Author Topic: Testing AI War 2 - again  (Read 3717 times)

Offline Kahuna

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Testing AI War 2 - again
« on: December 28, 2018, 10:20:21 am »
Testing AI War 2 - again

AIW2 has changed a lot since I tried it last time and it's looking pretty good. And most importantly so far it seems enjoyable to actually play!

Here's a list of first impressions, problems, bugs or strange behaviors, nuisances and/or differences compared to AIWC and other first impressions:

For reference here are the settings I used for this game (in case it matters to any of these points). I'll keep adding points as I play:

SETTINGS
Seed: 889627501
80 planets, realistic, original, rectangular
Home planet: Eden

Human remnant
Ark: Thanatos
Bonus ship: Raptor

AI Sentinels - Brawler
Varied waves
Medium wave warning
Hunter waves enabled
Cross planet waves enabled
Direct waves enabled
Reconquest enabled
Both sharks disabled
Difficulty: 10

AI Warden fleet - Base oriented: 7
AI Hunter fleet - Kamikaze: 7

Special factions:
Human resistance fighters: 5
Marauders: 5
Astro Trains: 5
Nanocaust: 5

...On to the list:
LIST
#1. Units and shots keep moving for a few seconds after the game is paused.
#2. Units' hitboxes feel some times a bit small when trying to select them by clicking. Same when trying to mouse over to get the tooltip. Same when clicking on planets on the galaxy map. This combined with the long "double click delay" (or whatever you'd call it) results in accidental double clicking on ships.
#3. The icons in the side bar are not in order. For example ships and defensive structures are not all next to each others. This combined with issue #10 is sligthly tedious.
#4. Projectile effects have a bit too much glare for my taste and some times they start mid air and fly past the target. So when my ships are being attacked it's some times hard to tell which AI ship is attacking which of my ships.
#5. Can't see the game speed when the game is paused. The "PAUSED" text replaces the game speed modifier.
#6. Holding Shift shows all orders you have given to your ships instead of only orders given to selected ships. In AIW Classic holding Alt in addition to Shift showed orders for all ships.
#7. I Wish the selected ship types were highlighted on the side bar.
#8. It should be possible to rally ships from space docks to other planets.
#9. Not sure if bug but Metabolizing Gangsaws (Melee ships) are almost useless on FRD mode because they mostly just bounche between targets without actually attacking them. Once in a while they attack the target once and then start going towards another target which makes them almost uselss unless manually controlled. On attack move vast majority of them just stands still and doesn't do anything.
#10. Clicking a ship in the list of selected units in bottom right corner doesn't immediately select the ships that I clicked. Instead it deselects some portion of the other ships on every click. If I want to select the ships that are on bottom of the list I can just click spam it so it's not a big deal. But if I want to select a ships that's in the middle of the list, I have to click and wait to have time to react if the list shrinks as it unselects the other ships and thus the ship I want to click on changes place on the list. Because if the ship cap of the ships I want select is small and I accidentaly click on another ship, it will deselect the ships I wanted to select. In addition it's not possible to deselect ships from this list by clicking while holding Alt. No need to thank me for this complicated explanation. Reported on Mantis by Dominus Arbitrationis: https://bugtracker.arcengames.com/view.php?id=20876
#11. Auto kite behavior is very unoptimal. Kiting ships fly in a circle around the target and they only utilize half of their range. So they don't stay at full range nor in the position or direction I ordered them into. Instead they start fly in circles and thus into range of the enemy ships. On the other hand if I disable auto kiting and kite (move) them manually it seems to me that move order interferes with ships' ability to shoot.
#12. AI War 2 doesn't have the zoom shotcuts to predefined zoom levels (Q, W, E and R for full, 1/3, 2/3 and zero zoom).
#13. In AI War 2 the icons for turrets are mostly very similar and difficult to tell apart. However the icons for ships are great. As we can see in these screenshots the icons for ships correspond to the shape of the ship. Bomber's icon looks like a bomber, Raptor's icons look like a Raptor etc etc. However this isn't the case for turrets. For turrets the only difference is the minuscule "subicon" in bottom left corner of the "main icon". Nothing serious and more of an aesthetics and quality of life issue.

