AI War Beta 5.001 Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2011/02/ai-war-beta-5001-released.html

This one packs a fair number of tweaks.  It lets you bind mouse buttons beyond the first two, which is a handy new feature for players with a lot of mouse buttons.  The core triangle ships have seen some balance tuning after much discussion with players, as have reclamators and guardians.  It's nothing that fundamentally changes the game, but it is a better version of what was there.

Also fixed a bug where hybrid hives were basically broken for the last month and a half or two, apparently.  In terms of grand balance, we changed how the AI scales up its tech levels at the high difficulty levels to avoid expert players feeling it's too grindy, and we also much increased the effect that handicaps have on AI player activities in general (it was affecting far too little since... forever, really).

As we previously promised, we're still in refinement and polish mode for the game, and plan to stay in that mode for the next good number of months.  So even if you're not normally one who plays the latest bleeding edge betas, this is a pretty safe time to play with the betas since they largely just make things more refined without requiring you to completely redefine your strategies every week as was happening back in the 4.0 to 5.0 time period.  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.

[Red Spot]

Nice, I had some influence .. 

Fallen Spire lobby tooltip (reference to wiki removed due to complaints).

Fallen Spire on 9 it is, Leaders fear not, here I come .... I hope .. 

[TechSY730]

Thank you!!!

Since this forum does not have a huge smile picture that is not imply cheesiness, I will instead use the regular one several times.
 

I'm at work right now , but I will try this out as soon as I can. I shall also cease my pestering for the time being.

[chemical_art]

So many polished changes, I just may unlock MK II frigates now.

The AI inflation of +1 being changed to  9 was nice, because now I feel like I can boot up 8.7 and be destroyed not because of the tech edge but rather due to simply being overwhelmed.


Very nice. Next up: seed spawning? 

[x4000]

It's actually upped from 8.3 to 9.3, not 8 to 9.  So that's even better for those that play at even 9.

Seed spawning?

[Zeba]

"Parasites:
Effective range from 3700 => 6000.
Armor piercing from 0 => 750*mk.
Base Health from 7200*mk => 14400*mk.
"

\o/

Trying it out now.

Seed spawning?

I think he means how the map is generated from a given seed. But kinda too general to know as it seems fine to me so far.

But then again I wouldn't mind an option to save a seed at the map creation screen so I can quickly load up and modify a seed I like instead of having to load a save game then quit or paste in the seed from notepad.

[CoyoteTheClever]

    * Fixed a relatively longstanding bug where AIPerPlanetShipCap and AIPerGuardPostShipCap were generally not being enforced when loading a game (either just-starting or loading later).

I take this to mean the AI is a jerk with Spire Ships not obeying the ship cap bug is fixed? Because it was frustrating having to start over because the AI unlocked Spire Blade Spawners

[TechSY730]

    * Fixed a relatively longstanding bug where AIPerPlanetShipCap and AIPerGuardPostShipCap were generally not being enforced when loading a game (either just-starting or loading later).

I take this to mean the AI is a jerk with Spire Ships not obeying the ship cap bug is fixed? Because it was frustrating having to start over because the AI unlocked Spire Blade Spawners

Unless there is yet another bug in this logic, yes.

[chemical_art]

It's actually upped from 8.3 to 9.3, not 8 to 9.  So that's even better for those that play at even 9.

Seed spawning?

In my excitement, I put seed when I meant shard. More specifically, allowing shards to be generated randomly, without regard to borders.

As shown in Mantis: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=2783

Here is the idea Sunshine! elegantly put in the Fallen Spire thread.

On the subject of shard location generation, could it be randomized to a certain range of jumps away from the player homeworld, but be independent of the AI/human territory boundaries?  So the first, two jumps, the second 2-3 jumps, the next 3-4 jumps, etc (however it progresses).  The seeding process is pretty anti-expansionary at the moment, which is annoying.  The choice then would be to pay for a possibly easier chance of recovery through AIP (increased chance of having it spawn on a friendly planet, but the AIP cost of securing every planet within 4 jumps would be enormous just for the first spire hub shard), or less AIP, but having to drag the shard back through hostile planets (and also having less resources available to defend it).

This would help not discourage early expansion relative to your progress in the Spire story. It doesn't encourage early expansion, it just does not discourage it.

Elsewhere in that thread from page 6 - 7 different ideas were bounced around, including the potential of a teleport option for shard retrieval.

[x4000]

Ah, ok -- gotcha.  That I'll leave to Keith, as Fallen Spire is completely his turf.

[RogueThunder]

Thank you for making Mouse2 bind-able. A number of logitech mice have a mouse2 just below the scroll-wheel rather than as part of it. Such as two I own(well... maybe one now...lost my better one). (Clicking down the scroll wheel switches between free scroll and clicky scroll xD... hard to describe)
Its something to get used to, but quite handy.
And the clear up to 6. Though. 6 isn't as high as common gaming mice go... That said anything with 7+ buttons has software to set the buttons to other things putting ya off the hook XD...

Good work so far. Though I still think Spire Leaches need a more... creative bit of work. They're probably overpowered if used with a fleet(which means pretty much ignoring their teleporting) and still struggle to be remotely worthwhile the way they appear to be designed and would function if they were... well. Remotely cost effective.

[keith.lamothe]

And the clear up to 6. Though. 6 isn't as high as common gaming mice go... That said anything with 7+ buttons has software to set the buttons to other things putting ya off the hook XD...

Yea, I'd have gone higher than 6 but the engine's KeyCode enum doesn't have any mouse button higher than Mouse6

[Echo35]

And the clear up to 6. Though. 6 isn't as high as common gaming mice go... That said anything with 7+ buttons has software to set the buttons to other things putting ya off the hook XD...

Yea, I'd have gone higher than 6 but the engine's KeyCode enum doesn't have any mouse button higher than Mouse6

Sad face! Time to set up AutoHotKey for my 16 button mouse! (No, sadly I only own a 6 button one, but supposedly it can macro something like 32 combinations)

[Malibu Stacey]

I uninstalled AI War using Steam before the 5.0 release was rolled out so I'd have a "clean" install afterwards as I'd been keeping up with the betas prior to the v5.0 release & wanted to be sure there were no contamination issues. I updated to 5.001 last night using the in game updater & started a new game.

I've just launched AI War today & Steam notified me it had finished updating CoN & tZR (don't own LotS yet so I don't know if it would do the same for that too). Not sure if this will cause any problems as I'm playing without either tZR or CoN enabled in my first v5.0 game but I thought I should let you know in case other Steam users find it has reverted files from the 5.001 release.

[BobTheJanitor]

Steam always tells me it has updated CoN and TZR when I start up AI War. I don't think it's having any effect on the game, except slowing down my initial load a little bit.