Current version: 1.2.0 (Coming of the Vanguard)


The current release of the mod contains:


  • Five new lifestyles with various pros and cons
    • Berserkers, exemplified by the warlike Rahta race
      • Be the finest warriors in the galaxy, but be wary of galactic peace, for your internal strife will cripple you
    • Pacifists, such as the telepathic Fasshi
      • Peace is a means and a purpose to your people, but war disturbs them greatly
    • Researchers, exemplified by the determined Alipha
      • Stop the impending Overlord invasion through the power of superior technology
    • Progenitors, represented by the ancient, recently reawakened Ulthaar
      • Rebuild your broken civilization and awaken the Remnants to reclaim your heritage
    • Ringworlders, the first 'Vanguard' race, exemplified by the hedonistic, sedentary Bluuhbi
      • Funnel the galaxy's resources to your Ringworlds as you work to reassert your dominance over the Vanguard and gain the favor of the Overlords by ensuring their conquest of this galaxy
  • A fully transformed tech grid, bringing back the organized nature of the ABEM grid and reintroducing its specialization system
  • More than a dozen new subsystems, including Ferrofluid Armor, Miner Hulls, Covariant Shield Generators, and Singularity Cores
  • A complete overhaul of weapon balancing
  • Several new orbitals - Stellar Shield Generators, Power Transmitters, Subspace Telescope Arrays, and others
  • Several new buildings, including Command Centers and Centralized Coordination Complexes
  • Increased control over the way the game plays, with settings such as First Contact Mode, Research Effectiveness Decay, and more being changeable during game configuration
  • New gameplay mechanics:
    • Derelicts - flagships not using Sinew now have a chance of being disabled rather than destroyed when they lose all their Control, depending on how badly damaged they are
    • Stellar phenomena - the unique 'Nebula' system of the base game is now a variety of non-unique nebulae with all sorts of different effects and valuable resources, while black holes hold valuable 'Ancient Hubworlds' that are guarded by powerful Remnant fleets, and are no longer limited to galactic cores
    • Boarding - send troops to attack the enemy from within and take their ships for yourself
    • Vanguard Victory - races such as the Bluuhbi can construct Portal Stabilizers on Ringworlds and Artificial Planetoids, working to summon an unstoppable alien armada
  • New maps:
    • Precious Clouds - 4-player map; race to rule the rich nebulae at the heart of this small sector

Credits:


  • Dalo Lorn - Lead programmer and story writer; content developer
  • (RETIRED) Alarcarr - Original author; balance technician; content developer
  • (RETIRED) Darloth - Lead balance technician; programmer; content developer; author of the Reclusive Ringworlders and Subsystem Assortment mods, both of which have made it into the mod in some increasingly small part; logo designer
  • (RETIRED) IllyiaSvara - Balance technician; minor content developer
  • Further credits can be found at Steamcommunity.com
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Hey there! Before we start, here's a little context:

I've made no secret of it in the past - releasing updates to ModDB is something I do sparingly, and only after I'm reasonably confident that there won't be any more hotfixes or minor tweaks for a given version of a mod. This can lead to delays as large as a month, with some versions of the mod never appearing anywhere except the Steam Workshop.

Worse, with each patch I have to pay attention to whether any files were deleted or renamed, to determine if I can do an incremental update or require players to redownload the entire mod. This also complicates things for them, because they have to think about whether they need to delete their previous installation or just extract the patch on top of it.

However, it occurred to me that I already have an equivalent of the Workshop, I just don't have a way of intuitively presenting it to people who might not even know what GitHub is, much less how to download mods from it.

A screenshot of the SR2MM folder.

- Not the prettiest of applications right now, but it gets the job done.

Cue the SR2 Mod Manager. Inspired by similar (and simultaneously more and less sophisticated - mostly "more") programs I've seen in the past, it's designed to take a Git repository - any Git repository it can see - and extract the contents of an arbitrarily selected branch into the user's mod directory with relative ease.

At this time, only Rising Stars and a number of Darloth's mods are known to be fully compatible with SR2MM, with no other known Git repositories containing downloadable SR2 mods. Furthermore, the manager itself is in an infantile stage, lacking even the most basic GUI and a number of useful functions (perhaps the most glaring issue is that it downloads the whole repository every time it updates). Regardless, it's functional enough even in this crippled state, which is why I am proud to announce that version 0.1.0 will be released sometime within the next 30 minutes.

I expect to make some updates to it as time passes, especially since we've just started studying GUI code at my college this semester. The GUI's probably at the top of my list, as it'll enable a few other nice bits of functionality throughout the program.

Rising Stars 1.2.0 is now live on ModDB!

Rising Stars 1.2.0 is now live on ModDB!

News

As the kinks get worked out, it's time for another Rising Stars release on ModDB. Read on below to learn more about what's new, or move on to the downloads...

Shutdown

Shutdown

News

As the last (active) developer goes out, the mod's development is unlikely to continue...

Rising Stars 1.0.2 is now live on ModDB!

Rising Stars 1.0.2 is now live on ModDB!