Ship icons


Turret icons


Turrets are much harder to tell apart if not zoomed in


#14. Giving multiple consecutive move orders very fast and then holding the mouse button makes the game to spam move order as long as the right mouse button is pressed. This results in ships moving in a choppy and slow manner. If this happens near the edge of planet area the movement path makes all sorts of weird curves and corners which makes the ships go even slower. This movement order spam can happen accidentaly if pressing the right mouse button a bit longer than needed. This does not happen if you simply press and hold the right mouse button.
#15. So far the game seems quite easy with AIP at 95.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2018, 02:37:47 pm by Kahuna »
set /A diff=10
if %diff%==max (
   set /A me=:)
) else (
   set /A me=SadPanda
)
echo Check out my AI War strategy guide and find your inner Super Cat!
echo 2592 hours of AI War and counting!
echo Kahuna matata!

Offline RocketAssistedPuffin

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Re: Testing AI War 2 - again
« Reply #1 on: December 28, 2018, 11:05:27 am »
#15. So far the game seems quite easy with AIP at 95.

I had a feeling it wouldn't stand up much to you. I'm just a volunteer for this and the...gameplay side is mostly what I do. Make that thing better, that one worse, fix an oddity, etc. No guarantee it'd be any good though.

I'd be very happy to hear any suggestions you have on that part, and I'll try to improve it as much as my abilities allow (I'm not a programmer so the C# is generally out of reach).

Rest is sadly not things I can help with.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2018, 11:56:17 am by RocketAssistedPuffin »
Autistic, so apologies for any communication difficulties!

Offline Kahuna

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Re: Testing AI War 2 - again
« Reply #2 on: December 29, 2018, 03:36:56 am »
#16. Targeting problems

There's a problem with targeting in AI War 2 that's especially evident when fighting against Carrier Guardians. In AI War 2 the target prioritization doesn't stick so when I order my ships to prioritize the Carrier Guardians.. or rather, a Carrier Guardian.. the prioritization order disappears after that specific Carrier Guardian is destroyed. As a result my ships keep prioritizing the drones which is obviously completely useless. So I have to manually Shit+click all 55 Carrier Guardians.

AI War Classic:
Before target is destroyed


After target is destroyed



AI War 2:
Before target is destroyed


After target is destroyed


EDIT:
Better demonstration how it works in AI War Classic:
I ordered all of my turrets and ships to prioritize Fighters. Not even once did my units target any other ship than the Fighters. Except after the Fighters were all destroyed. (Obviously the turrets would have shot for example the Bombers if the Bombers got in range before the Fighters. But as long as the ship that is prioritized is in range, it has the priority.)


« Last Edit: December 29, 2018, 01:43:24 pm by Kahuna »
set /A diff=10
if %diff%==max (
   set /A me=:)
) else (
   set /A me=SadPanda
)
echo Check out my AI War strategy guide and find your inner Super Cat!
echo 2592 hours of AI War and counting!
echo Kahuna matata!

Offline Kahuna

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Re: Testing AI War 2 - again
« Reply #3 on: December 29, 2018, 03:54:51 am »
#15. So far the game seems quite easy with AIP at 95.
I had a feeling it wouldn't stand up much to you.
Now I actually got a quite nasty wave. Something like 60 Concussion Guardians, 55 Carrier Guardians plus something else.

I'd be very happy to hear any suggestions you have on that part, and I'll try to improve it as much as my abilities allow (I'm not a programmer so the C# is generally out of reach).
I feel like I've not yet played AI War 2 enough to make suggestions about balance changes.
« Last Edit: December 29, 2018, 01:45:14 pm by Kahuna »
set /A diff=10
if %diff%==max (
   set /A me=:)
) else (
   set /A me=SadPanda
)
echo Check out my AI War strategy guide and find your inner Super Cat!
echo 2592 hours of AI War and counting!
echo Kahuna matata!

Offline Draco18s

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Re: Testing AI War 2 - again
« Reply #4 on: December 30, 2018, 11:47:02 am »
#8. It should be possible to rally ships from space docks to other planets.

Having discovered how to do this the other day...you can!

In the dock panel (on a plant with a dock) there's a couple of icons. One pauses construction. One of the others is a rally flag. Click this, go to another planet, and (right?) click again. Changing planets will make it look like it's dropped the flag, but it hasn't, the game knows you're still performing that action.

Offline Kahuna

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Re: Testing AI War 2 - again
« Reply #5 on: January 01, 2019, 05:30:05 am »
Yeah, I died shortly after this wave.
set /A diff=10
if %diff%==max (
   set /A me=:)
) else (
   set /A me=SadPanda
)
echo Check out my AI War strategy guide and find your inner Super Cat!
echo 2592 hours of AI War and counting!
echo Kahuna matata!

 

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