New version 1.02 patch for Sins of a Solar Empire to arrive soon

If you’ve been playing Stardock‘s recently released 4X RTS game Sins of a Solar Empire, you might want to keep an eye out for the the latest patch that will go live in a couple of days. Patch version 1.02 will include a lot of gameplay and balancing issues, as well as bug fixes to the game’s multiplayer aspect. You can take a look at the entire changelog in the full article.

With the recent release of Stardock‘s newest futuristic 4X RTS game, the developers from Ironclad Games are winding up with another update for the game in the upcoming version 1.02 of Sins of a Solar Empire.

Frogboy on the Sins of Solar Empire forums posted a preview including the newest list of changes found in v1.02. A lot of these changes take care of the gameplay and balancing issues players on the forums have noted.

Other notable changes included in the upcoming build are several bug fixes for the game’s Multiplayer aspect. Also, loading modded maps will soon be available, which leads us to wonder if Stardock will be releasing its own set of modding tools before the next patch.

Gameplay/Balance:

• Tutorials moving into bad states at random fixed.
• Siege frigate survivability decreased.
• Pirate raid frequency decreased.
• Later stage missions to destroy ships and structures have had their expiry times increased.
• Clairvoyance: duration increased from 30, 45 60 seconds per level to 50, 100, 150 seconds.
• Guidance: cooldown changed from 20, 15, 10 seconds per level to 20 seconds at all levels.
• Guidance: ability cooldown rate changed from 20%, 35%, 50% per level to 40% at all levels.
• Guidance: duration changed 20 seconds at all levels to 15, 30, 45 seconds per level.
• Reverie: friendly units will no longer auto-acquire enemies under the effects of reverie as attack targets.
• Reverie: duration increased from 15, 20, 25 seconds per level to 20, 30, 40 seconds.
• Gravity Warhead: range decreased from 7000 to 6000 at all levels.
• Gravity Warhead: cooldown increased from 18, 16, 14 seconds per level to 25 seconds at all levels .
• Gravity Warhead: antimatter cost raised from 80 to 100 at all levels.
• Gravity Warhead: duration changed from 12 seconds at all levels to 12, 15, 18 seconds per level.
• Gravity Warhead: Speed reduction changed from 15%, 30%, 45% per level to 30%, 45%, 60% .
• Gravity Warhead: Acceleration reduction changed from 20%, 40%, 60% per level to 60%, 80%, 120%.
• Nano-Disassember: range increased from 4500 to 6000 at all levels.
• Nano-Disassember: antimatter cost decreased from 85 to 75 at all levels.
• Ion Bolt: antimatter cost increased from 65 to 85 at all levels.
• Ion Bolt: cooldown from 9, 11, 13 seconds per level to 10, 12, 14 seconds.
• Shield Projection: radius of effect increased from 2500 to 5000.
• Game update rate change hooked to – and = buttons (singleplayer only).
• Two new pirate-less maps.
• First tutorial now handles players spending their ability point before they were intended to and thus not being able to spend it when instructed.
• Phasic Transmissions research is now effective even at max fleet supply research.
• Reduced Phasic Transmissions supply bonus from 20% down to 15%.

Graphics:

• Shield projection’s bubble less opaque.
• Various new ICO art.

Networking/Multiplayer:

• Games in progress causing “Rejected by Host” error fixed.
• Multiplayer lobby screens now have Map Designer tab.
• Whisper functionality for ICO
• Refactored join game screen.
• Fix for not seeing friend’s games.
• New chat friendly ICO font.
• ICO user names are now sorted.
• Self and friends are colored in ICO channel player list.
• Events for players entering and leaving channels.
• ICO nows preserves history when changing channels.
• ICO logged in user count now displayed. This number will only update when you change channels or login.
• Added some default lobby names.
• Reorganized numbered lobbies to increment sequentially as they fill.
• Added notification of what channel you are in.
• Fix for rare multiplayer lobby crash when host leaves a game in ICO.
• Various new ICO message strings.

User Interface/HUD:

• Added counter descriptions for all frigates and fighters.
• Game menu now mapped to F10 by default instead of Esc so people can repeatedly press Esc to close any submenu they may-Fix rare bug in group selection.
•  be in w/o going all the way to the escape menu.
• Various strings cleaned up.

Modding:

• Loading mods supported

Ironclad Games expects the v1.02 patch to go live in the next couple of days. All the planned changes in their future updates go through intensive internal testing based on all the suggestions from players, as well as other considerations brought up during testing.

With all the new changes beefing up the game, Sins of a Solar Empire is looking better than ever. Hopefully, Ironclad Games will be able continue this kind of developer-player interaction as the development of the game continues.