Author Topic: AI War Beta 4.053 Released!  (Read 6028 times)

Offline x4000

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AI War Beta 4.053 Released!
« on: December 21, 2010, 05:48:53 pm »
Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2010/12/ai-war-beta-4053-released.html

This one is another big multi-day cumulative release.  There's been a number of bugfixes as part of it, and turrets have had a first pass of rebalancement done to them, which should be welcome.  Hunter/Killers have also been toned down a bit (firing shots 1/3 as frequently should be helpful).

There is really just a ton of miscellany in here.  Mining golem timers are lowered thanks to their recent changes.  Fixed various tooltips that were a bit off.  Buffed a number of experimental units a bit.  Hybrid module rebuilding has been hit with the nerf stick (they can't do it if they've been hit in the last 30 seconds).  Marauders and resistance fighters don't spawn more frequently with AIP increases any longer.  Improvements have been made to the Resource Flows tab of the Stats window.  That sort of thing.

Additionally, a few graphical/visual things have been done.  The "niche images" are helpfully shown in more places, and the icons in the intel summaries are finally colorized again.  The latter of these has been much-anticipated by players for a while now.  Anyway: 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.
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Offline Vinraith

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Re: AI War Beta 4.053 Released!
« Reply #1 on: December 21, 2010, 06:04:06 pm »
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In multiplayer games, all player-controlled command stations now automatically fold out into mobile builders for allied players. This saves time and hassle with sending mobile builders around and keeping them alive, making the actual mobile builders now simply a matter for use in enemy/neutral territory.

I can't express how great that is, thank you! If we could get some "allied planet" ctrl functions (especially the ability to set FRD modes for engineers and military) it would make multiplayer every bit as low-hassle as single player.

Offline TechSY730

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Re: AI War Beta 4.053 Released!
« Reply #2 on: December 21, 2010, 06:31:58 pm »
I didn't see the fix for the spirecraft mining enclosure ship caps still being 2. Without this bug fixed, the ship cap for the spirecraft is sort of pointless.

Other than that, it looks awesome. As a big fan of turrets, I appreciate the turret buffs.  ;D

Offline Signata

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Re: AI War Beta 4.053 Released!
« Reply #3 on: December 21, 2010, 07:00:55 pm »
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If checked, the grid is in "summary" mode and displays one row for each distinct type of ship with a non-zero metal, crystal, or energy impact. This can be very helpful for figuring out where all your energy is going.

Much nicer! Thank you.

Ditto on the mobile builders for allies, too.

Offline x4000

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Re: AI War Beta 4.053 Released!
« Reply #4 on: December 21, 2010, 09:03:27 pm »
Thanks, all -- glad those are a hit, I'll like that, too. :)

And, as far as the allied-planet control options go, there's already a mantis issue for that.  I had the same thought, too. :)

Regarding the spirecraft mining enclosure ship caps, we haven't gotten to that yet.  There's like 370ish issues in there, please be patient; we're trying to at least triage them all this week, and will address what we can.  Obviously, that's on the to-address-before-next-official release.

Regarding hunter/killers, if anyone is curious there are big changes coming for them next release: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=2103
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Offline Nemo

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Re: AI War Beta 4.053 Released!
« Reply #5 on: December 21, 2010, 09:36:51 pm »
Regarding hunter/killers, if anyone is curious there are big changes coming for them next release: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=2103

In terms of H/Ks, don't worry that those will be removed from the game. They'll just be... repurposed. I'd originally wanted to do something with the AI eyes being mobile and roaming and near-invincible, but couldn't get the logic right and they slid sideways (into a better role, in the end). But tonight I had a new brainwave along those original lines, and now it makes more sense to have the H/Ks fill that role. It's basically sort of like a devourer golem, except that it only attacks player ships, and there are multiple of them, and they only hang out in deep AI territory. And they aren't truly invincible, they can't be repaired, and you can wear them down over time if you want to.

I'm curious now. If H/K's stay in deep AI territory, does that imply a command station/warp gate power mechanic for them? Also, what happens if you manage to start splitting up AI territory so that its no longer connected and is divided by your own systems? Will H/Ks be disinclined to cross your territory to get back to wider AI territory or will attempts to corral them in this way provoke a change in behavior?

Offline Echo35

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Re: AI War Beta 4.053 Released!
« Reply #6 on: December 21, 2010, 10:40:22 pm »
Hybrid module rebuilding has been hit with the nerf stick...

