AI War Beta 3.906 Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2010/10/ai-war-beta-3906-released.html

More bugfixes and balance tweaks once again.  And some performance improvement things, and pretty huge memory usage improvements when more than one savegame is loaded per run of the application.

Amongst the balance changes, all of the waves are now 3x larger than whatever they previously would have been.  The waves have been incredibly puny lately, while the players' ability to deal with them (more knowledge-free turrets, stronger economy in general, etc) has increased quite a lot.  Aside from some problems lately with players being overrun with Zenith Electric Bombers and such (which was recently fixed), on the whole the risk from waves has seemed trivial compared to that from counterattacks, cross planet attacks, etc. 

Having the difficulty and risk be a little more consistent can only be a good thing, as it will avoid those unpleasant surprises when something is suddenly 1000% more difficult after playing seven hours into a campaign.  So that's something we're definitely wanting some last-minute feedback on, but I feel like the 3x buff is a pretty safe one, possibly slightly on the low side.  All those turrets are pretty rockin' now, after all.

The goal is to have waves be as significant as they were in 3.0 or 2.0, or perhaps slightly moreso (as they are less frequent than they were in 2.0).  My guess is that this change will suffice to get into that ballpark, and is pretty safe, but that it really could be more like 6x larger to really hit it. Again: feedback on this one from playtesting (not speculation, as the balance has changed in so many other ways recently) is welcome. 

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.

[orzelek]

Thanks for the release - that graphical effects visible in far zoom are very good idea.

Two balancing notes(I'm on low ship caps):
- bomber starship is now pretty much superseded by siege starship - it may need new role now
- I just got the space tanks as unlock from AR and they are not so tanky in terms of survivability - similar stats and hull to bomber but around 5 times less hp and no bonus to heavy hulls(they murder WH guard posts tho )

[twistedreasoning]

Might be just me, but is the ship refrence chart now only sorting by name and not stats? Was working a couple of updates ago...

[Collic]

Very glad to hear the wave sizes are getting a bump. I would still go further if you want the same 'Oh crap, I'm going to have to divide my fleet here' effect from previous releases - something I really miss which is why I keep moaning about the waves heh. The tower defence element those waves impose on you is a big part of why I love the game and what makes it unique for me

It feels as though at around a hundred progress (i'll probably have a decent number of planets then) there should be at least around 100 ships, even on normal ship cap size (50-70 range waves for me). It is better though, far better than before - and I'm sure this balancing will be on-going so I'm not worried.

I noticed something very odd though, yet another of those micro waves - 3 ships. Turned out to be 2 fighters (!) and a leech starship (112 ish AIP). AI types entrenched homeworlder and the tank. AI Diff 7. This is far, far lower than any other I've seen this game (or build). I attached a save. Not sure if this is something for the tracker or not, but it does seem like something is definitely wrong there.

[Salamander]

Referencing this post I made late last night:

http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,7383.msg60440.html#msg60440

I went and tested their attraction abilities just now, and they were definitely absorbing the lion's share of the attacks directed at my test force. So it's just the Decoy Drone's health/armor that seem to be in question.

[Diazo]

No comment yet on the increased waves thing, but I'm going to record what I see in my current game as an FYI thing. (Watch for edits to this post, and comments once I wrap up.)

All waves include the "1 starship" aswell, but I'm not writing that down everytime.

On Diff 8 Vs a One-Way Doormaster and a Bully.

The indicated gametimes are when the wave alert spawns, not when the wave arrives at my system.

AIP10, 00:14:20, 82 Bombers Mk I, 50 Teleport Battle Stations Mk I from the Bully.

AIP30, 00:28:08, 94 Fighters Mk I, 79 Snipers Mk I from the One-Way Doormaster

AIP51, 00:36:26, 398 Raiders Mk I, 167 Fighters Mk I, from the Bully.

AIP51, 00:49:52, 68 Teleport Battle Stations Mk I, 94 Frigates Mk I from the Doormaster.

And then the Roaming Enclave blew my home command to pieces.

Overall, I can't complain about the waves at all, they seem okay to me.

Note however that I never got more then one hop away from my home system, I was always able to bring my main fleet back to support my turrets. I expect that once I get 4 or 5 hops out the waves would become more of a threat.

Going to reload and see if I can survive this Enclave somehow.

D.

Edit: And nope, this enclave just rolls right over me regardless of what I do. Went and made a bug report, think they need a balance fix.

[Winter Born]

3 am release    

time to update the beta release page to show this is out

music is now skipping every few min -- yay

[x4000]

3 am release    

time to update the beta release page to show this is out

Yup, there have been a lot of those.  I put one out at 5am a couple of days ago.

music is now skipping every few min -- yay

YAY!

[MysteryOne]

music is now skipping every few min -- yay

YAY!

Does this means that the tracks won't playall the way to the end? Like skipping makin' them shorter? 

[x4000]

Skipping just means that there is a tiny, part-of-a-second pause in playback for some people when their computer is running a heavy process on the game.  It doesn't affect the larger playback of files in the sense of what is played, or if the whole track is played, etc.  It's just a tiny, part-of-second hiccup in the music.

[MysteryOne]

Skipping just means that there is a tiny, part-of-a-second pause in playback for some people when their computer is running a heavy process on the game.  It doesn't affect the larger playback of files in the sense of what is played, or if the whole track is played, etc.  It's just a tiny, part-of-second hiccup in the music.

Good to know.

Concentric map-style is really interesting galaxy map, but i wonder... with so many planets, how to make them so that not all home planets are crowd next to each other... like 6 players on the outer edge and 4 on the mid-rim while the AIs' homes are between, but seperated by nodes (with more nodes on the cross-paths)?

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Fox and I did a game just now, he found a bug that will go into the tracker no doubt, but the game is starting to feel like 3.0+ now.    In terms of bugginess/balance etc. 

So you guys are definitely getting there

King

[x4000]

Awesome, great.

[Ktoff]

Hey guys,

so a little feedback on the sound issue:

It seems to be less frequent than before (20-30 seconds) and it does not always skip when i first open a constructor or science lab (it does if i click 2 or 3 in quick succession ). However, when the reference sheet is open, i experience a skip every 5 to 9 seconds.

Test was done on a sixty planet map, two 7 AI. I did not build or research anything and i just looked at the refernce sheet for the acid sprayer without clicking anything.

Good Night,
KToff

[Winter Born]

Thanks for all the free stuff at the start -- it definatly encourages expermentation.

The zenith trader stuff is now so expensive it is hard for me to justify any more, esp the power plant which only outputs 200k energy and draws 2x waves.  If it put out enough to power a golem or zenith reserve it might be worth it at it's current price.