AI War Beta 5.034 "Is It Really A 'Minor' Faction If You Scale It That High?" Re

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/05/ai-war-beta-5034-is-it-really-minor.html

This one has been several weeks in the making partly due to all the increased workload from the release of our newest game A Valley Without Wind, and partly due to the fact that this release is unusually large.

First of all, and least excitingly -- but still pretty exciting -- there are some general bugfixes and balance tweaks.  Among those are some fixes to the longtime-bothersome bugs relating to alt-tabbing out of the game and the key getting stuck down, or the game scrolling off into the middle of space while you were tabbed out.  And there was much rejoicing!

But that's not what's really cool about this release.  Previously, Minor Factions were always a boolean on/off sort of feature.  You either played with (for example) marauders or you didn't.  That was okay, but it wasn't really a very good way to give you the sort of custom-tailored experience you'd really want.

Now most of the minor factions include a sliding scale from 0-10.  Zero represents those minor factions being completely absent, and, um, 4 is the equivalent of what being fully-on used to be.  So hardcore players really have a whole lot of new ways to bring themselves pain if they crank it up to 10, while the less masochistic among us can actually tune it down to the 1-3 range.  All in all: a lot more flexibility.

Speaking of flexibility, there are also now lobby setup scripts.  These let us or players define templates for "just give me some settings that match X desire."  This is still in its early stages, but given how many lobby options there are these days we really felt this was needed in order to make it so that new players could jump into a variety of types of scenarios that experienced players find fun.  And so that experienced players can share exact scenarios with one another more easily without literally sharing a savegame, come to that.

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.

[Fealthas]

And I just started a game 20 minutes ago. 
Thanks for updates!

[TechSY730]

OMG! I saw the backport of the "lost focus" hacks from AVWW a little before this sticky.
I thought we would have to wait until AI War became the focus again for this to get in, which I was perfectly willing to wait for.
But then you managed to fit this in even with everything else! AWESOME!!!


Once I finish my current game (going for a fallen spire finish), I'll have to try some of the new minor factions I've been a bit scared of with these new scaling options.

[x4000]

Glad to help -- Keith did all of the heavy lifting, I just did the lost focus stuff.

[Ontogenesis]

Woohoo. Thanks Arcen! I'm only my second playthrough (and first on 7/7 - should of done it from the start!) and thoroughly enjoying the experience. I was gonna mention the button sticking thing actually, can be mildly annoying when chatting to someone on Steam while playing. Good to see you're still working on AI War despite AVWW been released. I own both, although would you be offended if I said I prefer AI War?

[Wanderer]

Those are really nice reverse ports, Chris, thanks.

For the settings interface, there needs to be something on-screen that says "Right click to reduce the impact, left click to increase".  I was expecting some kind of secondary combo-box for selection.  I figured it out easy enough but it's real easy to miss the method of usage, since lt-clicking rolls from 4 through 10 to off and then to 4 again.

Looks like I'll have to fire up the 9 through 10 run again.  Right after I get done abusing the Crosshatch.

[keith.lamothe]

For the settings interface, there needs to be something on-screen that says "Right click to reduce the impact, left click to increase".

When you mouseover one of the variable strength factions, does the tooltip not say almost exactly that?

[_K_]

the only thing impacted by the intensity value for Spirecraft (Hard) is the strength of the exogalactic strikeforces sent by the AI as a response to this faction being on.

As i understand, it just multiplies the budget for the exos. Does the rate of reaching those budgets increase as well.

e.g. can i set it to 10 for very unfrequent, but super-strong exos, or will those exos be as frequent as with level 4 of that minor faction?

[keith.lamothe]

the only thing impacted by the intensity value for Spirecraft (Hard) is the strength of the exogalactic strikeforces sent by the AI as a response to this faction being on.

As i understand, it just multiplies the budget for the exos. Does the rate of reaching those budgets increase as well.

e.g. can i set it to 10 for very unfrequent, but super-strong exos, or will those exos be as frequent as with level 4 of that minor faction?

The frequency is the same, but the strength is multiplied by a number determined by the faction's intensity value.

FYI, currently 10 gives six times as much as 4.  I might even increase that later, but it seemed like an acceptable upper range for now

[Wanderer]

For the settings interface, there needs to be something on-screen that says "Right click to reduce the impact, left click to increase".

When you mouseover one of the variable strength factions, does the tooltip not say almost exactly that?

There was a tooltip?  I'll go back and check.  *saves game and 30 seconds later...*

Well, now, so there is, right there at the bottom of the huge description.  I completely whiffed that, sorry.

[Cyborg]

Nice update!

[Hearteater]

the only thing impacted by the intensity value for Spirecraft (Hard) is the strength of the exogalactic strikeforces sent by the AI as a response to this faction being on.

As i understand, it just multiplies the budget for the exos. Does the rate of reaching those budgets increase as well.

e.g. can i set it to 10 for very unfrequent, but super-strong exos, or will those exos be as frequent as with level 4 of that minor faction?

The frequency is the same, but the strength is multiplied by a number determined by the faction's intensity value.

FYI, currently 10 gives six times as much as 4.  I might even increase that later, but it seemed like an acceptable upper range for now

That means they actually will be less frequent as a result though, because that is 6 times the threshold?

[keith.lamothe]

That means they actually will be less frequent as a result though, because that is 6 times the threshold?

No, they hit the threshold at the same time, but once that trigger point is met the actual strength is multiplied by 6.  In a very similar way that playing on diff 10 multiplies it by 3.

[Hearteater]

So, uh, is a difficulty 10 AI, Hard Golems-10 Exo at x18 strength or x9?  Or does "You Lost" just pop up?

[zoutzakje]

I didn't expect such a big patch and definitely not so soon, but this one was worth waiting for. Lots of good stuff in this one. Awesome.