Author Topic: AI War 4 Beta 3.702 Released.  (Read 14168 times)

Offline x4000

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AI War 4 Beta 3.702 Released.
« on: October 05, 2010, 01:14:14 am »
Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2010/10/ai-war-beta-3702-released.html

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Lots of bugfixes and balance tweaks in this one.  Also a number of performance improvements, especially to cutting out the lag in the lobby from the last few releases.  A few GUI tweaks also made it in, hopefully making the interface easier than ever to visually parse and use.  Enjoy!

P.S. -- This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 3.701 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time.  If you don't have 3.701 or later, you can download that here.
« Last Edit: October 05, 2010, 02:36:20 pm by x4000 »
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Offline Lancefighter

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Re: AI War 4 Beta 3.702 Released.
« Reply #1 on: October 05, 2010, 01:17:23 am »
  • Siege starships can now hit one type of fleet ship: the Force-Field Bearer. Hard.
I love you Keith :-*

edit:fixed  ;)
« Last Edit: October 05, 2010, 02:13:22 am by Lancefighter »
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Offline x4000

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Re: AI War 4 Beta 3.702 Released.
« Reply #2 on: October 05, 2010, 01:26:20 am »
Kisses to Keith on that one! :)
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Offline unclean

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Re: AI War 4 Beta 3.702 Released.
« Reply #3 on: October 05, 2010, 01:32:50 am »
Think you forgot a download link. Unless my brain stopped working or something.

Offline x4000

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Re: AI War 4 Beta 3.702 Released.
« Reply #4 on: October 05, 2010, 01:35:02 am »
Oops, I forgot to make that clear it's through the internal downloader, so there's no link this time!  I've added a PS above, thanks. :)
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Offline Winter Born

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Re: AI War 4 Beta 3.702 Released.
« Reply #5 on: October 05, 2010, 03:48:29 am »
The new active button colors are great
Ty

Offline Ozymandiaz

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Re: AI War 4 Beta 3.702 Released.
« Reply #6 on: October 05, 2010, 04:02:57 am »
I noticed engineers are no longer teleporting :(

Is this intentional?

Edit: I just found the patch notes. :P

But I got to comment, I perfer the teleporting of the engineer. I did not think they where an annoyance, nor hard to learn ;)
« Last Edit: October 05, 2010, 04:05:01 am by Ozymandiaz »
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Offline zespri

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Re: AI War 4 Beta 3.702 Released.
« Reply #7 on: October 05, 2010, 06:15:10 am »
Sorry for asking the obvious, is it a public beta and if so how one downloads it?
Edit: in the blog it's written that these betas are supposed to be on in-game updates. My game doesn't show the update it stays at 3.1.8.9. What might I be doing wrong?
« Last Edit: October 05, 2010, 06:22:55 am by zespri »

Offline HellishFiend

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Re: AI War 4 Beta 3.702 Released.
« Reply #8 on: October 05, 2010, 06:30:12 am »
I noticed engineers are no longer teleporting :(

Is this intentional?

Edit: I just found the patch notes. :P

But I got to comment, I perfer the teleporting of the engineer. I did not think they where an annoyance, nor hard to learn ;)

I agree. I hope this change does not make it to a full release. I disagree with the notion that the teleportation makes them more difficult to control, use, or manage.
Time to roll out another ball of death.

Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: AI War 4 Beta 3.702 Released.
« Reply #9 on: October 05, 2010, 06:49:46 am »
Sorry for asking the obvious, is it a public beta and if so how one downloads it?
Edit: in the blog it's written that these betas are supposed to be on in-game updates. My game doesn't show the update it stays at 3.1.8.9. What might I be doing wrong?
You need to first download the new Unity version. The Unity version will not update from the old 3.1.8.9 release beta.

The link is here to download the 3.701 beta (found from Arcens homepage blog) and once you run it, simply run the in game updater for the 3.702 version.
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Offline AlexV

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Re: AI War 4 Beta 3.702 Released.
« Reply #10 on: October 05, 2010, 08:16:44 am »
Just got round to trying the new Unity betas, it certainly looks much prettier. I'm a little concerned about the startup time, though - the .net version loads in 2.5s, compared to almost 8s for the Unity version. Is that something that's likely to improve in future betas?

Offline x4000

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Re: AI War 4 Beta 3.702 Released.
« Reply #11 on: October 05, 2010, 10:39:31 am »
I noticed engineers are no longer teleporting :(

Is this intentional?

