December 2024 - Unity Ascendent Update (v1.31)

Owned by Brian Clair
Last updated: Dec 17, 2024
7 min read

Version 1.31 Changelog

Release Status: *** RELEASED ***

Advent Ascendent Updates

A key part of this update is to emphasize the different themes and approaches to warfare preferred by the two factions. For now, these differences manifest most strongly in their use of Unity abilities, but these themes are at the core of the factions as a whole and may appear again in other ways in future updates. So, what are they?

The Advent Wrath faction is the more archetypal of the two factions. They are focused on Control, Culture Spread and Vengeance. They express the Control theme with mechanics like Mind Control and a greater focus on debuffing the enemy. Culture is important for both Advent factions, but the Wrath have an easier time spreading it and gain more strategic potency from doing so. Vengeance is expressed with the faction’s greater focus on aggressive mechanics like damage and offensive self-buffs, as they seek to destroy their enemy without heed of the cost.

Meanwhile, the Reborn Advent faction is a bit more extreme in some of its themes. They are focused on purifying the Unity, leading to the themes of Restoration and Sacrifice. They draw power from the deaths of their own units and even have cause to intentionally destroy their own ships. Yet at the same time they seek to prevent outside interference, and with their restorative powers they can prevent enemy aggression quite effectively.

Unity Ability Changes

This update brings five new Unity abilities between the two Advent sub-factions. Reborn gain two new abilities, while the Wrath gain three. The existing abilities have been split between the two factions.

Wrath gains:

  • Avatar: A potent buff for your fleet that can greatly improve damage output.

  • Chastise: Punishing movement control to prevent enemy aggression – or escape.

  • Fury: To deal raw damage directly to the enemy.

Wrath keeps:

  • Clairvoyance: For unparalleled map awareness.

  • Proselytize: Once again unshackled from restrictions, it regains its map-wide culture projection power.

With these five powers, the Wrath faction has a lot of power and aggression available – but also a lot of synergy. Will you Chastise the enemy to prevent them escaping from the area effect of Fury? Will you combine Fury with the Rapture Battlecruiser’s level 6 ability Malice? Which capital ships will you empower with Avatar – or will the Coronata Titan be the sole recipient of this significant power boost?

Reborn gains:

  • Cleanse: To sacrifice a ship of their own to heal those nearby.

  • Resurrection: To restore entire fleets remotely – even mid battle.

Reborn keeps:

  • Clairvoyance: For unparalleled map awareness – the one shared ability.

  • Recall: To save a fleet from certain destruction or roam far afield without consequence.

  • Sanctify: Which can save a planet from enemy attack… For a while.

The new Reborn powers enable their sacrificial mechanics, while further enhancing their strategic capacity. No force of frigates, cruisers, or corvettes is ever truly lost to them when they can resurrect and recall them. They can freely sacrifice their own units to keep important capital ships alive – or fuel the Eradica Titan – knowing that those units can be restored with relative ease. Even if they find themselves at a disadvantage, they can always Sanctify a planet to blunt an enemy assault and buy time.

Focus Economy Improvement

Critical to improving Unity gameplay is the accompanying overhaul of the Focus economy. Focus capacity is now front-loaded, while being harder to increase than before. Focus regen is low, however, and this stat is the main one you will be trying to improve if you wish to make heavy use of Unity in a match. Focus costs and cooldown times on abilities have been adjusted to make better use of this paradigm.

The result is a system that is more dynamic and allows different unlock orders. It also enables more use of Unity powers in short bursts, but with an appropriately significant cost in time should you manage to deplete your Focus pool. Overall, this resource is now managed on a more strategic timescale compared to before.

Research Improvements

Some new faction-unique research subjects have been added to the factions, notably:

  • Rite of Reclamation: A Reborn tech allowing them to greatly increase wreck salvaging time. Just in case they want to Cleanse one of their own capital ships…

  • Clarity of Purpose: A Wrath tech to improve Psi Power within their own culture, giving them a tangible reason to spread – and fight inside of – their culture early in the game.

Numerous research topics have been tweaked in unlock orders and layout to make the Advent Culture and Focus trees more readable and accessible, with a few extra buffs as well. Most notably, the Reborn unique techs Soul Reclamation and Protection of the Unity have both seen significant buffs – with Soul Reclamation a standout in how much it can now fuel the Reborn economy when sacrificial tactics are used.

The Future of Conversion
While Conversion is a key aspect of the Wrath faction, its current implementation has been problematic for balanced gameplay. It has been temporarily removed and will return with a more nuanced design in a future update, ensuring a fairer competitive landscape.

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’

Gameplay

  • Updated Advent Unity Abilities (see above).

  • Added achievements for Steam and Epic Games Store. We’ve added over 60 achievements to unlock as you play the game.

  • Added wormholes to randomly generated map system for maps with 4+ players.

  • Added uncolonizable gravity well types to all random maps.

  • Added Ship Graveyard and Space Junk gravity wells types.

  • Added 3 to 10 player multi-star random maps to the game (8 total).

  • Added Global Unity research to Advent Wrath. Spreads culture from planets with research tracks.

  • Added Clarity of Purpose research to Advent Wrath. Improves Psi Power of ships at planets with Dominant Culture.

  • Added Rite of Reclamation research to Advent Reborn. Greatly improves Derelict collection rate.

  • Added Allure of the Unity research to both Advent. Improves Commerce, Metal Mining and Crystal Mining income from planets with Dominant Culture.

  • Improved layout and randomization for all random maps.

  • Added TEC Kalev Gauss Frigate to Enclave garrison composition.

  • Advent balance changes:

    • Cynosural Reservoir max Unity points increased from 75 to 200.

    • Temple of Resurrection resurrection chance increased from 10% to 20%.

