AI War Beta 5.052-5.057 "From The Shadows" Released!

[keith.lamothe]

Update: 5.054 hotfix is out to fix a fairly critical bug where some champion-related data was not being cleared between games (leading to unhandled exceptions in some cases, MP desyncs in others, bad stuff), and also improving the champion-related UI a bit.  Going to try something tomorrow to deal with the moderately intractable lobby-UI confusion going on right now, but wasn't time for it for this release.

[Volatar]

Am I reading this all correctly? Did you guys really insert SPAZ into AI War?

Because that sounds awesome.

I bought AS the moment I saw the thread though because It's an Arcen product.

[Oralordos]

I would buy this right now, but I don't actually have the money to do so. As soon as I get the money I will though.

Arcen rules!!!

[Cinth]

SPAZ? I love that lil game!

Anywho.... I've poked around with Ancient Shadows for a few hours (well, what you have let us poke around with).

I am having fun with it but some things are a little frustrating. I'd like to have a science lab type tab and a little better integration for single player.  Took me 20 minutes to figure out how to get at everything and it's dig dig dig through tabs and menus to spend a point.

Modular Forts  . Saving a MF (mod fort) design causes some issues in the support tab for mobile builders (that's where I ran into the problem).

[keith.lamothe]

Am I reading this all correctly? Did you guys really insert SPAZ into AI War?

Um, no   I did clock about 60 hours into SPAZ but it wasn't one of the stronger inspirations.  Though I guess there are certain similarities

[Volatar]

SPAZ? I love that lil game!

Anywho.... I've poked around with Ancient Shadows for a few hours (well, what you have let us poke around with).

I am having fun with it but some things are a little frustrating. I'd like to have a science lab type tab and a little better integration for single player.  Took me 20 minutes to figure out how to get at everything and it's dig dig dig through tabs and menus to spend a point.

Modular Forts  . Saving a MF (mod fort) design causes some issues in the support tab for mobile builders (that's where I ran into the problem).

Sounds like we might need a new tutorial for the new stuff.

[Cinth]

Sounds like we might need a new tutorial for the new stuff.

As the beta goes along most of the UI issues should be smoothed over. I guess most of my problems stem from never playing AIWar in MP. I've never had to tab between UIs before. So definitely a source of frustration  .

I do believe there was recent talk between forumites about the tutorial needing a revamp. With all the new additions to the game, it's probably time for that.

[Kemeno]

Spent a few hours with it here. Very cool stuff! The rewards for the human player are a nice touch too. (Especially giving him some bonus fleet ships to move around!)

Few comments:

The mission in the game now (I assume it's the only one) is ok... it feels a bit grindy but you definitely have to move your ship around a bit to get things done. Itemizing for the fight definitely helps. Only so much you can do with one controllable ship in the field, though. Variety may be key, so having a bunch of different mission types might make this less of a problem.

Some of the additional modules are cool (the bomber bay in particular was a cool addition, though I might mantis some suggestions on ways to make it feel cooler to use).

Are there only two design/upgrades available at the moment (the starting one, one upgrade)? The two I've seen are really cool; looking forward to seeing more.

Based on the description of the current ship, it sounds like you're planning on having some type of "tier" system for wormholes, yes? I'm interested to see how powerful these hero ships will get (and also how many of the mini-wormholes we'll see seeded on a map by release).

[Cyborg]

First let me say, congratulations, and second… you should have made it more expensive. Oh well, I'm sure I will be picking this up for my AI war buddies.

I have some installation questions, though.

I have a steam installation, and it won't let me type in the key. Do I need to have a separate AI war for this expansion? I was hoping I could just unlock it with the usual beta updates and my license key.

[Oralordos]

Found a nice game-blocking bug. Now on mantis.

I have a steam installation, and it won't let me type in the key. Do I need to have a separate AI war for this expansion? I was hoping I could just unlock it with the usual beta updates and my license key.

I am running this off of my Steam install. You need to download the installer for Ancient Shadows. When running the Ancient Shadows installer, make sure to point it at your Steam copy of Ai War instead of letting it go for the default folder.

[keith.lamothe]

\
Modular Forts  . Saving a MF (mod fort) design causes some issues in the support tab for mobile builders (that's where I ran into the problem).

Good catch, fixed for 5.055, thanks

First let me say, congratulations

Thank you

and second… you should have made it more expensive.

It will probably make more money for us at $5 list price than at $10 list price, honestly.  We did quite a bit of thinking about that.  But yea, I have the same gut feeling too, it's just that historical data disproves said feeling.

I have some installation questions, though.

I have a steam installation, and it won't let me type in the key. Do I need to have a separate AI war for this expansion? I was hoping I could just unlock it with the usual beta updates and my license key.

To get it working in steam, from start to finish (you've probably already done most of this) :

1) Download and run the installer at http://aiwar.s3.amazonaws.com/AIWarASSetup-windows.exe
2) When it asks for the AIW path, give it the steam AIW path
3) When the installer has finished, run AIW
4) When AIW asks for the AS license key, type or paste it in and hit save
5) Should work fine!

Let me know if it doesn't.  That'd be kind of odd, though, I tested that exact process on my steam copy like 7 hours ago.

[Diazo]

One quirk that works for me to group select the Shadow Frigate is as follows:

In the Normal Player UI
Select Shadow Frigate
Hit 1 for group 1, it will act like shift is pressed and add the frigate to the selection with group 1.

Did not see this documented anywhere, anyone else confirm this works and it's not my keyboard sticking? (has happened before)

D.

[Oralordos]

I am seeing the same thing Diazo.

[Martyn van Buren]

So except for module costs is there any penalty to losing a champion?  This does look cool; I'm impatient to find one of the nebula wormholes.

[Aklyon]

You get thrown back to a human home command station, I think was the other thing.