Stargate Races r1.08 Released news

A Little Delayed

It's been a while since the last major release of the mod and a bit longer than I had actually intended. The reason for the delay was that this update was based was targeted at using new features being added in the next version of Sins: Remastered. That update ended up being much larger and wide ranging in scope than originally planned as well. It's still not finished but given the time passed, we opted to do a staged release for the new features in Sins: Remastered rather than hold up everything for yet another undetermined period of time.

Sins: Remastered v0.95b was released yesterday and you can read about all the new features here. With that now available, it was time to release an update to Stargate Races in step with it.

Balance & Gameplay Changes

General & Base Economy

To begin, it should be noted that Stargate Races will no longer function at all if Sins: Remastered is not used in conjunction with it as intended. As noted in the release notes, the proper stacking order is SGR "on top" in the list over Sins: Remastered v0.95b.

For gameplay, there has been some changes to event timings. The first pirate raid will now not occur until 20 minutes into the match, and subsequent raid intervals have been increased to 18 minutes now. This should ease the pirate threat a little bit going forward, as they can be somewhat intense in some games. The Replicator event has been modified as well so that the first Replicator Battlecruiser cannot arrive until at least one hour into a match. While I enjoy the chaos a replicator invasion can bring to game, a battlecruiser coming into play at just 15 minutes into a game can be a little punishing.

On the economic side of things, maximum planet allegiance has been increased by 10% and the allegiance drop off has been reduced to 5% per hop now as well. This should result in overall higher average allegiance across an empire, including a significantly higher minimum. That will translate into better and more reliable income from planet population and allow for less reliance on trade ports for mass credit income. Allegiance also affects metal and mineral income, so you should see better performance on those metrics as well in a larger empire.

New Planet Types

Three new planet types have been added in r1.08 and each brings

Swamp planets are a more population biased planet type, similar to Ice planets. They provide no special properties but can be built up into a relatively high population and make a solid contribution to your economy.

Savanah planets are a rich, verdant world capable of supporting a high population on planet as well providing additional perks to your empire. Aside from the solid income they can provide on their own, the abundance of the Savanah world is used to support neighboring planets in your empire up to two hops away - giving them increased population growth and higher maximum populations of their own.

Lastly, Ring Worlds have been added. These are smaller than your traditional sci-fi Ring World in that they are intended to be gas giants that have been collapsed into a miniature star and then the mega-structure built around it. They are intended to be fairly rare but when they do occur, they can be hugely powerful additions to your empire as they support both very strong socialization or very strong industrialization based on how you opt to use them.

Several other planets have also received brand new custom texture upgrades. In most cases, the new planet textures are courtesy of Shiny_Man and I thank him for sharing his work.

Super Capital Research Requirements

Those of you familiar with the mod already will know that the various races all have some capital ships that are significantly more powerful than stock capital ships or even other capital ships in their own fleet roster. This is fine and by design but when combined with the free starting capital ship mechanic, does present some balance problems. Previously, going for these more powerful ships as your free starting cap was attempted to be balanced simply by requiring a higher research tier and possibly a few pre-requisite items. In practice though, the delay did not feel sufficient for the benefit. As such, a raw "total research completed" requirement has been added to most "super capital" ships now. The number required will vary by the specific ship and how it is intended to fit within the race's overall fleet but it should provide a more substantial "cost" in time and resources if you opt for the strategy of opening with a more advanced free capital ship.

Ancients

The Ancients saw a few tweaks to their fleet abilities this update.

Lagrangian satellite damage was increased to compensate for changes to Hiveship effective hull points in a past update. The target has always been that the Lagrangian beam can destroy a basic L1 Hiveship in one shot, which it now should again.

Excalibur carriers have a new ability that gives them a small defensive buff when used in conjunction with other Excaliburs. The buff is small but stacks with each additional Excalibur brought in range, up to a maximum of six. When fully stacked, they should benefit from a noticeable increase in survivability.

