AI War Beta 3.704 and 3.705 Released.

[x4000]

A new version of the full installer, with all the full music tracks for Children of Neinzul plus the new/remastered tracks for AI War and The Zenith Remnant, will be forthcoming soon.  However, that takes a while to upload and prepare, and in the meantime we have a non-music-bearing patch that you can download of the awesome new 3.705 update.  Notable new stuff in this one:

• Minimap!  And not just the old one that we used to have, which was of marginal utility (because it was so small), and always in the way.  Hold T to see the new one, or your middle mouse button.
• No more control nodes!  Oh, the angst of an engineer without his control node.  But, the new system is better, and can be accessed through a handy new Ctrl button at the bottom of the screen.
• Objectives screen!  That was actually there a bit in 3.703, but it's loads better now.  Just go into the Stats screen and click the Objectives tab.  It's a lot more informative and instructive, while at the same time not revealing data you haven't scouted for.
• The in-HUD buttons and the planetary summary are both now vastly more efficient, and in the case of the buttons, vastly more readable.  This makes a huge difference.
• Some more fixes/improvements to the game timing (it was running fast before).
• That shot rotation bug is fixed (the one where shots moving up and left looked funny).
• Various internal performance improvements to try to keep memory usage down, especially across multiple sessions that don't close the application.
• The wave/reinforcement multipliers are now visible as an alert at the top of the screen when present.  No more confusion when you have a x27 wave modifier from your three golems!
• The 3.705 version adds on some fixes to the button text centering, and to the lobby.

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.

[Winter Born]

patched and created new game w/o changing any toggles. Game looks ok. (ctrl alt S) shows minor factions active, AI plot active, expansions active, etc.

One limitation/benefit of the Mantis BR is you always get the last word by closing an issue, but we cannot say thanks after an issue is resolved.

thanks

[x4000]

Oh, sorry -- didn't realize that closed issues could not be responded to. I'll be sure just to resolve them, and not close them, so that won't happen.  Whoops!

[Invelios]

Excellent update. I really like the Control menu that replaced the control nodes, makes a lot more sense. Also like the Galaxy menu buttons being there again. The Unity version is turning out great! It's better looking and faster for me. In fact, I tried going back to the old version to play multiplayer with a friend, and had a hard time re-adjusting to the old version. I can't wait till the music is back in!

Thanks for all the great updates! I'm especially glad the planetary summary shows the yellow boarder around selected units again!

[x4000]

Glad it's a hit on so many fronts!

Also glad to hear it is running faster for you.  I started up a multiplayer session of mine today, and it was running great for 2 out of the 3 players, but that third player was really dragging the game down.  He was always a problem computer in the old version, too, but it seems more severe now.  I'm going to be putting in some performance profile options so that the experience can be tuned pretty heavily to make it work on a wider array of hardware (just more choppy when you're using a low-hardware profile).  Should be good!  I have trouble going back to the old one, too -- glad I'm not the only one.

[Winter Born]

the new minimap rings, are those the slower speed horizons?

[x4000]

Yep!

[Lancefighter]

Do not like the new 'control' screen for singleplanet stuff.  A) limited to 9 of <type> b) does not keep track of research/number of other planets (i can tell every planet to single planet build 9 mk3 engineers, even though ew all know that will never happen) c)there is no overt indicator that i saw that says 'YOU ARE REBUILDING 9 ENGINEERS ON THIS PLANET', thus, harder to keep track of.

Other stuff, I'm of half a mind - its too intrusive in its current implementation (is it possible to make it smaller to the point of only taking up the usual build space? I dont like losing my entire field of view just to edit control settings. And to be frank - the words dont mean anything except for new people... bitter vets like me just need the location and a letter or two :x Option at least to minimize space used?

Minimap is interesting, with one main flaw - it doesnt zoom to cursor on the minimap yet - its still zooming to cursor on the main view, which makes it difficulter to use.

(will be opening these in mantis shortly)

[@B0FH]

Is it a typo, or has 3.706 also hit the update servers?
(It's what's in the upper corner and also the name of the update .zip ??)

[Thumpy]

excellent! the no-more-control-nodes thing makes so much more sense now. plus i always found the minimap quite useless the way it was before. it's a much more useful tool now. maybe the icons in the map are a little small, and zoom-to cursor while holding T would be nice too. but these are just minor gripes. overall, it's getting better and better! now i can't wait for the in-game music.

[Ozymandiaz]

I like the new implementation of control nodes. It makes more sense then having the actual nodes imo. The mini map is cool as well, tho I personally stay zoomed out a lot

The game seems to run somewhat choppy compared to the non unity version, nothing really distinct, but it kind of feels off. Not sure if its my comp or not.

Also, is there a way to disable icon grouping? I like my big blob of icons so I can easily make a judgment call on number of units based on quick visual inspection

[Thumpy]

not sure if this is a bug, while the loop function is still working, the icon isn't actually turning into a loop arrow but remains straight.

[Mánagarmr]

Also, is there a way to disable icon grouping? I like my big blob of icons so I can easily make a judgment call on number of units based on quick visual inspection

Check your settings for "Icon Snap Distance" or something similar.

[Ozymandiaz]

Also, is there a way to disable icon grouping? I like my big blob of icons so I can easily make a judgment call on number of units based on quick visual inspection

Check your settings for "Icon Snap Distance" or something similar.

Ah, thats what its called now

will check it out, ty

[keith.lamothe]

Also, is there a way to disable icon grouping? I like my big blob of icons so I can easily make a judgment call on number of units based on quick visual inspection

Check your settings for "Icon Snap Distance" or something similar.

Ah, thats what its called now

will check it out, ty

I don't recall having changed the name of the setting, I think it's still Icon Grouping Distance.  Just keep thrashing controls until it does what you want