EDIT: 2014-2-1 The game appears to no longer spam so this article may no longer apply
Sins of a Solar Empire (Sins) is a real-time strategy (RTS) game where your goal is to explore, expand, exploit and exterminate [your enemy]. A Novalith Cannon is a super weapon that performs the job of exterminating your enemy (or you for that matter) with its ability to lob huge masses of energized something-or-others across the interplanetary void inevitably reducing the planet’s colony to cinders.
Unfortunately, playing against the AI (even the Easy Economist AI) will result in the computer building up to 4 of these monstrosities generally within the first half hour of the game, only to spam fire a weapon every few minutes. Some have suggested to build 2 x star bases, research the Auxiliary Government upgrade and build shields around the planet. I agree, though this can be tricky when one is lacking funds in the early part of the game. Plus it forces you to research a particular defensive strategy every game you play – too bad if I want to be an economist.
Anyway there is a way to disable or reduce the number of novaliths in single player. The easiest way is to edit the main config file[1] each time you play or make a script or mod. The latter is a subject for another day.
Open Windows Explorer and navigate to your Sins folder, for Steam users it is generally:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\sins of a solar empire rebellion
1. Open the GameInfo folder
2. Make a backup of the file Gameplay.constants and place it somewhere safe, ideally in a different folder.
3. Open Gameplay.constants in your favourite text editor
4. At the top of the file is a section called GameplayConstants
5. Look for the line maxNumberOfCannonsPerPlayer
6. Change the value (which is generally 4 meaning 4 novaliths) to a value between 0 and 4 (who knows if 4 is the max). 0 = none. Yay!
7. Save the file
8. Launch Sins and start a new single player game to see your changes reflected
NOTE – I noticed the file was reset the next day so be sure to re-edit it the next time you play or make a script to perform the changes for you.
Have fun!
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[1] Thanks to ezeltje299 for the initial instructions.
MickyD's Random Thoughts 
Does this disable just the Novalith or all interplanetary weapons?
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Just the Novalith. You may find that you don’t need the above technique afterall. I was playing the game recently and noticed it wasn’t spamming. Perhaps they patched it?
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I was playing last night and was spammed to all heck. It was infuriating; thus my searching for solutions today. I’ll apply this technique and try to make a mod of it for the masses. My searching has revealed it is a very common frustration.
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And I’ll try to disable all interplanetary weapons. Nearly unblockable weapons with no limits on range is a very bad design choice. It’s not strategy, it’s lazy warfare. That’s why we play Sins, not Star Craft.
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That will be awesome. Let me know how you go. Agreed about Sins. 🙂
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Confirmed on the spamming… I just started playing and the only AI players left standing (out of a total 9 AI players) were the two TEC players who no doubt killed off all the other AI with their Novalith cannons before targeting me with about 6 Novalith shots all at once… Which is also why I’m here to find out how to stop the weapons.
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Thanks. It’s a shame they did it that way – bit of a lazy approach to AI.
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I can’t see the “Max number of cannons” all I see in that are is
gravWellThickness 1.0
cannonsPerGravityWellRatio 1
cannonGravityWellRatioDenominator 4
preferNewAssetsGameCountThreshold 5
And if I change the 1 or 4 on the cannon line the game freezes the minute I start a new game. Any advice?
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It’s `maxNumberOfCannonsPerPlayer`.
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Yeah. I search that was just quickly typing it in. I Ctrl F for any word with cannons and don’t find any. It’s pretty near the top of the list right?
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For me at the time it was on line 17 but could be anywhere you you. If you can’t find the line then just add it under GameplayConstants somewhere.
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