AI War Beta 3.800, "The Refinery," Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2010/10/ai-war-beta-3800-refinery-released.html

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Well, the release notes for this one are immense. I mean, really really immense.  At the risk of seeming terse, I'm just largely going to point you to those, because the fixes and tweaks are all over the place and I'm running really short on time, anyway.  But, some of the most exciting points:

• Lots of refinements to the galaxy map and other parts of the interface.
• The guardians scale much better based on the AI difficulty levels.  The prior sole way these functioned is now considered difficulty 8, for the very hardcore subset.  Rejoice, rejoice! ;)
• Some other bugs that made things too hard also were fixed.
• The achievements and the high scores windows are now in place.
• A new music track for the base game, called "The Last Chapter," is now in.  That's the last one for 4.0!
• For those who had been fussing about starfield density, this release should be pleasing.
• A variety of bugfixes, including making sure flak isn't a death squad.
• Making mouse wheel zoom function again for people with really low sensitivity mouse wheels.

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 the windows installer for 3.711, or the OSX installer for 3.712. Once you do an in-game update, they'll both be on the latest version, despite starting at slightly different versions.

[Lancefighter]

    *  The number of targets that flak shots would hit was recently 5x too high, which made them incredibly too deadly. Fixed.
And there was rejoicing.. er.. wait 

[x4000]

    *  The number of targets that flak shots would hit was recently 5x too high, which made them incredibly too deadly. Fixed.
And there was rejoicing.. er.. wait 

That applies to the AI, too, not just you.

[keith.lamothe]

<li>A new music track for the base game, called "The Last Chapter," is now in.  That's the last one for 4.0!</li>

I thought Pablo's email said "The Next Chapter"?

[x4000]

Oops, yeah.

[Sizzle]

It's entirely a shame that I can only comment on what seems to possibly happen based on forum conversation and release notes;  I'm traveling on businesss and am not able to play any of the betas. In fact I'll miss release and only be back next Friday.  sounds like you're making great progress!

[Lancefighter]

    *  The number of targets that flak shots would hit was recently 5x too high, which made them incredibly too deadly. Fixed.
And there was rejoicing.. er.. wait 

That applies to the AI, too, not just you.

Unfortunately i havent seen my flak turrets do much useful in a while >.> I think ai flak guardians are the main change here though

[Invelios]

Is it normal for the game to take much longer to close now? I hit "Exit to Operating System" and it took a good 30 seconds to finally close. Normally it it takes a second or so. Also, the music is skipping more often again. The last update had it almost gone, but now it happens every 5 seconds or so. Should I report those as bugs, or do you already know about them?

Other than those 2 things, very nice update. I especially like the new button backgrounds for the Text-buttons. Looks a lot nicer. I haven't had much time to play an actual game because of college exams and essays. I still haven't seen an AI Eye, I wonder what they are like...

[TheMachineIsSentient]

Is it normal for the game to take much longer to close now? I hit "Exit to Operating System" and it took a good 30 seconds to finally close. Normally it it takes a second or so. Also, the music is skipping more often again. The last update had it almost gone, but now it happens every 5 seconds or so. Should I report those as bugs, or do you already know about them?

Other than those 2 things, very nice update. I especially like the new button backgrounds for the Text-buttons. Looks a lot nicer. I haven't had much time to play an actual game because of college exams and essays. I still haven't seen an AI Eye, I wonder what they are like...

I'm exiting fairly easily. Not to say you're not having a problem.

[keith.lamothe]

Is it normal for the game to take much longer to close now? I hit "Exit to Operating System" and it took a good 30 seconds to finally close. Normally it it takes a second or so. Also, the music is skipping more often again. The last update had it almost gone, but now it happens every 5 seconds or so. Should I report those as bugs, or do you already know about them?

It should definitely not be skipping more.  Has anyone else had that in 3.800?

[TheMachineIsSentient]

The audio does skip whenever AI war changes between the opening menu in the game and vice versa. Overall, only a minor issue. You could always pause the music before beginning or exiting games?  More of a polish item than anything else.

[keith.lamothe]

Right, there's skipping when it's doing some of those transitions, I meant skipping during the game itself.

There are a few things we can do to cut down on the transition skips; pausing is a good idea for the time being.

[Epsilon Plus]

I mentioned this in the last beta thread, but I'm not getting sound/music, at all. I have Music and Sounds folders full of .ogg files, I don't have anything muted in or out of game, sound is functioning for other programs and there are no error logs in any folders that point towards a problem. Are there any other files I can check out to see what the potential problem is?

[x4000]

I mentioned this in the last beta thread, but I'm not getting sound/music, at all. I have Music and Sounds folders full of .ogg files, I don't have anything muted in or out of game, sound is functioning for other programs and there are no error logs in any folders that point towards a problem. Are there any other files I can check out to see what the potential problem is?

Hmmm, you could look in the AIWar_Data folder and there is an output.log file.  You could post that, and that would be helpful.  What beta versions have you played, overall?  Just the last couple, or been playing for a while?  And no sound on any of them?

It's possible that winamp or similar is running in some sort of high-priority mode that is stealing sound input, or something, but this is a new problem for us.

[TheMachineIsSentient]

Anyone else notice roaming enclaves sending off their children to random planets multiple hops away, simultaneously to other planets that are many hops away, immediately after the AI goes to your planet?

I should add, they are mark three children and it is quite amusing to watch this... But they seem to have no goal in mind.