AI War Beta 5.091-5.092 "Apply MkII Sanding Machine" Released!

[keith.lamothe]

(Crossposted from this blog post)

This one contains several relatively small changes.  Some are important fixes, some are just polishing up for the official release.

Perhaps most significantly, military command stations have been reworked into a substantially more powerful unit in their own right.  Their actual contribution to a main-chokepoint defense isn't much changed (which is to say, it's still really powerful thanks to the planetary munitions boost), but their ability to hold off small attacks on otherwise unsupported planets is much better.  Combined with the new miniforts, you can defend a satellite world fairly well without devoting any global turret or fleet cap to it.  Even that will still crumple pretty fast under anything like a serious AI assualt, however, which is how it should be.

Many players have been asking for another warp gate to move newly-built player-controlled "nebula ships" to a better starting position, and this release ties those production facilties into the starship constructor warp gate since the ships are basically just (sometimes smallish) starships built from a different tech base.  I could also just add a dedicated new gate type if this doesn't work out but wasn't sure having it on the buy menu sometimes and not other times would work right given the nature of the circumstances you'd need one.

Also, a fairly nasty bug involving the CTRLS window thinking you were discarding changes by opening it has been fixed.  Those of you bedeviled by it can enjoy the game again now ;)

Update: 5.092 hotfix is out to fix a couple nasty bugs in the last version.  One caused unhandled errors when a CPA launched, the other prevented group-move from working when giving an order to move to another planet.  There's also some important changes to nebula seeding in there that I think will help overall.

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.

[chemical_art]

This is great, my only remaining concern is the nebula seeding logic before I consider mental the game being 6.0 (aside from the music which is a great treat for the 19th)

I'm not asking to have 9 nebulae in 10 planet game, but I am asking that by at the very least there are 10 nebulae in a 80 planet game.

[Faulty Logic]

this release ties those production facilties into the starship constructor warp gate

YES! No more raids into AI territory just to claim your rewards. Thank you.

Will there be additional scenarios for 6.0? Or afterwards, for that matter?

[keith.lamothe]

This is great, my only remaining concern is the nebula seeding logic before I consider mental the game being 6.0 (aside from the music which is a great treat for the 19th)

I'm not asking to have 9 nebulae in 10 planet game, but I am asking that by at the very least there are 10 nebulae in a 80 planet game.

Thanks for the reminder, I do need to get that done very soon.  Glad the game's feeling close to 6.0   FYI, the music is done and ready to go, it's just being held for the 19th.  But as you already know from the ancient-shadows samples (and previous releases), Pablo Vega Is Awesome.

Will there be additional scenarios for 6.0? Or afterwards, for that matter?

I want there to be, but I just don't see how I'm going to squeeze them in, let alone early enough for testing.  I may resort to having additional nebulae stay empty after the 9th (but still there for if more are added later), with some kind of chatline command to make it just give scenarios for those too, for those beta players who are really attached to a bunch more scenarios on a 120-planet map.

[Lancefighter]

uh if I put a starship warp gate on the same planet as my starship constructor, basically nothing changes right?

[Castruccio]

Are any more changes planned for the tutorial before 6.0?

[keith.lamothe]

Are any more changes planned for the tutorial before 6.0?

I'm going to go over it in detail probably sometime in the Friday-Monday span of time, to make sure it's accurate.

[Toranth]

Similar to the Youngling Fireflies spawning as reinforcements, I'm seeing them spawn as Special Forces.  At least, Core ones are... are they special, or are the others just going *pop* before I see them?

[keith.lamothe]

Similar to the Youngling Fireflies spawning as reinforcements, I'm seeing them spawn as Special Forces.  At least, Core ones are... are they special, or are the others just going *pop* before I see them?

Hmm, I thought they would have stopped doing that by now.  Are you seeing any other youngling types in special forces?  They should be on an even footing with other younglings now at least.

[Toranth]

Similar to the Youngling Fireflies spawning as reinforcements, I'm seeing them spawn as Special Forces.  At least, Core ones are... are they special, or are the others just going *pop* before I see them?

Hmm, I thought they would have stopped doing that by now.  Are you seeing any other youngling types in special forces?  They should be on an even footing with other younglings now at least.

No other younglings.

