AI War Beta 4.039 Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2010/11/ai-war-beta-4039-released.html

This release brings us very near to the end of the content-addition phase of the Light of the Spire beta, and into the polish/balance/bugfixes phase.  Since Keith is done with the Fallen Spire minor faction, he's already into the polish phase, but I've still got another three classes of guardians and another two classes of spirecraft to go, along with some smaller misc stuff like a few more AI types and the achievements.

So what's new this time?  Well, primarily it's about spirecraft:  a whopping seven new classes of spirecraft (5 marks each, so 35 ships in all) have been added to the expansion today.  That's in addition to the 3 existing spirecraft classes, so now we have 10 out of the 12 planned classes in place.  The remaining two will be added tomorrow.

But that's not all in this one!  Also of huge note is a new LotS AI Plot, called Beachheads.  We weren't sure we were going to add any AI Plots at all, but this player suggestion was just too cool to pass up.  It's an interesting occasional-siege-breaker type of maneuver that can optionally be added for the AI, and it should make for really interesting required defensive setups.

There is also a new Spire Archive ship that provides a cache of knowledge if you capture and hold it from challenging planets (either the homeworlds or the adjacent planets).  This provides a new decision point for players regarding to the AI-homeworld-adjacent planets, which previously were almost always "don't touch them!"  However, this also has another, subtler effect: it makes the tiny maps a bit easier by providing a way of getting another 24k knowledge than could previously be found on those small maps.

In addition to the above major new features, this release also has a wide range of bugfixes and balance tweaks, including a bunch of balance shifts to the Fallen Spire minor faction story campaign.

One note: major balance changes are coming for golems and spirecraft.  In the meantime, however, some of the spirecraft are waaaay overpowered (most the new ones), while others are underpowered (most of the three preexisting ones).  Mostly this is to your benefit in the interim, so enjoy -- the upcoming changes, hopefully which will be in place by the end of Wednesday at the latest, should get the balance for those in the ballpark of right, while also making those massive ship classes as exciting as they always should have been.

Enjoy!

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.

[Lancefighter]

beachhead thing looks fairly interesting, and of course will make the rally point forwarding that much more useful 

[orzelek]

beachhead thing looks fairly interesting, and of course will make the rally point forwarding that much more useful 

Interesting?
For turret lovers they are something to be avoided and don't touch with long stick

[snrub_guy]

Those spirecraft ideas, in fact, all the new ships in this expansion are incredibly interesting. Most updates we get I think there are a couple of units I am excited to try, but with this expansion everything sounds awesome.

That said, beachheads sound absolutely brutal. No turrets and no shield? Bye bye any planet I have. Probably including my homeworld... I think I'll need to rethink my set ups before my next match. Sounds fun though, don't get me wrong. Are fortresses included in the shutting down of everything?

[superking]

Beachhead supply block seems a little harsh! I wouldve suggested the wave be sent through with a big FF, since those stop instakill at the wormhole and block tractorbeams

[Vinraith]

beachhead thing looks fairly interesting, and of course will make the rally point forwarding that much more useful 

Interesting?
For turret lovers they are something to be avoided and don't touch with long stick

Speaking as a turret lover, I'm actually looking forward to being kicked out of old habits. 

[x4000]

Thanks for the kind words, guys.  

snrub_guy, I have to agree, this expansion has a higher cool idea density than usual.  If you look at the number of player suggestions that were implemented, it's easy to see why: you guys!

For those worried about the beachheads: bear in mind those are an optional AI Plot, not a part of the game that is always on.  That would indeed be waaay too brutal.  I can't remember if fortresses require supply -- all it does is block supply, so you can check the tooltip on fortresses and see if Requires Supply is on there.  If not, they're fine.  KDR_11k suggested this idea, and I thought it was just really incredible when I saw it.  Really different sort of dynamic, definitely harder.

[Vinraith]

Thanks for the kind words, guys.  

snrub_guy, I have to agree, this expansion has a higher cool idea density than usual.  If you look at the number of player suggestions that were implemented, it's easy to see why: you guys!

For those worried about the beachheads: bear in mind those are an optional AI Plot, not a part of the game that is always on.  That would indeed be waaay too brutal.  I can't remember if fortresses require supply -- all it does is block supply, so you can check the tooltip on fortresses and see if Requires Supply is on there.  If not, they're fine.  KDR_11k suggested this idea, and I thought it was just really incredible when I saw it.  Really different sort of dynamic, definitely harder.

Fortresses do require supply, I've circled around and cut off enough mark IV worlds to be sure of that. They can move without it, but can't fire.

[x4000]

I thought so -- yeah, so those would also be disabled, then.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, the general point of an "AI Plot" is to be "a little harsh"   But in a fun way; we'll see if these fit the bill.

[Winter Born]

Are flack guns reduced 75% under FF?
If so, I would like to see their range buffed to be at least 60% of the homeworld FF diameter.
Right now if I build them on the outer ring of the homeworld FF they can't protect the center. 

Those AI special forces guardians are interesting, they lead to some serious "Fun" in my last game.

[x4000]

Well, I've added the three last of the AI Guardians.  But, for time reasons I'm going to cut off the Spirecraft at only 10 of them instead of 12.  The last two ideas (Shield Pulse and Sapper) were cool, but there's just not time to do those while also keeping the quality that we want to have in the time we have.

So that's now down to the new AI types, the achievements, the new minor factions relating to spirecraft/golems, and the constructor mode -- and that's the expansion!  We still have a ton of balance work to do with it, too, of course.  Our next week and a half, aside from the list two sentences back, will be spent on clearing out mantis as much as we can, heh.

[Invelios]

It's too bad to hear you won't be adding those 2 Spirecraft. Any chance they will be added in sometime after LotS is released? I'm always for more ship types, especially different or unique ones, as long as they can be balanced. Anyways, another campaign type sounds nice, I haven't actually tried defender yet, but it sounds like an interesting and fun mode.

[x4000]

Generally speaking we don't add content to expansions after the expansion is already released (as we try to make the free DLC available to everyone), but that may need to change for specialized features like this that would really benefit from being added even late.  So it's definitely a possibility, yeah.

[orzelek]

Pretty please fix this one:
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=1558

from ruining heavily spire plot.