AI War Beta 6.007-6.009 "Burying The Hatchet" Released!

[keith.lamothe]

(Crossposted from this blog post)

This one brings back the human-ally component of the Roaming Enclaves minor faction, with a huge overhaul of its control logic.

Long ago the Roaming Enclaves minor faction could spawn human-ally variants in addition to the currently-possible AI-ally and enemy-to-all variants. But they weren't very bright, and tended to get killed a lot despite many changes to make them survive better. Eventually they listened to the human players saying that the enclaves were stupidly suicidal and made a very wise decision for their own survival: they left the galaxy.

But apparently wisdom is shortlived, because they're back now.  Only smarter.  I hope.  At least, if nearly two solid days of work on their new AI wasn't enough to make them at least tolerable to their human allies, they're going away for good ;)

One thing to note is that their default behavior is pretty conservative, but there are a few experimental "chat directives" (explained in the patch notes, and shortly to be in the commands list I'm sure) you can give them that include more aggressive behavior.  Whether or not it's a good idea to have this kind of (very high level, indirect) influence over a minor faction is still up in the air, so those may go away.  We'll see :)

We've also fixed some bugs and made some balance changes.  There's a fairly important change to command station rebuilding behavior, and something to make logistics station upgrades more worth it.

Update: 6.008 hotfix to fix null exception bug that could happen in some cases in the ally-enclave logic.

Update: 6.009 hotfix to fix a really longstanding (probably pre-5.0) but rare desync-on-load bug.  Kinda funny it popped up just now, but hey.

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.

[zoutzakje]

woohoo awesome, the fact that I've been only using logistics for like forever is finally bearing it's fruits.
Thanks for the patch ^^

[Draco18s]

Sweet, alterations to the Logistics station.  The higher marks being better is finally realized.  Admittedly, it's a bit of a nerf for them, but that's fine; something had to be done.

[keith.lamothe]

Sweet, alterations to the Logistics station.  The higher marks being better is finally realized.  Admittedly, it's a bit of a nerf for them, but that's fine; something had to be done.

Kind of how I felt, too.  The new mark-scaling needed to be on the enemy speed reduction part since that's the most powerful feature of the unit, but having the II/IIIs go up from 50%... the AI may as well stop trying

So I also buffed their impact on ally speed for all marks, so the lower-mark logistics stations are even better for "internal highway" usage.

[TechSY730]

You would release this in the morning. Now I have to wait all day in order to play this...

Anyways, to repost my other question:

Saw the notes about the buffs to the final exo-spawns of the Fallen Spire.
Are Motherships still the most durable ship, and Mk. V hunter killers still the highest DPS ship?

I sort of liked that lore wise.

And finally, if this new fleeting and "psuedo chat-control" logic proves successful, any chance of getting it "backported" to the human resistance fighters? They seem like good targets to also get this logic lore wise.

[keith.lamothe]

Are Motherships still the most durable ship, and Mk. V hunter killers still the highest DPS ship?

I have no idea

And finally, if this new fleeting and "psuedo chat-control" logic proves successful, any chance of getting it "backported" to the human resistance fighters? They seem like good targets to also get this logic lore wise.

I don't want to proliferate that kind of thing because the "smaller" minor factions have a role too.  Perhaps as part of an expansion, though, there'd be enough dev hours to make it work more generally.

[orzelek]

Logistic command stations - can they slow down the exo wave or not? Because I recall them being able to long time ago but I think they couldn't recently. Without ability to affect exo waves they lose their primary use in most dangerous scenario.

[TechSY730]

Logistic command stations - can they slow down the exo wave or not? Because I recall them being able to long time ago but I think they couldn't recently. Without ability to affect exo waves they lose their primary use in most dangerous scenario.

Not quite.
They fail to slow down an exo group if and only if the lead ship is gravity immune AND still alive.
Once the lead ship dies, all "speed hacks" passed to the following ship are lost, and they resume normal speed rules.

[KDR_11k]

The problem with internal highway use is that it's only useful for large, contiguous empires of the kind that generate a few hundred points of AIP. The kind of scattered setup with many gaps that's common at any difficulty above 7 has most of its travel time happen through enemy territory which the log stations won't help with at all. Plus if you want to place some econs in the inner parts of your empire and some mils at the edge that leaves you with even less log coverage. Flattening planets to use them as roads costs 20 AIP per hop for fairly small gains. 9000 Knowledge for a station that you may use on one or two planets for minor gains isn't a good deal.

[Draco18s]

9000 Knowledge for a station that you may use on one or two planets for minor gains isn't a good deal.

Yet 9000 knowledge for one or two planets worth of Econ III is totally worth it, in some people's opinion.

(It totally isn't)

[TechSY730]

The problem with internal highway use is that it's only useful for large, contiguous empires of the kind that generate a few hundred points of AIP. The kind of scattered setup with many gaps that's common at any difficulty above 7 has most of its travel time happen through enemy territory which the log stations won't help with at all. Plus if you want to place some econs in the inner parts of your empire and some mils at the edge that leaves you with even less log coverage. Flattening planets to use them as roads costs 20 AIP per hop for fairly small gains. 9000 Knowledge for a station that you may use on one or two planets for minor gains isn't a good deal.

Well then you don't unlock Mk. IIIs logisitics using a strategy with a smaller, disjoint empires (or other such cases). Not everything needs to be equally useful and relevant for every strategy after all.

EDIT: BTW, I am playing on difficulty 8 and my largest contiguous "chunk" is rather decently size.

[Kahuna]

Perhaps as part of an expansion

AAHHAAA! There will be fifth expansion! Happy panda is happy.

[zoutzakje]

even on 9/9 I just capture loads and loads of planets, placing logistics on every single one of them. It works great. I have never tried low AIP games and am still a bit scared of experimenting with them. I guess I just like the idea of having my ships get where I want them to be really fast. And now they even go faster To bad of the of enemy speed reducement nerf, but I guess it was necesary. All the more reason to unlock higher marks then.

[keith.lamothe]

Perhaps as part of an expansion

AAHHAAA! There will be fifth expansion! Happy panda is happy.

I didn't say there definitely would be another expansion, nor is that decision mine

But I hope there is.

[Lancefighter]

Here are our current release targets for upcoming projects (subject to change):

Nov: Valley 2 Beta Begins
Dec: Shattered Haven

Q1 2013: Valley 2 v1.0
2013: AI War Expansion 5?

Copy pasta from the arcengames site..Definitely going to be an expansion 5. I hope it has .. .. wait. I actually dont know what I hope it has. I should figure that out.