Sins Forums
What exactly is this Distant Stars mod all about? I have read bits and pieces of info about it here and there but I don't really know much about it. Could someone please list the differences between DS and Entrenchment?
DS has expanded research (ie get four points of laser research per tier and research for getting new craft like EWS)
DS has better capitals, they are worth easily 20 HCs (well not all but the Kol, Radiance, and Kortul are) but they dont really over balance the game
DS has bigger fleets (can sometimes cause problems with lag on weaker comps)
DS has many visual upgrades (Bailknight and Mansh00ters mods)
DS has more SC (EWS Bombers and Gunships)
DS has more epic battles
DS does not suffer from LRM spam (a couple of Caps can stop spam cold)
DS has better pirates (and if you want a challenge, put in MINIMOD Powerful Pirates! 
)
DS has a larger selection of planets (from Ocean to Urban to Toxic)
more planetary bonuses (deadly secret is .......... interesting)
*begin Yoda moment* If mod you wish to play with only vanilla races, then Distant Stars is mod you wish for. *end Yoda moment*
Well if its better than Standard Entrechement is purely subjective. To be honest its a different beast. Online game play is totaly different than what you be use to in standard Entrechement. Caps are the biggest difference you will notice if you against other players. Its easy to win with just Cap ships. A problem IMHO, something we plan to curve slightly.
Like Ryat mentioned most of the highlights of the difference between the mod and standard game.
If you were to ask me why its better IMHO, its this simple reason. Variatity. With the increase planet count, techs, and the few new SC it adds to fun factor. Everyone can play how they want somewhat even PvP get some enjoyment out of it even while losing. At least I do.
Trying it out will let you make the final decision if its 'better'.
I agree with everything except the part about the caps that don't overbalance the game. Making caps twice as powerful as in sins would have been balanced but the DS guys made them so much powerful that frigates, cruisers and starbases just don't scale. If you research some hull technologies, these things can have more than 10 000 HP and regenerate incredibly fast. I played this mod a lot because he is very fun but, hell, i witnessed a kortul taking a whole fleet by himself. If you play single player, you will see all IA fights outcome being decided by how much caps every opponent has. If one has three caps and the other two, whatever the fleet they have, the one with three caps will win after a long long battle.
There is also a few annoying tweaks that have no use : the turrets now cost 4 or 5 times more and i really don't see why. These things that were already not very useful now become useless as freaking expensive.
Don't misunderstand me : the mod is good, it is just that it fails greatness by a few very frustrating inches.
The turrets around the planets were fixed in a previous internal patch (which is live atm) they do have increased damage over their original counterparts to help them be of more use as originally the hangar defenses were the be all and end all of planetary defenses.
The capital ships we're actually looking in to balancing at the moment due to the inbalances they can cause at times, whilst a well balanced fleet can easily take on many more capital ships than your own they're slightly too powerful for the money your putting in to them and sadly see'ing as the AI doesnt build many capital ships at all they do become worse off for it.
This can also be quite an issue in multiplayer as some people use Caps alone, others Caps + Fleet, and others mainly just a fleet supported by caps admittedly this is down to their play style however no matter what the play style if played correctly you should still be able to win, or have a higher chance of winning via a balanced fleet over a spammed fleet.
Constructive criticism like your own always helps a mod catch those last few inches and make them all that much closer to perfection.
It would be nice if someone could get the AI to build 32 caps instead of 3, that would make things interesting.
I played a 2 on 4 comp stomp on Distant Stars last night. It's a very interesting and well-done mod. The AI cannot handle the enhanced tech tree, but in a game with all human players, it would be a challenge to have to choose between weapons, shields, and hull research and having a larger fleet. I do think that that aspect of it really affects the strategy.
The biggest problem with it is that with the hyper-economy and short ship building times it would probably result in people's having huge fleets and thus lots of lag. Maybe it would work out better if the game settings were set to small fleet sizes and the income speeds were reduced in the settings or if custom maps were played where there are only 3 planets per player.
Thanks for the input Dirty! Yeah on the fast setting the income is double what Non modded SINS is on the fast setting. We implimented that b/c there was a large request for a faster setting. Now that Diplo is coming out with a faster setting we may change it back.
Lag isnt to bad with large fleets b/c we have taken other mesures to reduce it. For example reduced the ammount of trade ships that spawn so there isnt a million of them flying around.
Maybe these speeds would encourage normal or slow settings. ^^
Anyhow, let us know what else you think about it as you play more.
It works on standard and normal maps also.
Ive played your maps a few time with DS. We changed the standard maps with the mod loaded slightly so they will spawn the different sizes of planets.
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