Post news Report RSS Dev Q&A October 2014

The most common questions about the mod are answered.

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So, for those of you that may find the mod through this very post, let's start with the biggest question: What the hell is this?

Sins of the Prophets is an award winning total conversion mod for the RTS game Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion based on the Halo universe of Xbox fame. The mod features the human United Nations Space Command and the alien hegemony The Covenant, along with some Forerunner flair here and there. Gameplay focuses on fast paced fleet combat utilizing sophisticated tactics and long term strategy to beat your opponent or survive invasions from the parasitic Flood. SotP battles have often been called devastating slugfests with decisive ends. If you've found that Sins of a Solar Empire may be too slow for you this is your mod!

The mod is available at: Moddb.com for free and the game SoaSE Rebellion is available on Steam: Store.steampowered.com. While the DLC is not necessary, it is supported by the mod and you are missing out on interesting gameplay by not getting it.

Q: Why are release cycles so slow and when will we see the next release?

A: Releases are so far apart for two reasons. First of all, we are all working professionals or college students and our time is incredibly limited, so change comes slowly. Secondly, with each release we find flaws in our gameplay that we want to adjust and it generally requires us to shift everything in the mod to do so. With the latest release we discovered some glaring issues in the balance that affects every ship in some small way, so we're having to just that, make adjustments to every ship in the mod. So, lots of changes with little time to do them stretches out the release schedules. We'd like another release out before ModDB's Mod of the Year contest, hopefully with some more ships updated and textured. We'll see if time permits that.


Q: Will you bring back the Eion?

A: Yes. It's replaced the Athens in the current dev build.

Q: Is the Infinity coming? When? Will it have deployable Stridents?

A: The Infinity is coming eventually. As of late the artist working on texturing the model is very busy with the real world, so we've not seen much since we updated you last. When we have something to show off keep your eyes on our ModDB profile and Facebook page. It will have the frigates when that ship is textured as well.

 Is this the Covenant titan? Maybe. Maybe not.


Q: What's up with the Covenant titan? It's kinda small and odd looking.

A: The Covenant titan is the Battleship (or Super-destroyer depending on if you have a first edition copy of the comic it was in) from the Second Battle of Harvest. The model itself currently in-game is a placeholder that will be replaced when we have the right model textured. However, the ship itself is not huge. Size doesn't always relate to power.

Q: Will you add the Covenant Supercarrier from Halo Reach?

A: No. If you Google "Covenant Supercarrier Sins of the Prophets" you'll probably find very elaborate explanations that we've given in the past for why we're making that decision. Suffice it to say that the ship doesn't fit our vision for the mod and is an eyesore in the Halo universe.

Q: The Covenant doesn't seem as finished as the UNSC, why is that?

A: Because it's not. We started with the human faction and there's still a lot of work to do on the Covenant. There is still a lot of work to do for both factions, but we'll get there.

Q: Do you plan on putting High Charity into the game?

A: Yes we do. The current Covenant starbase is a placeholder for something more like the Unyielding Hierophant from Halo: First Strike. The current plan is to have the Covenant homeworld be High Charity. More on that later.


Q: Will the Halo rings and shield worlds have an actual purpose?

A: The shield worlds already have a purpose, they're fortress worlds usually with amazing benefits. Halo installations are a much harder thing to nail down. We're not comfortable with making them super weapons. There is a lot more going to be done when we have a few more Forerunner things modeled and textured, but that takes time and manpower we don't currently have.

Q: Will the Forerunners still be a faction? How will they work?

A: A lot of what the Forerunners will be hinges on the final balance between UNSC and Covenant, so we can't say exactly how they'll work yet. However, something to keep in mind is that this faction is being called the "Forerunner Remnant" and they will be a shadow of their former glory. Not many Forerunners themselves survive and much of their force is going to be some variation of sentinel along with large command and control ships.


Q: The Flood always seem to wreck my games, what can I do?

A: Turn them off in Game Options before you start the match. "Flood Inactive" is the recommended setting for playing a standard game of SotP. Flood stunt the performance of faction AIs severely. Flood planets may still exist, but they won't be actively hunting for prey.

Q: Why won't the Flood be a faction?

A: Because we don't want it to be. Right now we're completely focused on the UNSC vs Covenant gameplay. However, even when we finish that and move to the Forerunner expansion the Flood will stay as they are. Keeping them in the AI-controlled pirate role gives us a ton of flexibility we wouldn't otherwise have. It's a conscious design decision and we're sticking to it.

Q: I don't have many friends, but I want to play some games with humans. Any help?

A: You could try making friends at our forums, Steam Group, or Facebook page.

Q: How can I help out the mod?

A: We need experienced modelers and texture artists, as well as people who have experience making particle effects in SoaSE. If you can't do any of that, tell others about the mod and participate in our community events and polls.

If we didn't answer your question above, feel free to ask below and a staff member will try to respond in a timely manner.

Post comment Comments
ConnerJB
ConnerJB

Are you going to be adding the Constitution class?

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Unikraken Author
Unikraken

If the STA3 team makes a Constitution class we'll put it in the mod.

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Shadow-Hawker
Shadow-Hawker

The Constitution-class? What?

On topic to my actual question: Will you add Vindication-class light battleships for the UNSC? Or the Poseidon-class light carriers? Or maybe it's impossible due to not having enough information on them?

