AI War Beta 4.023 Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2010/11/ai-war-beta-4023-released.html

This update has a wide variety of fixes and updates into it.  It also has the first beginnings of the upcoming Light of the Spire expansion in it, although you won't be able to see or enabled (even in trial mode) those new additions just yet.  Later this week it will open for trial and preorders with the extremely early version of it!

Other notable new stuff in this version includes making the game much more playable with a 600px high resolution (which is technically below the minimum we supposedly support, but it's nice to have it playable on more widescreen formats than before).  There are also a number of new threat-related options for defining when you want to be alerted about danger at specific planets.  Guardians, fortresses, and beam cannons also got a heavy dose of rebalancing.

Along with this were a lot of bugfixes, and also a change to hopefully prevent the OSX version from crashing if it encounters the pthread_getschedparam that some users have run into (more details on that in the release notes).

This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 4.000 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 4.000 or later, you can download that here.

[TheMachineIsSentient]

Just in time for a huge  multiplayer battle. Sounds good.

[Lancefighter]

On the subject of random things.


9/10 waves in our multiplayer (random number pulled out of really nowhere) were 2k units
1/2 (fairly close) went to even though there were valid warp gates (bully and raider)

[Vinraith]

This looks good, particularly happy about the interface fix (those new filters are so useful, it was annoying to have them disappear). I'm disappointed that cutlasses haven't gotten a rebalance yet, though. They've rendered my current multiplayer game unplayable, and there's no sense starting a new one as they could just as easily turn up again.

[Winter Born]

how big is the Limit FRD to 80000 range circle relative to the buildable area circle and speed slow down area circle on the minimap?

Ty

[Ozymandiaz]

Awesome. I am having a great time with a new game I set up. All in all its a bit different from pre 4.0, but the real essence is still here and it really does feel smooth and handles very well!

Can't wait for even more exanpsion to AI war, hehe

On the subject of random things.


9/10 waves in our multiplayer (random number pulled out of really nowhere) were 2k units
1/2 (fairly close) went to even though there were valid warp gates (bully and raider)

2k is max unit wave size, do you have wave multipliers active on the planets?

(on one of my seald off plants I got a 940 modifier, )

[superking]

cool, gotta love super early preorders

I think FF could do with a review, they seem to go down incredibly fast nowdays... I notice FF bearers have like 4x the HP, FF could perhaps benefit from love also

[zebramatt]

Still no better contrast on the checkboxes...

My poor eyes 

[TheMachineIsSentient]

2000 might be the maximum wave size per wave, but we were getting about 1366 on multiple waves  directed at the same planet. I installed warp sensors to counteract the , I didn't see any mystery waves attack planets with those on them.

I personally didn't mind the large waves. A lot of them were really weak ships, and the battle on the screen was gigantic. It was awesome. Whether or not we can push against a tide like that remains to be seen, but with some coordinated effort, I think we can do it. Difficulty eight, by the way, if that makes more sense for the waves.

[Vinraith]

Is anyone else finding the economy in the new version absurdly kind? I seem to be running a near-constant, massive surplus, to the point where I'm ending up capped on merc ships, starships, and regular fleet ships most of the time. The difficulty of the game over all seems pretty reasonable, but the economic tweaks may be too far in the "you can just build everything rather than having to make any choices" direction.

[zebramatt]

Is anyone else finding the economy in the new version absurdly kind? I seem to be running a near-constant, massive surplus, to the point where I'm ending up capped on merc ships, starships, and regular fleet ships most of the time. The difficulty of the game over all seems pretty reasonable, but the economic tweaks may be too far in the "you can just build everything rather than having to make any choices" direction.

I agree, though I find it welcome in the face of scarce power and knowledge resources.

[orzelek]

That economy surpluss is quite helpfull when you need to rebuild your fleets after (failed) attacks

[x4000]

Generally speaking if you have too much economic surplus, you need to be fighting more!

And I actually mean that in all seriousness.  It's balanced around not having to sit around waiting for stuff to rebuild constantly, and not HAVING to unlock the higher-level economic command stations, etc, as a matter of just being able to play effectively.  We'll be putting in more expensive stuff for players to be able to build as part of LotS, too, and the costs of some of the higher-tier ships might need to be bumped up a bit, but I'll have to evaluate that to be sure.  When it comes to the early game and the lower-level ships in particular, I'm quite happy about it, though.

[unclean]

I've found the economy pretty balanced except when using some OP tactics like MK3 Bombers + Armor Boosters. What tactics you using Vinraith?

[Vinraith]

I've found the economy pretty balanced except when using some OP tactics like MK3 Bombers + Armor Boosters. What tactics you using Vinraith?

Nothing organized or coherent enough to have a name, I'm afraid.

I suspect it's just that I need to stop bothering with the econ stations since the rebalance, and probably do need to be attacking faster though to be honest I prefer a slower paced game than that would create. Some more expensive toys and perhaps some higher costs on higher tier ships, as Chris suggests, would likely solve the problem.

Now if we could just do something about those instant-death cutlasses...