Arcen Games

General Category => AI War Classic => : x4000 November 23, 2010, 11:35:03 PM

: AI War Beta 4.040 Released!
: x4000 November 23, 2010, 11:35:03 PM
Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2010/11/ai-war-beta-4040-released.html

This release doesn't quite make the Light of the Spire expansion "feature complete," but it does come close.  This version adds the last 3 classes of guardians, now bringing the total number of ships in the expansion up to 180, and so we're calling it at that as far as ships go.  We'd thought we might do two more classes of spirecraft, but there's just no time -- we need to get to polishing and balancing what we already have, and there's more than plenty here already (more than in any other expansion we've done, by far).

By the same token, the Constructor mode is also being cut from the expansion, as it was pretty similar to the Defender mode anyway, and we could use the extra time to get Defender mode better polished.  We are still planning a few more AI types (perhaps four, but no promises on that), and of course the usual accoutrement of achievements related to plots, minor factions, and AI types.  And there's still that spirecraft/golem rebalance, and the related minor factions, that need to be added as well.  Beyond that: it's polish time.  Bugs and balance issues, beware.

This version actually includes a wide range of bugfixes and balance tweaks already, come to that.  Also the actual unique far zoom graphics for the various spirecraft, which is a welcome change.  That's all the far zoom graphics in place except for the larger fallen spire ships, all of which are currently just using the fleet starship graphic as a placeholder so far.

And there are music tracks coming, by the way -- more than just the one listed on the wiki.  Pablo tells me he's aiming for 8 tracks of 5-6 minutes long, and so far he's already finished and mastered 5 of them.  He's got a really cool musical theme going for the spire that I think folks will really like.

Oh!  I almost forgot.  Also new in this version 4.040 is a new ship for the base game: redirection rally posts.  These work sort of like the preexisting rally post (now called mobile rally posts), except that they allow the setting of gather points, which can redirect incoming ships from one planet to another.  Using this new ship you can quickly set up chains of redirection for ships (rather than having to go back and repoint all your space docks), and you can even set up circular loops that make for cross-planet patrol paths, etc.  Pretty cool stuff.  This is the free DLC for November, but more stuff will be coming in December (so be sure to vote in the poll for what you'd like to see -- at the moment it's at the idea nomination stage).

Enjoy!  Lots more tweaks and such coming tomorrow.  Just a reminder that Thursday and Friday are a holiday here in the US, so we won't be doing much on those days.

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.
: Re: AI War Beta 4.040 Released!
: LintMan November 24, 2010, 12:58:26 AM
The changes sound great, but one slight concern with the wave cap overage now being redirected to carriers:

Before the wave cap, with stacking wave multipliers, it was possible to have a planet hit with massive waves (I saw a 74K+ wave once, which blew up the game).   Even if it's only, say, a 7-8K wave, that's a lot of ships going into carriers, especially after a few waves.

If all the wave multipliers go away (even for stuff like SpaceTime Manipulators and ZPGs?) in the upcoming golem/spirecraft rebalance, I guess it's a moot point, but if the stackable wave multipliers remain, it seems like the quantities could potentially cause balance and performance problems.

: Re: AI War Beta 4.040 Released!
: KingIsaacLinksr November 24, 2010, 03:26:24 AM
The changes sound great, but one slight concern with the wave cap overage now being redirected to carriers:

Before the wave cap, with stacking wave multipliers, it was possible to have a planet hit with massive waves (I saw a 74K+ wave once, which blew up the game).   Even if it's only, say, a 7-8K wave, that's a lot of ships going into carriers, especially after a few waves.

If all the wave multipliers go away (even for stuff like SpaceTime Manipulators and ZPGs?) in the upcoming golem/spirecraft rebalance, I guess it's a moot point, but if the stackable wave multipliers remain, it seems like the quantities could potentially cause balance and performance problems.



Except that all ships are getting put into carriers and released at a certain rate (unsure on this part since Chris was vague on the details).  Unless you shoot all the carriers at once (which would be stupid), the performance shouldn't be affected too much as the new ships will be deployed in some fasion, allowing the game to cope with the large amount of #s without killing CPU/GPU performance.

Right Chris?

King
: Re: AI War Beta 4.040 Released!
: Ozymandiaz November 24, 2010, 03:28:23 AM
Sounds like some good changes, and yay on gravity guardians, hopefully they will annoy everyone :)

One question, would it make sense to make the force fileds on the modular ships bigger as well? Or are thoose mainly there for the ship it self and not the fleet? Just curious, was thinking about it when deciding on my spire ships in the fallen spire plot. a 50Mil health ship having 7.2 Mill more heatlh, or a badass gun beam gun... I went for the gun ;) but might have been different if that field protected some other ship ;)
: Re: AI War Beta 4.040 Released!
: orzelek November 24, 2010, 03:38:39 AM
I'm not so sure about that force fields.. they main plus is that they can be rebuilt - but in situations they could be used the most.. you have no economy to rebuild anything :D
: Re: AI War Beta 4.040 Released!
: Lancefighter November 24, 2010, 04:03:50 AM
yeah, mixed feelings on the hp - tbh, it ends up being a lot less than it really is due to 10x mult (bomber vs structure) vs 2x mult (bomber vs heavy)
but the extra hp for deep raids that can be rebuilt without engineers is a good thing to have.

I probably will end up using the hbcs more often with the buff, maybe if I had higher beams researched :p
: Re: AI War Beta 4.040 Released!
: snrub_guy November 24, 2010, 06:29:34 AM
Looks good. Say, quick query. I just started a game (I say started, I just lost another game) with the maw as my extra ship. I was wondering, does the attrition rate inside them increase up the marks? If so what are the numbers?
: Re: AI War Beta 4.040 Released!
: Ozymandiaz November 24, 2010, 06:40:51 AM
The changes sound great, but one slight concern with the wave cap overage now being redirected to carriers:

Before the wave cap, with stacking wave multipliers, it was possible to have a planet hit with massive waves (I saw a 74K+ wave once, which blew up the game).   Even if it's only, say, a 7-8K wave, that's a lot of ships going into carriers, especially after a few waves.

