AI War Beta 3.708, "The Salve," Released

[x4000]

Orginal: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2010/10/ai-war-beta-3708-salve-released.html

Copied:

I don't know why these prerelease names keep coming to me, but I imagine they won't keep up.  If the last release was the sledge hammer, where we burst through a bunch of walls and floors and started remodeling, this release is continuing the remodeling work -- and, even more importantly, healing some of those rips and holes from the last release, hence the name.

Notable stuff:

• There's a bunch of key bugfixes and tweaks in there, including the ability to build command stations again (kind of hard to play for long without that, but that was the most severe of the bugs found in 3.707).
• Wow did the economy get an overhaul.  The overall cap was raised from 600k to 999k, and command stations and harvesters all give you way more metal and crystal.  You'll need it.
• A bunch of stuff is now (sim and regular) framerate independent, so that more of the graphics continue to move in realtime even when you use a faster or a slower performance profile.  Ships and shots and other things that are part of the simulation itself are just going to have to look jerky when you use a really slow performance profile -- there's no way around it -- but there's no reason that explosions, starfields, etc, can't be nicely animated during that time.
• Speaking of, the ship movement now scales better (so your ships don't zip around on insane, and don't crawl along on extremely low).
• And a blanket 10 move speed has been added to all ships, too, which makes the really slow ships feel less sluggish.  Always a plus.
• The Neinzul Hybrids were growing at something like 20x the intended rate in the last release, which led to murder within minutes.  It's safe to go back in the water now. :)
• Oh yeah, and the ship cap scale setting now actually applies to the AI as well as to you.  We forgot to handle that in the last release.
• Also, the attack power of all ships has been scaled up, so that combat isn't sluggish like it was in the last release (thanks to downed reload times, largely).
• And, last but not least, the first of the new "niche icons" to replace the old "niche text" have been added.  So you can tell metal/crystal manufactories apart again from far zoom, and selecting all your engineers from the planetary summary no longer selects cleanup drones or rebuilders, for example.

Enjoy!

[Don Carsto]

Hello,

oh, with the 3.707 update, on my last map (x-type starting in an edge with only one neightbour) there was a block of 72 Hybrid hyves at my neightbour-planet after about 15 Minutes gameplay.
Cant go there and do anything, and the game was unplayable.
Now with the same map, wíth the same starting point, with 3.708 update there are 162!!!! (yes, one-hundred-sixty-two) Hybrid Hyves after about 15 minutes game play.

Thats more than unplayable. 

But after all, great work for this new AI-War. Many thanks for you. 

Best wishes,
DC

[keith.lamothe]

Now with the same map, wíth the same starting point, with 3.708 update there are 162!!!! (yes, one-hundred-sixty-two) Hybrid Hyves after about 15 minutes game play.

Just to be clear, this was an entirely new game on 3.708?

Sounds like the hybrids don't want to be nerfed back down

[Mánagarmr]

Freshly started game, both AIs with Hybrids on, full visibility. First Hybrid spawns 1:15 into the game, and the rest keep coming at 1:15 intervals.

Still a tad too fast, I'd say.

[Vaos]

I can confirm that Hybrids keep spawning until there's 160 or so of them. Also, the Electric Area of Effect Sprite stay stuck on the screen (never disapear) after firing. Don't see much except that for the moment.

Edit : It also seems to be impossible to buy any of the trader items. They just stay Red and refuse to be built.

I should stop editing this post, but that would be also good to see the energy cost of units in their non-dock tooltip.

Two last ones while I am at it : It doesn't seems possible to change the windowed resolution, and having the stacking of icons (while zoomed out) optional again would be nice.

In any case, kudos to Arcen for some awesome work.

[Mánagarmr]

I can confirm that Hybrids keep spawning until there's 160 or so of them. Also, the Electric Area of Effect Sprite stay stuck on the screen (never disapear) after firing. Don't see much except that for the moment.

Edit : It also seems to be impossible to buy any of the trader items. They just stay Red and refuse to be built.

I should stop editing this post, but that would be also good to see the energy cost of units in their non-dock tooltip.

Two last ones while I am at it : It doesn't seems possible to change the windowed resolution, and having the stacking of icons (while zoomed out) optional again would be nice.

In any case, kudos to Arcen for some awesome work.

If you can, report these issues (one at a time) on the bugtracker. The hybrid issue and the Zenith trader issue are already reported though.

[Vaos]

I can confirm that Hybrids keep spawning until there's 160 or so of them. Also, the Electric Area of Effect Sprite stay stuck on the screen (never disapear) after firing. Don't see much except that for the moment.

Edit : It also seems to be impossible to buy any of the trader items. They just stay Red and refuse to be built.

I should stop editing this post, but that would be also good to see the energy cost of units in their non-dock tooltip.

Two last ones while I am at it : It doesn't seems possible to change the windowed resolution, and having the stacking of icons (while zoomed out) optional again would be nice.

In any case, kudos to Arcen for some awesome work.

If you can, report these issues (one at a time) on the bugtracker. The hybrid issue and the Zenith trader issue are already reported though.

I am actually working on that. I just had issues finding the correct address for it, why not have it stickied to the forum or to the OPs of the updates posts?

[Mánagarmr]

It's already right here.

[Vaos]

Well, it's "Hidden" in the bug reports forums. Won't prevent people from ignoring it's existence if it's not mentioned anywhere else. A link in the release notes like "post your bug reports there!" would be perfect.

[Mánagarmr]

Well, it's "Hidden" in the bug reports forums. Won't prevent people from ignoring it's existence if it's not mentioned anywhere else. A link in the release notes like "post your bug reports there!" would be perfect.

Agreed, it's a bit hidden. But seeing as the bug report forum were the ONLY way prior...it kinda work.

[superking]

unless it was fixed this version, astrotrain icons arent directional atm & pause/play buttons stuck on pause, loop/single build buttons stuck on single

[Vaos]

Well, it's "Hidden" in the bug reports forums. Won't prevent people from ignoring it's existence if it's not mentioned anywhere else. A link in the release notes like "post your bug reports there!" would be perfect.

Agreed, it's a bit hidden. But seeing as the bug report forum were the ONLY way prior...it kinda work.

This is not a reason to improve things even more isn't it?   
The bug tracker is a huge improvement over the forum method, so better make it known.

[Don Carsto]

Now with the same map, wíth the same starting point, with 3.708 update there are 162!!!! (yes, one-hundred-sixty-two) Hybrid Hyves after about 15 minutes game play.

Just to be clear, this was an entirely new game on 3.708?

Sounds like the hybrids don't want to be nerfed back down

Yes, it started a new game with 3.708.

[Lancefighter]

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!
MY Cloaker starships! 

How DARE YOU!

(also, update failed for some reason. posting bugreport momentarily.)

[x4000]

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!
MY Cloaker starships! 

How DARE YOU!

With the emphasis on smaller groups of ships, this seemed sensible.  And hey, look on the bright side: they became massively cheaper to get the better ones in terms of knowledge.  The only way I could make the higher marks make sense was to have them have low enough ship cap at each level that the mark levels could be cheap in knowledge.