. (Epic users will need to create a shortcut directly in their install directory).

    • To enable the debug mode in-game, type: Ctrl-Shift-D.

    • Use F1 to open a search window and type in what you’re looking for.

Audio

  • Added new Advent travel sfx.

  • Added new Advent weapon and ability sfx.

  • Added additional capital ship voice lines for neutral emotional states (notably shields down, crippled and destroyed).

  • Fixed incorrect weapon designations.

  • Removed double playing sfx on Vasari antiarmor

  • 30.3 - Removed non-existent pirate raid VO line.

Misc.

  • Added always_check_is_dead_soon to point-defense weapons.

  • Added Hungarian localization - thanks to Zsolt Petrován 'Pezso'.

  • Added two new end-game stats: Artifacts Used and Artifacts Found.

  • Updated linear and angular deceleration scalers to be data driven.

  • Updated Sins Agency Bold font for missing glyphs.

  • Fixed pt-br light factory term.

  • Removed Escape Menu text from German.

  • Updated Japanese localization.

  • Removed reference to Advent Reborn being able to sacrifice planets.

  • Lots of spelling fixes.

  • Updated versioning to 1.30.xx format.

  • Fixed spacing issues with French and Japanese text causing unicode parsing issues.

  • Increased default value of right_click_move_tolerance to 8. This allows for more of a mouse move dead zone when issuing move orders with right-click. This should help prevent the mouse registering a camera rotation instead of the move order.

  • 30.3 - Fixed Alert about invalid nodes on uncolonizable gravity wells.

  • 30.3 - Fixed being able to surrender while replaying recorded games.

  • 30.3 - Fixed a few more typo/spelling fixes.

  • 30.3 - Fixed some missing Hungarian glyphs.

  • 30.3 - Fixed Phase Attenuated Shield description.

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