Edit: I just found the patch notes. :P

But I got to comment, I perfer the teleporting of the engineer. I did not think they where an annoyance, nor hard to learn ;)

I agree. I hope this change does not make it to a full release. I disagree with the notion that the teleportation makes them more difficult to control, use, or manage.

Zero percent chance of that changing back.  It's better this way, and vastly easier for new players.  It's more functional even for advanced players.

Think about it: you're a new player, you see this engineer thing you're supposed to use, and you go to click on it.  But then it just vanishes!  WTF!  You have to know to zoom out and find it, and even then if it's got a lot to do it's blipping around and finding it can be a devil.  And you can never just go back to where you left it, it's always a hunt that frustrates even me.

No chance of going back to the old way, no chance at all, sorry...  That's one of those things that I think is just too crucial of a learning curve problem, and it has been subconsciously annoying me enough that I couldn't believe I didn't realize how much I hated it before now, either.  Plus it gets rid of the constant piff piff piff sound in all games on your planets. ;)

I'm not sure what the objections are related to, if it's a worry that engineers are nerfed or what.  They are actually just as functional, especially if you put them in FRD mode, even though they can't cover an entire planet with quite the same speed.  But it's pretty close, given their blazing move speed and their huge repair range.

Just got round to trying the new Unity betas, it certainly looks much prettier. I'm a little concerned about the startup time, though - the .net version loads in 2.5s, compared to almost 8s for the Unity version. Is that something that's likely to improve in future betas?

Glad you like it.  But the .NET version loaded for you in 2.5 seconds?  Hmm, let me see...

The first time after not having run it for a while (or having done a big update), it loads in 21 seconds for me.  The second time after having run it recently, it runs in 4 seconds for me. 

The first time running the Unity version after not having run it for a while (or having done a big update), it loads in 25 seconds for me. The second time after having run it recently,  it loaded in 9 seconds for me.

Looking at it, there's an added 5 seconds of loading in there on the Unity side based on it preloading the starfields and nebulae, and all the special effect images, which the .NET version didn't do.  That prevents the lag (that was severe) on the .NET side at the time of loading the first savegame.  Basically, the Unity version works butter-smooth then, but loads a hair slower because of the extra 300ish images it needs to load at the start of the game.

Unfortunately, there's not much way I can make the initial load any faster without impacting the in-game first-run performance, and overall I think it makes the game feel smoother to do it this way.  But, those extra few seconds are saving you lag from down the line in-the game, so hopefully that's a good trade. :)
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Offline Lancefighter

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Re: AI War 4 Beta 3.702 Released.
« Reply #12 on: October 05, 2010, 10:56:18 am »

Think about it: you're a new player, you see this engineer thing you're supposed to use, and you go to click on it.  But then it just vanishes!  WTF!  You have to know to zoom out and find it, and even then if it's got a lot to do it's blipping around and finding it can be a devil.  And you can never just go back to where you left it, it's always a hunt that frustrates even me.
but.. but.. thats why you leave them in frd - then they always go back to where you left them. Or, hotkey a group.. I, for example, always keep a group of engineers on 'player use' duty, on control group 5. (usually the entire engineer 3 group goes here, once i unlock them. Maybe 5-10 mk2s) They do pretty much anything that I want them to... building command stations, building in hostile space.. replacing econ stations with the next level....
then not to mention the planetary info summary, where you could just select them from there >.<
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Offline x4000

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Re: AI War 4 Beta 3.702 Released.
« Reply #13 on: October 05, 2010, 10:57:48 am »
When you have to use a hotkey, or leave them in a special mode, just to use them at all you know there's something wrong. ;)
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Offline Lancefighter

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Re: AI War 4 Beta 3.702 Released.
« Reply #14 on: October 05, 2010, 10:59:23 am »
When you have to use a hotkey, or leave them in a special mode, just to use them at all you know there's something wrong. ;)
I disagree. I think engineers should default to frd all the time (first thing i do in any game is build my control nodes, engineer frd is one of them)
And i use a hotkey for everything.. Habit from more quickly paced rts games - you never know when you need something built immediately >.<

edit: and the hotkey is only for a single group mind, the group that does everything i ask of them. I usually tend to build ~5 mk2 engineer (nodes) on any main system with the possibility of combat, left on frd. +5 mk1 if it is a construction center..

I guess what I am saying is that engineers are a passive item for me, except for that one group I have hotkeyed. build the control node and forget about them..
edit2: And I feel they work better this way given teleportation.
« Last Edit: October 05, 2010, 11:02:16 am by Lancefighter »
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