If all the wave multipliers go away (even for stuff like SpaceTime Manipulators and ZPGs?) in the upcoming golem/spirecraft rebalance, I guess it's a moot point, but if the stackable wave multipliers remain, it seems like the quantities could potentially cause balance and performance problems.



I have gate raided, but my current planet has a x5750  wave multiplier....


thats a lot of ships if there where a gate close by.
: Re: AI War Beta 4.040 Released!
: LintMan November 24, 2010, 09:37:46 AM

I have gate raided, but my current planet has a x5750  wave multiplier....


thats a lot of ships if there where a gate close by.

Or if a counterwave picks that planet.


Except that all ships are getting put into carriers and released at a certain rate (unsure on this part since Chris was vague on the details).  Unless you shoot all the carriers at once (which would be stupid), the performance shouldn't be affected too much as the new ships will be deployed in some fasion, allowing the game to cope with the large amount of #s without killing CPU/GPU performance.

Right Chris?

Hopefully the game can handle it, but I also wondered about balance if it's possible for thousands of ships to go into carriers every wave and thought it was worth mentioning.
: Re: AI War Beta 4.040 Released!
: TheDeadlyShoe November 24, 2010, 11:16:04 AM
I think the wave mechanism needs, um, review

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=1577
: Re: AI War Beta 4.040 Released!
: ShadowOTE November 24, 2010, 11:43:39 AM
Yeesh, and I thought the extra 250 bomber IIs that got dumped on me after foolishly updating were bad. This could be interesting, since I'm trying to take every planet in the game at the moment. Even on 7.6 diff, if the AI starts throwing THAT many ships at me this is going to be... interesting

Edit - I like how the "severity" is minor  :D
: Re: AI War Beta 4.040 Released!
: x4000 November 24, 2010, 12:01:19 PM
The wave multiplier is something I'll be reviewing.  But, note that even a wave of 700k ships won't cause overt lag, as that would only be about 2698 AI ships (2000 free ships and 698 carriers) on the planet, which is fine for the CPU.  You won't win that game, but the CPU won't die either.
: Re: AI War Beta 4.040 Released!
: TheDeadlyShoe November 24, 2010, 12:26:28 PM
Yeah it didn't lag much at all actually. Except when the tractors go off. (Should I put that as a bug in Mantis?  Tractoring waves always lags me out.)

I do enjoy the new Heavy Beam Cannons. The Mk IIs are virtually guaranteed 1-2 kills a shot even on high mark targets which is much more amusing.

Edit - I like how the "severity" is minor 
No fair making fun of the bug in the bug report :D
: Re: AI War Beta 4.040 Released!
: x4000 November 24, 2010, 12:33:54 PM
I'm not aware of any particular lag from tractors -- is that just visual lag when you are looking at a ton of tractor beams, or is that something that creates lag even when you're looking elsewhere?  If the former, that's just your graphics card keeping up and there's not much we can do.  If the latter, then that's worth logging.
: Re: AI War Beta 4.040 Released!
: Spikey00 November 24, 2010, 01:55:51 PM
When were the missile/etc. immunities removed from the riot starship?  These things are just instapopping even more quickly.
: Re: AI War Beta 4.040 Released!
: Lancefighter November 24, 2010, 02:23:38 PM
missile, yeah :\
: Re: AI War Beta 4.040 Released!
: keith.lamothe November 24, 2010, 09:13:46 PM
Fair warning for folks with ongoing Fallen-Spire games: with Chris's upcoming changes to Golems, I'm having to shift them up a few tiers on the event-attack "cost" list to cut down on the number you'll see or they'll just roflstomp you.  However, there's not really anything I can do about golems already spawned, so if you have a save where 20 golems have already spawned in an event-attack, and you load that save in 4.041 when it comes out, prepare to be roflstomped ;)

If you clean out those golems first in 4.040 and then load, you should be fine, since future spawns will obey the new cost rules.

orzelek, I'm retesting with your SP2 save now, if necessary I'll forcibly remove the excess golems for your case ;)
: Re: AI War Beta 4.040 Released!
: keith.lamothe November 24, 2010, 10:20:42 PM
orzelek, in my testing I was still able to survive until victory on the SP2 save; the golems are much more dangerous on the offense but don't actually take much more firepower to kill, and let's just say that it's a firepower-rich environment ;D
: Re: AI War Beta 4.040 Released!
: x4000 November 24, 2010, 10:53:30 PM
And here's that new version now: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,7711.0.html
: Re: AI War Beta 4.040 Released!
: orzelek November 25, 2010, 03:24:46 AM
Heh I see surprise after surprise here :D
As long as it's still winnable golems upgrade is not an serious issue - will be a bit more work to actually win.

And environment shouldn't favor AI in that save any more... :D
: Re: AI War Beta 4.040 Released!
: pierre dupon November 25, 2010, 06:09:09 AM

Oh!  I almost forgot.  Also new in this version 4.040 is a new ship for the base game: redirection rally posts.  These work sort of like the preexisting rally post (now called mobile rally posts), except that they allow the setting of gather points, which can redirect incoming ships from one planet to another.  Using this new ship you can quickly set up chains of redirection for ships (rather than having to go back and repoint all your space docks), and you can even set up circular loops that make for cross-planet patrol paths, etc.  Pretty cool stuff.

 :o Auto cross planet patrol??!
x4000, I  love you!