AI War Beta 5.012, "Efficient Invincibility," Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2011/07/ai-war-beta-5012-efficient.html

This one has the usual variety of tweaks and fixes requested by players.  Of particular note are some optional keybindings for turning on/off your highest/lowest efficiency reactors (micromanagers rejoice), and some options for multiplayer in terms of auto-building on allied planets.

Astro Trains also now actually shoot their guns again, after having been accidentally muzzled for the last six months, and ships with "temporary invincibility" now show up with an angry-looking red/yellow force field effect to make it more clear that they have that status effect.

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.

[Nalgas]

Of particular note are some optional keybindings for turning on/off your highest/lowest efficiency reactors (micromanagers rejoice), and some options for multiplayer in terms of auto-building on allied planets.

Woo.  I've been looking forward to all of those.

and ships with "temporary invincibility" now show up with an angry-looking red/yellow force field effect to make it more clear that they have that status effect.

I also just saw the thread that came up in yesterday or whenever that was, and I'm glad that made it in so quickly, too.  That's a great idea that'll make it a lot quicker/easier to tell what's going on with those things.  I'm used to checking manually now by mousing over stuff, but especially with carriers it can be non-obvious when you first run into a situation like that, so that should help.

[x4000]

Glad you like it!

[Nalgas]

I think new players will like it even more than I do, because they'll be able to actually tell what's going on without being confused about why they can't attack things, but they won't know that they like it as much as they do because they won't have played without it.  Heh.

[x4000]

 

[Echo35]

Good stuff, as usual!

[heze]

Nice to get back home and have an update waiting. Great!

About energy micromanagement: why not automate it altogether? Make Energy bar in top of window show how much excess capacity is available and automate on/off to be always most efficient with currently built reactors? Pretty much the same deal as with metal/crystal generators.

Thanks for the new version! I totally love the release names. 

[x4000]

Glad you like it!

In terms of why we don't automate it all together, that's been a big debate but it's not something that I want to do -- when that's the case, then energy might as well not be in the game for most purposes, except for as a really limited form of population cap for players that use ultra-low planet strategies.  Suffice it to say, these keybindings were something of a compromise with those that play the game in an ultra-energy-neutral fashion (putting a burden of micromanagement on themselves that wasn't ever intended to be there).  It's a long story, anyhow...

[Nalgas]

About energy micromanagement: why not automate it altogether? Make Energy bar in top of window show how much excess capacity is available and automate on/off to be always most efficient with currently built reactors?

If you want the really, really long version that led to what we ended up with, see here.

[x4000]

Ah yes, thanks for posting that link. That's an afternoon's reading right there.

[heze]

LOL, I feel sorry for Cyborg after reading all of that. I totally agree with Cyborg on this particular issue but at page 7 or so I found a reasonable reason on why not to go on demanding automation, Keith wrote:

I don't want to do an automation that's going to be obsolete the next time we get into a phase of revisiting game structure.

Hope you can find some way to make energy require less micro and more strategy.

For a quick fix for now the hot key helps a ton, huge thanks! I'll add my cents in that long thread if I can come up with anything regarding the root problem. I can see how it is quite complex. 

And the message log joke really opens now.

[Mánagarmr]

... "Automated Energy Hamster"? Really? *dies laughing*

[Nalgas]

LOL, I feel sorry for Cyborg after reading all of that.

Heh, yeah.  It did kind of turn into Cyborg vs. The World at times.  I do agree that it is a problem, but just automating it away would just be papering over it and not addressing the real issue, which is unfortunately much deeper and more complex, which is probably why no one's really come up with a brilliant "Aha!" solution so far.  This seems like a pretty decent way to deal with it for the time being, though.

[zebramatt]

LOL, I feel sorry for Cyborg after reading all of that.

Heh, yeah.  It did kind of turn into Cyborg vs. The World at times.  I do agree that it is a problem, but just automating it away would just be papering over it and not addressing the real issue, which is unfortunately much deeper and more complex, which is probably why no one's really come up with a brilliant "Aha!" solution so far.  This seems like a pretty decent way to deal with it for the time being, though.

I'm happy! 

[Giegue]

why've you guys been naming patches lately?