Here's a chunk of the SF logs:

Code: [Select]

Doing Special Forces Spawn; Game Time: 3:09:00
baseSizeFactor = 19.8
specialDifficultyFactor = Game.Instance.Options.TotalSpecialDifficultyModifier (based on difficulty, homeworld count, handicap) = 19
effectiveAIP = 11
aiTypeMultiplier = (1 + 2 per Special Forces Captain AI) = 1
specialForcesPostsInNonAITerritoryMultiplier = Mat.One + ( FInt.FromParts( 0, 050 ) * numberOfSpecialForcesPostsInNonAITerritory ) = 1.05
specialForcesStrengthCap = baseSizeFactor * difficultyFactor * effectiveAIP * aiTypeMultiplier * specialForcesPostsInNonAITerritoryMultiplier = 4344.03
strengthMissing = specialForcesStrengthCap - totalExistingSpecialForcesStrength = 1021.4
percentMissing = strengthMissing / specialForcesStrengthCap = 0.24
maxNumberOfSecondsToSpawn196Strength = ( ( 196 * 100 ) / specialForcesStrengthCap ) * 60 = 270.7
actualNumberOfSecondsToSpawn196Strength = maxNumberOfSecondsToSpawn196Strength - ( ( maxNumberOfSecondsToSpawn196Strength / 2 ) * percentMissing ) = 238.88
strengthToSpawn = (FInt)( secondsPerSpawnCheck * 196 ) / actualNumberOfSecondsToSpawn196Strength = 51.69
strengthToSpawn = Min(strengthToSpawn,strengthMissing) = 51.69
allocating 0.28 out of 1 (14.5 strength) for role: None , eligible types:CoreBattleCruiser, CoreYounglingFirefly, CoreSaboteur, MissileShip
allocating 0.59 out of 1 (30.73 strength) for role: AntiBomber , eligible types:CoreFighter, Fighter, MicroFighter
allocating 0 out of 1 (0 strength) for role: LongRange , eligible types:
allocating 0 out of 1 (0 strength) for role: CopperPlatedBastard , eligible types:
allocating 0 out of 1 (0 strength) for role: Tractor , eligible types:
allocating 0 out of 1 (0 strength) for role: Gravity , eligible types:
allocating 0 out of 1 (0 strength) for role: Reclamator , eligible types:
allocating 0.12 out of 1 (6.45 strength) for role: DefenseCracker , eligible types:CoreBomber, Bomber, ZenithBeamFrigate
actually bought:
2 CoreBattleCruiser @ 2 each, so total for line = 4
1 CoreSaboteur @ 4.8 each, so total for line = 4.8
1 MissileShip @ 2 each, so total for line = 2
2 CoreYounglingFirefly @ 2 each, so total for line = 4
5 CoreFighter @ 2 each, so total for line = 10
7 MicroFighter @ 1.33 each, so total for line = 9.33
6 Fighter @ 2 each, so total for line = 12
1 ZenithBeamFrigate @ 4 each, so total for line = 4
1 CoreBomber @ 2 each, so total for line = 2
1 Bomber @ 2 each, so total for line = 2
Grand total: 27 ships, 54.13 strength


[keith.lamothe]

Hmm, it shouldn't be including the core ships at that stage, I'll fix that.  The non-core fireflies probably would show up there but it looks like the AI doesn't have them as a normal bonus type, just a core type.

[Histidine]

Is it me, or can units no longer group-move through wormholes on either the Planet or Galaxy views?

[keith.lamothe]

Is it me, or can units no longer group-move through wormholes on either the Planet or Galaxy views?

Ah, you're right.  Testing a fix.

[keith.lamothe]

Update: 5.092 hotfix is out to fix a couple nasty bugs in the last version.  One caused unhandled errors when a CPA launched, the other prevented group-move from working when giving an order to move to another planet.  There's also some important changes to nebula seeding in there that I think will help overall.

[Winge]

I love the Military Command Station changes, but I think I've found a "feature" and a bug in the recent patch.  I also have a balance question based on my observations of the new 'Homeworld Reserve.'

"Feature":
Military II and III are showing infinite caps.  It really hasn't affected my current game much, as I've only colonized 3 other planets at this point...minimalist + champion FTW. 

Bug:
In the Shattered Pillar scenario, the Colony Ships were damaging ships through my Projected Shadow Shields (although they wouldn't damage the Champion through shield modules).  This made the scenario nearly impossible, as I couldn't keep my allies or myself alive, much less mount a reasonable attack.  I probably tried this scenario 10-15 different times with different champion/module setups over the course of an hour, just trying not to lose  .  I understand that this is one of the more difficult scenarios; the reason I think it's a bug is because the Colony Ships do not show an immunity to forcefields, and the Champions shield modules worked normally. 

Balance question:
When attacking Homeworlds and Superterminal worlds, it does show that the AI is committing part of its reserves to defend the planet.  However, I haven't very many ships spawn.  In fact, the only time I even see the reserve decrease below 100% is during/after a CPA.  Is that intended, or do I happen to be below the curve on difficulty/AIP?  I figured that it would be a stronger response that we could whittle down, but I can't even get a strong enough response to do any real damage to the reserves... 

I've attached a save after I unlocked Military Stations and before the Shattered Pillar Nebula, (at least I think I got the right file...let me know if it doesn't work).  And feel free to let me know if any of my assumptions are wrong.  I'm still relatively new to this game.