The proper term is Nerf BAT thank you! :P

Just reading over the notes now. I can't tell if the turrets are nerfed or buffed or simply rebalanced and normalized. What I can say though, is thank all that is good with the world that the Crystal cost on Laser turrets is halved! Holy crap they've been needing that one.

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Fixed a bug that could cause "ghosting" of old graphics (and thus both incorrect drawing as well as performance degradation) in certain circumstances. We never actually saw evidence of this occurring in AI War -- we found it via Tidalis -- but it's something that definitely could have been happening, especially temporarily as images were being loaded in to the game.

Does this explain why sometimes when I'd send units through a wormhole I could see their health bars moving around randomly on some other part of my planet?

Also, thanks for the Viral Shredders change, but they still have the problem of being able to send you into negative energy balances. Is this intentional?

Offline MaxAstro

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Re: AI War Beta 4.053 Released!
« Reply #7 on: December 21, 2010, 11:16:33 pm »
Did something happen to the wave sizes in this patch?  My gf and I just got massacred with an AIP of only 80 (Diff 7, 1 Experimentalist, 1 Grav Driller).  We got a pair of waves of 500 (!) bombers to the same planet, followed two minutes later by another wave of 500 bombers and a wave of 500 fighters.  Needless to say we didn't last very long.

Offline Sunshine!

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Re: AI War Beta 4.053 Released!
« Reply #8 on: December 21, 2010, 11:32:57 pm »
Aw man, I was hoping you wouldn't see that H/Ks weren't immune to nukes, that was our one way of dealing with them!  And yes, nukes actually did work on them, we managed to nuke away 10 hunter/killers of various marks at once (it was a 14 planet start on difficulty 10/10, there were so many ships getting scrapped all the time).   ;D  Great changes in general though, and the fold-out mechanic for command stations is going to be golden!

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: AI War Beta 4.053 Released!
« Reply #9 on: December 22, 2010, 12:46:53 am »
Did something happen to the wave sizes in this patch?  My gf and I just got massacred with an AIP of only 80 (Diff 7, 1 Experimentalist, 1 Grav Driller).  We got a pair of waves of 500 (!) bombers to the same planet, followed two minutes later by another wave of 500 bombers and a wave of 500 fighters.  Needless to say we didn't last very long.
Did you have advanced logging on?  Can you post your MainThreadWaveComputationLog.txt and AIThreadWaveComputationLog.txt? :)
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Offline MaxAstro

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Re: AI War Beta 4.053 Released!
« Reply #10 on: December 22, 2010, 12:52:23 am »
Unfortunately I did not, but I certainly do now in case it happens again.  :)

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: AI War Beta 4.053 Released!
« Reply #11 on: December 22, 2010, 12:54:30 am »
Unfortunately I did not, but I certainly do now in case it happens again.  :)
Thank you :)

And obviously there's no code like "if(!Game.Instance.Options.EnableAdvancedLogging) SpawnSuckerPunchWave();".  Obviously.
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Offline HellishFiend

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Re: AI War Beta 4.053 Released!
« Reply #12 on: December 22, 2010, 01:17:57 am »

Quote
In multiplayer games, all player-controlled command stations now automatically fold out into mobile builders for allied players. This saves time and hassle with sending mobile builders around and keeping them alive, making the actual mobile builders now simply a matter for use in enemy/neutral territory.

Awesome! Time to start up a new multiplayer game!  ;D
Time to roll out another ball of death.

Offline BigJake

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Re: AI War Beta 4.053 Released!
« Reply #13 on: December 22, 2010, 01:57:25 am »
Huzzah, turret balancing!  Can't wait to try these out.  I'm going to miss my ridiculously powerful mlrs turrets, though...

Also,
...
Regarding hunter/killers, if anyone is curious there are big changes coming for them next release: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=2103

What you guys are talking about in that ticket sounds awesome.  That's something I'd love to see.


Offline KingIsaacLinksr

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Re: AI War Beta 4.053 Released!
« Reply #14 on: December 22, 2010, 02:58:35 am »
Unfortunately I did not, but I certainly do now in case it happens again.  :)
Thank you :)

And obviously there's no code like "if(!Game.Instance.Options.EnableAdvancedLogging) SpawnSuckerPunchWave();".  Obviously.

Hmm, this will probably be the only time I ever doubt something an Arcen developer says. 

;)

teehee

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