News

After an excessively long delay, a new patch has come out. Read on for major highlights, or head over to the downloads section to pick it up.

Rising Stars now live on Steam!

Rising Stars now live on Steam!

News

The year is 714 AP. Amidst continuing conflict, alliances begin to form between the many rising empires inhabiting the galaxy. There are whispers of an...

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SR2ModManager 1.0.0

SR2ModManager 1.0.0

Installer Tool

A small, cross-platform tool capable of installing Star Ruler 2 mods from Git repositories such as the ones hosted by GitHub or Bitbucket.

SR2ModManager 0.1.0

SR2ModManager 0.1.0

Installer Tool

A small, cross-platform tool capable of installing Star Ruler 2 mods uploaded to online Git repositories, such as the ones hosted by GitHub or Bitbucket...

Rising Stars 1.2.0 for v2.0.3

Rising Stars 1.2.0 for v2.0.3

Full Version

Rising Stars version 1.2.0 (Coming of the Vanguard). Made for Star Ruler 2 version 2.0.3. Full version, does not require previous versions.

Rising Stars 1.1.2 for v2.0.3

Rising Stars 1.1.2 for v2.0.3

Patch

Patch for Rising Stars version 1.1.1 (Return of the Ulthaar). Made for Star Ruler version 2.0.3. Built for and requires Rising Stars 1.1.1.

Rising Stars 1.1.1 for v2.0.3

Rising Stars 1.1.1 for v2.0.3

Full Version

Rising Stars version 1.1.1 (Return of the Ulthaar). Made for Star Ruler 2 version 2.0.3. Full version, does not require previous versions.

Compatibility hotfix for Rising Stars 1.0.2

Compatibility hotfix for Rising Stars 1.0.2

Patch 2 comments

Compatibility hotfix for Star Ruler 2 version 2.0.3. Built for and requires Rising Stars 1.0.2.

Post comment Comments  (0 - 10 of 11)
Redlightning
Redlightning

That was quite the hiatus.

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Dalo_Lorn Creator
Dalo_Lorn

To be fair, it was shorter than I expected. :P

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Dalo_Lorn Creator
Dalo_Lorn

We're back in action, and 1.2.0 is just around the corner! I still have to write up the ModDB news post, but in the meantime: Patreon.com

Reply Good karma+1 vote
shitposter9191
shitposter9191

Great work. I love the mod. I noticed there is a bug in the file DestroyerHull.txt ... according to the description after mod activation the hp bonus of the destroyer hull should be a bonus of 200% ... so 3x .. but in the file it is still 6x ... I just checked it after I tried the destroyer hull and wondered why my destroyers could simple rape the enemy. I fixed it in the file "Rising_Stars_1.0.1\data\subsystems\flagships\hulls/DestroyerHull.txt". It works well for me and it gives other hulls a reason for existing again.

I hope it will help to improve balancing for others as well.

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Dalo_Lorn Creator
Dalo_Lorn

Just uploaded a batch of screenshots from 0.5.0. Development is going along fairly slowly, I'm afraid, but we're still alive... ish.

Reply Good karma+1 vote
Guest
Guest

Great work!!!

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Dalo_Lorn Creator
Dalo_Lorn

*opens cookie jar and hands out a cookie*

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Guest
Guest

How do you install this without steam?

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Dalo_Lorn Creator
Dalo_Lorn

The instructions in the download descriptions should be pretty straightforward? (If not, please let me know so I can fix them. :()

I'm going to assume you're trying to install 0.4.1. The thing is, it's not a standalone mod - you have to install 0.4.0 first, then install 0.4.1 on top of that.

1. Download ABEM 0.4.0.

2. Extract the contents of 0.4.0's .zip into a folder in "Star Ruler 2/mods". I'm going to go with "ABEM", which would make that "Star Ruler 2/mods/ABEM".

3 (optional). Start the game up now, to see if you've properly installed it. You should know it's working when you see it, the game will pop up a mod selection screen before taking you to the main menu.

(It is not uncommon for the game to be a bit unstable after enabling mods of this scale - you may have to restart after enabling ABEM. It's possible that the game will crash, that the main menu will fail to load, or that the game will work perfectly.)

4. Download ABEM 0.4.1.

5. Extract the contents of 0.4.1's .zip into your ABEM folder (whatever it's called). If prompted to overwrite files (and you should be prompted!), overwrite everything.

6. Start the game up. If you haven't already done so, enable ABEM. If you have 0.4.1, you should see a pretty long bit of text in the lower right corner of the screen, telling you you have 0.4.1 for SR2 version this-and-that, yadda yadda.

7. Enjoy your game. Or come back here to tell me my instructions still suck. :o

You shouldn't need the 'Hotfix for ABEM 0.4.0', that one's been bundled into the 0.4.0 download immediately upon its release. I just released it separately because some people already had the broken version.

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Ignatz
Ignatz

This mod is getting better with every update!

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Dalo_Lorn Creator
Dalo_Lorn

The same cannot be said for the size of the dev team. :P

Reply Good karma+1 vote
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