2020

Published on Monday, April 27, 2020 By SchismNavigator In Stardock Community Newsletter

Coronavirus

We hope everyone is keeping safe during the current pandemic and uncertain future. Here at Stardock we have been shifted to a Work From Home situation ever since the pandemic started and are doing all we can to keep our people safe.

Whilst we are not medical professionals we want to make sure our fans are safe and not taking unnecessary risks with their own health or that of their family and friends.

Below are some links to official information and guidelines from the World Health Organization, CDC, NHS and European Commission. Please read them for clear information on the pandemic and what you can do to help slow its spread.

Stay safe out there everyone!

WHO

https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public

CDC

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html

NHS

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/

https://ec.europa.eu/health/coronavirus_en

The Horizon

Earth Rising Part 4: "Earth Rises"

Star Control: Origins - Earth Rising, Pt. 4 Earth Rises Release Trailer

We released the final installment of the Earth Rising expansion for Star Control: Origins in March.

Key features of this final part include:

New Missions & Quests - Search for the missing Commander Magara, keep an eye on the humans developing a deadly Terran Battlecruiser, and stop the Measured from harvesting a sun and killing an entire civilization.
New Location - Visit Kapteyn’s Bar to hear the latest gossip, triumph in a bar fight, and pick up bounty hunting quests
New Battles - Lead your fleet into epic battles against massive space stations.
New Weapons - Take on enemies with an arsenal of new weapons like the Black Hole Array or the Charged Warhead.

Community Events

With the lockdown keeping everyone at home we have been running weekday community game events for everyone in addition to weekend ones. We often post these on our forums, twitter, discords and steam.

Some of the upcoming events and their names include:

Cosmic Chaos - Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Metal Mayhem - Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation
Election Night - The Political Machine 2020

Key days we target for the events include every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

Galactic Civilizations III 4.0

Work on the 4.0 update for Galactic Civilizations III is nearing the finishing line. We have made it available as an opt-in on Steam. If you have any feedback please send it our way via either the forums or discord.

The Political Machine 2020 v1.1

Even during these trying times politics is an ever present part of our day to day lives and as such we have continue to update The Political Machine 2020.

Taking your feedback from our forums, Steam, Discord and Twitter we have made some additions to help you customize your game whilst we continue to add new candidates, ideologies and tweak the simulation.

You can check out the latest here.

In Memoriam

We were saddened to hear that Josh Taylor (JTaylorPCS) passed away from stage four lung cancer. They were a long standing member of the modding community for Sins of a Solar Empire and will be greatly missed.

We reached out to people and put together this section in memory of Josh and the impact he had on our community.

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From Chad, Sins of the Prophets Lead:

I got my start in modding for the Sins community through Josh and the Stargate project. Modding Sins and eventually interacting with the Halo community at large became a big part of my life. It all followed from his willingness to bring me on and show me the ropes. I will be eternally grateful for his kindness and friendship.

From Sam Pedrick:

What can I say about my friend Josh Taylor, Above all, he was always there to help with whatever issue you were having. Didn’t matter if it was personal, or if it was trouble with coding an ability in Sins, he listened, and gave input. If it were not for Josh, Stargate invasion wouldn’t have gotten off the ground. When I first met him, he was working on SoA2, getting their coding up to snuff.

I remember being in awe when he said he went through 300 lines of code in 5 minutes, thanks to Eclipse. He did the same thing for SGI. There were times when I needed real help, and he talked me down from doing some really stupid things, and helped me channel that into working on SGI. He’s always been a friend, though thick and thin. Josh has helped more people than I can even begin to count, and he will surely be missed.

From Brad Wardell, Stardock CEO:

Over the last 27 years, Stardock’s communities have evolved to be a place where people from many different life experiences gather. The modding community in particular is full of many talented and passionate people who just love to make mods and push the boundaries of gameplay into something that’s fun and unique.

One of the downsides of being an older company is that, despite all of the cool things that continue to happen and evolve in the industry, there’s always a bit of bad. Saying good-bye to long-standing members of our modding community is one of them.

I recently heard about the passing of Josh Taylor (JTaylorPCS), a long-time modder in our Sins of a Solar Empire community, after a battle with stage 4 lung cancer. As you know, we encourage modding here, so this community has always been very important to us. We’re so sorry to lose someone who is clearly very respected and cared for among modders.

From what I understand, Josh was instrumental in helping with the Sacrifice of Angels, Stargate Invasion and Sins of the Prophets mods. I know these groups of people work hard together to create fun and exciting new projects, and I’m sorry for your loss - truly, it’s a loss to us all.

While I didn’t know Josh personally, I have been doing this for a very long time and have said good-bye to many incredible people within our various communities. It sucks every single time.

Our communities go beyond modding, beyond customization - they are held together by people who care about each other, who have passion for the things they create. We are so lucky to have the people we do here - it’s part of what keeps me enthusiastically doing what I do.

Again, my deepest condolences to Josh’s family, friends, and all of our community. I wish everyone comfort during this difficult time.

Best wishes

The Forge

Ages of the Federation

It's been a long road getting from there to here, but the team over at Stellar Parallax have brought a colossal update to the TOS-era Star Trek mod Ages of the Federation for Sins of a Solar Empire.

In the latest update the team have brought to life the Romulans, drawing upon lore from many parts of Star Trek to recreate and imagine what the ships of the first conflict would have looked like. Same as the Armada 3 mod each ship is fully voiced. As a special extra they have created a new effect that allows beam weapons to animated as they travel across the cold vacuum of space.

You can get the latest version of the mod from their moddb page linked below. You will need the latest version of Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion to play.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/ages-of-the-federation/

Respawn

Nite's Let's Play

KormaTV plays Star Control: Origins

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/569574493