AI War Beta 3.715, "The AI Strikes Back," Released!

[Lancefighter]

They feel to me like mobile turrets.
I suppose i can withhold real judgment until they come in proper extra-boosted form (or maybe get far enough into a game to play with some high mk worlds)

Bingo, that's exactly what they are, and are intended to be. I pretty much said as much in the release notes, but I guess I didn't come right out and fully say it.  These are turrets that can also launch counterattacks.

well.. the whole 'counterattacks' bit seems a bit sketchy at this point. Mostly because as soon as warping into my homeworld, they died instantly to the new incredible turrets. ..

[x4000]

They feel to me like mobile turrets.
I suppose i can withhold real judgment until they come in proper extra-boosted form (or maybe get far enough into a game to play with some high mk worlds)

Bingo, that's exactly what they are, and are intended to be. I pretty much said as much in the release notes, but I guess I didn't come right out and fully say it.  These are turrets that can also launch counterattacks.

well.. the whole 'counterattacks' bit seems a bit sketchy at this point. Mostly because as soon as warping into my homeworld, they died instantly to the new incredible turrets. ..

That just means they aren't balanced right, not that they aren't conceptually valid.

[Lancefighter]

well by all means - enable the mass killing of players via balance changing 

[keith.lamothe]

enable the mass killing of players via balance changing 

If I had a job description, that would be in it

[x4000]

enable the mass killing of players via balance changing 

If I had a job description, that would be in it

Ditto.

[Vinraith]

This is the one I've been waiting for, I'm glad to see the AI side getting some love. Ever since the new posts and the consequent ship cap reductions things have felt a bit too easy (which is not to say it wasn't easily possible to pop up the difficulty and get my ass kicked, of course), I'm hoping these changes will give the AI back the teeth it had before those changes (but obviously in a less grindy way). Thanks for all your hard work as always guys, you certainly make sure this game never gets stale!  

P.S. Love the art on those new ships.

[x4000]

Our pleasure!  And yeah, this has been what I've been waiting for, too.  Long time coming.  Of course, turns out the guardians are balanced on the too-weak side at the moment, but that will be fixed.  And there's some more love coming for the AI very soon, too -- it's going to have more teeth than it ever has had before, in a very real sense.

[Vinraith]

Our pleasure!  And yeah, this has been what I've been waiting for, too.  Long time coming.  Of course, turns out the guardians are balanced on the too-weak side at the moment, but that will be fixed.  And there's some more love coming for the AI very soon, too -- it's going to have more teeth than it ever has had before, in a very real sense.

Sounds absolutely fantastic, I'm looking forward to seeing what diabolical things you have planned.

[x4000]

Thanks.

[Giegue]

you know, this is almost like an actual sequence of events.

at first, the AI had only the technology it acquired from the humans. then, the zenith remnants revealed themselves, and the AI quickly adapted. the humans found technology as well. The AI discovered the marauders, and gained the revelation that humans were not bound together as one, but desparately fighting for their lives. then came the nienzul: a race whose ally varies from enclave to enclave. By this time, the AI had gained to much intellect, that it began to develop it's own technology; technology that was superior to that of the humans, and it dropped useless tools like turrets altogether...

yeah, awesome. it'd be totally cool to put something like that somewhere. like on the info page, in the game, on this site, etc.

nice going on the gaurdians

[Lancefighter]

Problem being, of course, that as a strategy game there isnt exactly a timeline to follow... while I'm sure the game /could/ somehow include a progression of events like that, where over the time of gameplay the face of the game changes (say, like at 2h or once youve gotten x far or something, zenith ships start appearing.. at 6h, the ai stops building turrets in favor of guardians) or something like that......... but that might require effort :p

[Giegue]

what the hell are you talking about, all they have to do is slap the text I put in the game somewhere. perhaps in the info section or somewhere else.

[keith.lamothe]

Simmer down, please

There is a sort of non-temporal progression as the new stuff is introduced, particularly with the expansion.  I've often felt when adding new stuff like the humans were developing new technology, but of course they were not  Interesting, nonetheless.

[Lancefighter]

well, your saying storywise, the game itself is progressing in a direction .


I'm saying, sure, great, but that only makes any sense at all if youve kept up with the game since wayyy earlier.
However, if the game had some landmarks where stuff got interesting.. like for 2 hours, the game is 'just' base ai war... then suddenly you start seeing zr stuff, possibly randomly get a golem thrown at you, you start seeing the trader/mining/devourers/dyson etc.
around the 4-6 hour point, CoN stuff starts appearing, neinzul waves, roaming enclaves, etc, and the ai starts replacing turrets with guardians

Similar to how in <insert rpg here> as your character levels up, you face harder and harder bad guys. Specifically, in Fallout 3, its kinda hard to play an energy weapons character until you hit the enclave at PP, but once you do everything becomes almost easy.
then again, my FO3 is modded to hell and back to make it considerably more difficult in the beginning, but the theory remains similar

[Collic]

Hey guys, haven't posted in an age, but I've been following these betas with interest. I have a little bit of feedback for you.

I've just downloaded and installed the latest and greatest and unfortunately the AI wants to murder me.. immediately ! Within a few minutes the AI threat leaps up to around the 150 mark before I've had chance to build a fleet or organise a defence (so early in fact tractor beams haven't even finished building and I have around 50 fighters). Not sure why this is happening, but its occurred every time I've started a new game, regardless of whether I send out a scout to any of the neighbouring planets.

I'm just running the base game, no expansions. If there's anything I can send you to help track down what's going on, let me know I love the progress made so far (a *hell* of a lot has changed since I last played -  new guardposts, no ai turrets, I'm going to have to learn the game all over again Great stuff.)

Edit: I notice this issue sounds like the one mentioned in the release notes, its definitely 3.715 - would a clean install be worth trying?