In addition to their defensive coordination, Excaliburs now have a synergy with Corsairs. Corsairs can now "escort" the ancient carriers and receive a small defensive and offensive buff when doing so. Combined with a new researchable self-repair ability for Corsairs, this should mean they can play a more meaningful role in an Ancient fleet further into a game.

Asgard

The Asgard have seen some stat balancing adjustments to a few of their ships. The Valkyrie and Gungnir both saw some buffs and should be both more viable and dangerous in the early game to better justify their use. The Odin also saw a little bump in it's stats which should make it a bit more capable as a combat ship too.

In addition, the Odin's Ion Burst ultimate ability has been replaced entirely with a new All-Father's Rally ability. This is a fleet buff ability that provides a small boost to other capital ships but a more significant buff to frigates. Asgard capital ships are traditionally quite self-sufficient on their own with with abilities that enhance themselves. All-Father's Rally provides the Asgard fleet with a significant boost for frigates and opens up more options for more balanced fleet compositions.

Ori

The Ori have received a number of significant changes to their fleet this update.

To start, Abolishers and Defenders have been removed entirely and their roles added to Justicars and Crusaders respectively. Ori frigates have seen stat revisions across a wide selection of their frigates and cruisers and should result in notably better performance in matches. Research unlocks for several Ori frigates, cruisers and abilities have shifted as well, being moved up in the research tree to make them a little cheaper and more accessible.

There were also several changes to existing abilities for Ori ships to reign in certain aspects of their fleet and to bolster it in other respects for better overall balance. Of note, Knights have received a new defensive buff and Sacrifice has been moved to Templars. Most importantly, the Inquisitor Capital corvette has seen a general rework across all of it's abilities that are more unique and fitting to its role. Its abilities are now Divination (scouting), Subsumption (minor fleet buff), Smite (targeted AoE disruption) and it retains its remote gate ability as its ultimate. Overall, the Inquisitor should now be a more attractive and viable opening capital ship choice for the Ori fleet.

Wraith

There were a few minor stat balancing changes to the smaller Wraith frigates but largely they stayed the same. Changes to the way capital ship slots are unlocked make a more significant impact on the Wraith gameplay in r1.08.

Since the Wraith use only Hiveships as their single type of capital ship, the super capital ship research requirements could not be applied in the same way to them. Hiveships are a significantly powerful ship in the earlier stages of the game though so I felt it ws important to apply some sort of gating mechanic to them as well. To that end, the Wraith now have general research count requirements on their basic capital ships lot upgrades instead. These should not present a major roadblock to general Wraith play but will make it harder to rush with multiple Hiveships as early in a match as was possible in prior releases.

Ships & Art Assets

As usual, a number of revisions, improvements and additions have been made to the visual assets for the mod. In total 18 new or revised assets are included in r1.08.

The Ancient Dirou Destroyer and Seed ship were redone.

The Asgard received a wide-ranging overhaul to their roster, including almost their entire capital ship line. The Kvasir (Daniel Jackson) is an entirely new custom model for this release. The Mjolnir, Jotunn and Gungir all received significant revisions. Finally, the Valhalla Station mesh and textures were redone.

The Goa'uld may not have seen much in terms of balance changes but they did get revised versions of the Osiris capital carrier, the Ha'tak and their colony frigate.

And last but not least, the Ori fleet has finally seen some new additions to its rosters for custom ship assets. The Knight, Templar and Crusader now having completely new and original meshes and textures.

Sins: Remastered v0.95b

As noted earlier, you should follow the link to read over the release article for v0.95b for more full coverage of the changes but I do want to note that new features such as the height map and baked self-illumination added in the new Remastered have been applied to several of the existing and new assets for the r1.08 release of SGR.

As you can see, there is quite a bit to take note of in this new release for the mod and I believe it continues down the path of making worthwhile improvements to the mod and the way it plays.

As always I invite you to download the latest release and provide your thoughts or feedback, either here or by joining us on Discord.