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Unikraken Author
Unikraken

The Constitution thing is a very long running joke with the STA3 team (which he is a part of).

Regarding your question...

I think the new ships look like **** and don't match the UNSC aesthetic. So, right now, I'm sitting on them and hoping there are better versions in Halo 5 or they're thrown out in favor of more traditional looking ships.

If you feel like disagreeing with me, read through this spacebattles thread before starting your fight, as I've laid out my argument there previously and it'll save me time: Forums.spacebattles.com

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Shadow-Hawker
Shadow-Hawker

I agree that the Vindication-class and the Poseidon-class don't match the UNSC looks. They really need an overhaul, hopefully Halo: The Master Chief Collection or Halo 5: Guardians provides something like that. Or an encyclopedia.

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Shadow-Hawker
Shadow-Hawker

And this is where I'll leave something, after quickly scrolling through your forum topic. Delete it or not, it's my opinion after observing the UNSC's drastic change and comparing it to real world stuff, like, say, the US Armored Unit change.

After the War, it's most probable that the UNSC needed to completely redesign its entire Naval assets, so they thought of more... reliable designs, with slopes at places to increase penetration difficulty.

Having a flying brick isn't that reliable. If you add a 45 degree slope, say, up front, the chance of a MAC shell penetrating heavy armor is lowered by a lot. If a MAC shell can't do it, a plasma torpedo would have a harder time burning through as well, since, armor is ''thicker'' there.

The Halo 4-era ships seem to have these slopes. They're like Panzerkampfwagen V ''Panthers'' of the future, in space, and have no mechanical problems besides a slipspace drive that can annihilate them if it's mounted improperly.

It's the same as the US dropping light/medium/heavy tanks for Main Battle Tanks and IFV's, and refraining from building towering tanks in favor of wider ones.

NOTE: Opinion.

Also, good luck in further development of the mod.

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m468
m468

While I do generally agree with your assertion that the UNSC needed to change the designs of warships to reflect a new reality. Using slopped armor would do nothing to stop a plasma torpedo. Uni's problem is how they looked in game. We only have a picture of one of the ships when it actually has a proper model and texture (the ones in Halo 4 were brushes).

All of this is besides the point of us putting them in the mod. We simple do not have the room or roles left to add them to the UNSC fleet.

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Shadow-Hawker
Shadow-Hawker

Oh, the thing about room... yeah, now the gap is sealed entirely. I understand.

Also, it would take slightly longer for a plasma torpedo to burn through, but then again, that depends on the size of a Covenant warship that the ship would be engaging, because, a larger ship is far more damaging, as it has a massive power output.

But yeah, regardless, I understand the problem. Damn room limitations. D:

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killrathie
killrathie

you're wrong. Sloping armor is only effective against Kinetic ammunition. not heat, energy, or chemical based (Shaped charge/HEAT) munitions.

it would not help against covenant weapons, and that reasoning and logic is flawed. sorry but nice try. C+ for effort though.

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ConnerJB
ConnerJB

Uni that sounds mighty tempting.

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Unikraken Author
Unikraken

I'm serious.

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m468
m468

I've got an idea for it if you make one we can use it. ;-)

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Thib
Thib

Good luck guys, we're looking forward to your work.

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Diablo_Cow
Diablo_Cow

Why is the Eion replacing the Athens? I was under the impression that between last year's December release and this year's July release that the Athens wasn't good enough to justify taking up capital ship slots and it was better than the Eion in the frigate role.

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m468
m468

To give Uni a bit of a break, we have redone the way the both factions function. I must say however that they overall feel that you get from both factions will remain the same. The UNSC no longer rely on the number of MACs that each ship has. For example we’ll take the Eion and the Athens as they were part of your question. Under the old balance the Athens had two MACs, as such she was inherently better than the Eion. Under our new system, the number of MACs is not as important. As such we felt it would be better if we placed the ship that is far newer in canon in the UNSC fleet and moved the Athens, which is the older ship, into the militia.

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Nanoelite001
Nanoelite001

Not everything can be what we want, I'm still a little butthurt over the removal of the Mako

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m468
m468

I can understand, however it was not canon to have it in the mod as a UNSC ship. The UNSC ship retired the Mako-class corvette before John-117's first mission as a Spartan.

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Tormidal
Tormidal

Trick secret: Many of the forerunner ships and models are already in the latest version of the mod, but they're extremely buggy and terribly over-powered.

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m468
m468

Yep.

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Tormidal
Tormidal

Its actually quite fun to spawn them in, if the game doesn't crash. xD

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HenryVarro
HenryVarro

Will it be possible to lower the Pop Cap used for ships? the Stalwart is one of my favorite ships, but I just don't seem to have a large enough force to assist my Orion Fleets (my fav capital ship). when you have about 30 Orions, all the enemy really needs is a large amount of Bombers and if you are fighting another UNSC player he just needs to spam Thermos and Athens and you can get overwhelmed...

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Unikraken Author
Unikraken

Your strategy is flawed my friend. We can't really tailor the entire mod played by thousands of people so YOU can spam Orions. Know what I mean?

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m468
m468

Ah no we will not adjust the balance of the mod to suit you over the rest of the community.

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HenryVarro
HenryVarro

alright...

no need to make me seem like a bad guy for wanting a larger fleet...
sorry for the suggestion

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