AI War Beta 5.017, "Return of the Hunter/Killers," Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2011/09/ai-war-beta-5017-return-of.html

This one has the lately-omitted AI Hunter/Killer ships returning to take up a role in exo-galactic strike forces.  Perhaps more interesting to more people are the forcefield changes: the blocking effect that was removed in the last patch is now back, but the various other forcefield improvements from the last patch have been retained: regarding teleporting enemy ships, etc.

Also fixed a couple of rare-ish bugs, and tweaked the hardened forcefields as well as the high-armor-piercing ships.

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.

[Cyborg]

Thank you, especially considering that unhandled error was preventing me from mining certain asteroids. Going to give it a shot.

Edit: confirmed. Bug fixed.

[x4000]

You bet!  And thanks for trying out the stuff last release.  Things like that don't always work out, but we did get some minor fixes out of it and I think also a bit of interesting data on player playstyles, etc.

[keith.lamothe]

Edit: confirmed. Bug fixed.

Glad to hear it

[Trandrin]

Just how scary are these hunter killers? Should I be afraid or are they just another brick on the giant wall the ai swings at my face.

[keith.lamothe]

Just how scary are these hunter killers? Should I be afraid or are they just another brick on the giant wall the ai swings at my face.

It's pretty unlikely that you'll face one.  If you do you'll probably remember it as one of the bigger dents your wall ever took.

[Trandrin]

I was commenting on the AI using its wall of pain to hit me in the face and saying would these hunter/killers just be another brick or a new addon to said wall. My bad. Are they avenger style nasty or a golem for the enemy?

[keith.lamothe]

I was commenting on the AI using its wall of pain to hit me in the face and saying would these hunter/killers just be another brick or a new addon to said wall. My bad. Are they avenger style nasty or a golem for the enemy?

They're at least Avenger-nasty, probably more.  Depends on whether you're facing a mkI or higher.  But it's very unlikely you'll face these unless you're at a point where the AI is throwing multiple golems at you per exo, and that's just getting into the range of including mkIs.

[orzelek]

Yay finally that nasty spire rams will stop destroying my reactors and docks under forcefields without asking for permission first
(Redoing docks queue is bad..)

[TechSY730]

Yay finally that nasty spire rams will stop destroying my reactors and docks under forcefields without asking for permission first
(Redoing docks queue is bad..)

Aren't spire rams immune to forcefields? If so, this will keep happening.

There was a discussion a while back about making spire rams and spire mini-rams not be immune to forcefields, but the concern was whether the engine can handle a melee unit that is not immune to forcefields.

[Shardz]

Thanks, Chris & Keith, for another recent update! Speaking of which, is it almost time for an outlandish expansion yet? Not that I'm anywhere near seeing everything there is to see completely, but I get greedy with my AI War content (understandably).   
Great work once again...oh, and I like your new avee, Chris.   

[orzelek]

Yay finally that nasty spire rams will stop destroying my reactors and docks under forcefields without asking for permission first
(Redoing docks queue is bad..)

Aren't spire rams immune to forcefields? If so, this will keep happening.

There was a discussion a while back about making spire rams and spire mini-rams not be immune to forcefields, but the concern was whether the engine can handle a melee unit that is not immune to forcefields.

You are right. Now I need to request remains for docks that will preserve queues

[mindloss]

As always, thanks for continuing patches. Sounds like the rollback to the old shield mechanics makes sense, but I must've missed the conversation about having the HFFs take "radius damage". I was really enjoying their fixed size; I thought that added a deeper variety of placement options (with shrinking FFs, it pretty much always makes sense to lump squish everything as close to the gen as possible), and also felt that added a needed differentiation between the HFFs and regular ol' FFs above and beyond the armor thing which I feel is a much smaller difference.

I hadn't noticed a problem with them being destroyed more often. And if they are, so what? That's the price you're paying for a superior shield.

[Orelius]

I still think that all force fields should have some sort of minimum size so we don't have to try to fit everything right next to the force field.

[keith.lamothe]

but I must've missed the conversation about having the HFFs take "radius damage". I was really enjoying their fixed size; I thought that added a deeper variety of placement options (with shrinking FFs, it pretty much always makes sense to lump squish everything as close to the gen as possible), and also felt that added a needed differentiation between the HFFs and regular ol' FFs above and beyond the armor thing which I feel is a much smaller difference.

I hadn't noticed a problem with them being destroyed more often. And if they are, so what? That's the price you're paying for a superior shield.

I liked the fixed size too but it would make the blocking-wall strategy even stronger than it was a few patches ago, and now that blocking-walls is back I didn't want to do that