    • Avatar Unity ability:

      • Unity points required: 2/4/6

      • Focus point cost: 200

      • Cooldown: 30 sec.

      • PSI Power Boost: 50/75/100

      • Energy Weapon Damage Boost in Area: 10%/20%/30%

    • Chastise Unity ability:

      • Unity points required: 2/4/6

      • Focus point cost: 150

      • Duration: 60

    • Clairvoyance Unity ability:

      • Unity points required decreased from 1/3/6 to 1/2/3.

      • Focus point cost changed from 25/75/150 to 75/75/75.

      • Cooldown increased from 30/20/10 to 30/30/30.

      • Duration decreased from 30/120/300 to 30/90/180.

    • Cleanse Unity ability:

      • Unity points required: 1/2/3.

      • Focus point cost: 100

      • Cooldown: 30 sec.

      • Radius: 5000/6500/8000

      • Hull restore % of current: 30/60/90

      • Armor restore % of current: 30/60/90

      • Shield restore % of current: 30/60/90

    • Fury Unity ability:

      • Unity points required: 3/6/9

      • Focus point cost: 300

      • Cooldown: 120 sec.

      • Duration: 30/45/60

      • Damage: 15/20/25

      • Pierce: 500

      • Radius: 4500

    • Proselytize Unity ability:

      • Unity points required decreased from 2/5/9 to 1/2/3.

      • Focus point cost changed from 50/125/250 to 75/75/75.

      • Cooldown decreased from 300/240/180 to 120/120/120.

      • Duration decreased from 90/120/180 to 30/60/90

      • Culture rate increased from 1.5%/3%/5% to 3%/6%/9%.

      • No longer constrained to being in dominant culture or detected.

    • Recall Unity ability:

      • Unity points required increased from 1/3/6 to 2/4/6.

      • Focus cost increased from 25/75/150 to 200/200/200.

      • Cooldown time increased from 60/40/20 to 60/60/60.

      • Charge time changed from 45/30/15 to 30/30/30.

    • Resurrection Unity ability:

      • Unity points required: 3/6/9

      • Focus cost increased from 25/75/150 to 1000/1000/1000.

      • Cooldown increased from 60/40/20 to 60/60/60.

    • Sanctify Unity ability:

      • Unity points required decreased from 2/5/9 to 2/4/6.

      • Focus points cost increased from 50/125/250 to 300/300/300.

      • Cooldown time decreased from 300/210/120 to 90/90/90.

      • Duration decreased from 30/45/60 to 30/30/30.

      • Planet health restore changed to % of max: 30%/60%/90%.

    • Initial maximum Focus increased from 0 to 1000.

    • Initial Focus restore rate increased from 0 to 0.5 per sec.

    • Wrath Acclimatization of Will Focus point bonus increased from 5 to 15; Focus point restore rate increased from 0.05 to 0.1.

    • Reborn Protection of the Unity reworked - shield, hull and armor regeneration speed increases removed, replaced with the ability to regenerate shields during combat.

    • Reborn Culture Center unlock now provides 5% bonus to commerce, metal mining and crystal mining income rates for planets with Dominant Culture.

    • Rapture Malice ability radius increased from 2500 to 3000, PSI power now increases radius; Range increased from 6500 to 8000; Damage propagation no longer tied to PSI power, damage changed from 0.2 per damage dealt to 0.03.

    • Rapture Battle Meditation changed to no longer increase maximum Focus or Focus regen rates.

    • Reborn Eradica Titan Unyielding Will ability cooldown increased from 240 to 300, invulnerability duration decreased from 180 to 90.

Bug Fixes

  • AI: Fixed hard coded number for maximum fleet cap in the AI. This was preventing the AI from attacking at maximum fleet supply.

  • AI: Fixed issue where the AI would infinitely move between capturing a derelict and bombing a planet. The AI will now prioritize bombing planets over collecting derelicts.

  • Fixed assert related to survey track level.

  • Fixed Advent Unity window showing up blank.

  • Fixed Advent Unity tutorial trigger issue that prevented the player from finishing it.

VFX

  • Added Advent Fury vfx.

  • Added Advent Cleanse vfx.

  • Added Advent Resurrection vfx.

  • Added Advent Chastise vfx.

  • Updated Chastic Burst vfx.

  • Added Advent Chastise vfx.

Audio

  • Added new on_selection sound effects for:

    • TEC Trade Ship

    • TEC Military Research Structure

    • Advent Temple of Harmony

    • Advent Temple of Hostility

    • Advent Temple of Unity

    • Advent Temple of Communion

    • Advent Temple of Renewal

    • Advent Beam Defense Structure

    • Advent Laser Defense Structure

    • Advent Hangar Defense Structure

    • Advent Construction Frigate

    • Advent Deliverance Engine

  • Added derelict capture ambient sound effect.

  • Added new Vertigo ability ambient sound effect for Advent Revelation.

  • Added new Vengeance ability sound effects for Advent Revelation.

  • Added new Malice ability sound effects for Advent Revelation.

  • Added Advent Deliverance Engine ambient sound effect.

Misc.

  • Fixed some incorrect text and added new tutorial outline for the Trade tutorial.

  • Fixed TEC light trade escort research HUD icons.

  • Fixed Pranast United Metal Market Monopolization HUD icons.

  • Added starbase kills and pirate kills tracking stats for achievements.

  • UI: Added new items category: Consumable. This will ensure that consumable items are not mistaken for permanent items.

  • Added support to random map generation to allow for a random amount of stars to be created.

  • Added data driven ‘chaos factor’ range and update interval to increase AI decisions to attack and engage players.

  • Added 6 new statistics for tracking NPC kills.

(c) Copyright Stardock Entertainment. All rights reserved.