AI War Beta 6.035-6.038 "Dire Protector" Released!

[relmz32]

However, there's more:
0011737: Cannot start a new game in Defender mode.

Jesus man. When it rains it pours.

Yeah... just can not catch a break. The good news is that this error is out of range of most AI wars usages.

[chemical_art]

I'm sure you won't be surprised it is the first thing I test, but the protection modules don't scale on cap, so they scale up in effectiveness really, really hard on low and ultra low caps.

[LordSloth]

This patch somehow broke my spire blade spawner in my private alpha game. I have spire blade spawner mk1/mk2/mk3 researched. I can still use them and build them (via queue item that is left over). I left my research lab, normal one not ARS, in the system where I unlocked spire blade spawner and you can see the ARS tab is grey out.

For some reason I am able to get a second unlock (bright color as opposite grey out) at my most recent hack attempt (At the location where 4 ARS are I unlocked spire railcluster and I was able to unlock TDL). Lil oops?

Incidentally I am encountering this bug as well in my current game. This game was also pre-patch where I had unlocked Spire Blade Spawners, which are no longer showing up in my Factory build options.

Save attached. Check my HW for factories.

I recommend mixing the Alarmist type into one of your AIs if you can find a space, it is an excellent vintage to accompany Hunter.

Concerning the "Special Forces Alarm": When you trigger this beast, is it supposed to send the entire galaxy of current Special Forces army to attack you? Because I've had this thing go off several times before, and no subsequent attacks on my base were forthcoming. Is there some nuance to this I don't understand? I could certainly test it in my next game.

I'm not seeing Special Forces Alarms do anything either. They trigger, mind you, but I only realize fifteen minutes later checking through the message log. They DID use to trigger a fairly obvious klaxon and the expected release of threat. Do you have a ticket for this issue? I could maybe test a fresh install, manual patching, and see when exactly it broke. I'm still using 5.034, mind you.

[keith.lamothe]

Just in for 6.038:

* Fixed a bug from several versions ago (when Guardian types became AI-unlockables instead of always-have-all-available) that was preventing new Defender-mode games from being started at all.
** Thanks to Toranth for the report.

Will hotfix that in today, but will probably try to deal with some other stuff first.  Doesn't look like it's exactly been a time-critical problem for people since near as I can tell it's been completely impossible to start a Defender mode game since the version we released 27 days ago


On the special-forces-alarm thing, what it does is try to dump all the SF units into Threatfleet (unless you're on diff earlier than 6 or something, in which case it makes them all normal threat).  My guess is that the cases where you're seeing it do nothing are cases where the SF units are all/mostly in parts of the galaxy cut off from the AI HWs by dangerous planets (of sufficient danger that the TF wouldn't just walk right by it), in which case (as of a few versions ago) the TF won't take them because if they used the normal TF logic from a "pocket" they'd wind up doing strange stuff when they found themselves trying to path through a planet that their normal AI was not willing to enter due to danger.  I'm going to try having the alarm post just always put them in normal threat behavior, since that's actually pretty dangerous nowadays.

[chemical_art]

Really digging devastators.

They are useful enough to be a good value even with no shields, but with shields...pardon the phrase...but t"here are no brakes on this pain train!"

[keith.lamothe]

t"here are no brakes on this pain train!"

Sounds like an AI taunt to me.

Glad you're liking them

Now you'll know, every time they kill your HCS, that you brought it upon yourself

[keith.lamothe]

I got this question in at the tail end of the last thread, so I'll repost.

It looks like the Gravity Drill AI is seeding 25-37% of its planets with Gravity Drills. In a small sample, roughly 10-15 planets with one Grav Driller AI. Is that intended? I seem to remember more of them. I just spawned a map with two grav drill AIs and ... I think... 26 Grav drills, and the one after that, 29. This seems a little low for 80 stars and both AIs, especially since they have been nerfed to 32 speed limit. I had a cluster-map where I even thought I had no gravity drills until turning on a game with full visibility. There were about ten.

I don't know whether to update the AI text description, consider this a bug, or request it seeds on more planets, but I'll happily update a mistaken ticket I created to actually be relevant.

Sorry, I meant to reply to this but got kinda distracted.

Anyway, 1 out of 4 with grav drills is quite a lot, though I agree it's not as excruciating as before the gravity nerf.

The actual math is to pick 50%*(diff/10) planets of that player for drills.  So 35% for a diff 7 AI.  Or between 27 and 28 stations out of 80.  There's some rounding and it depends on the precise split between the AIs, etc.  But it sounds like the math is working.

I've amended the tooltip to "Aggressive AI with a gravity drill station on many of its planets." which is a little clearer that it's on many, but not necessarily most.

[TechSY730]

Also, the support corps still mentions it seeds in some mobile repairers ships, which the AI doesn't actually get.

[keith.lamothe]

Update: 6.038 is out to fix a bug (that's actually been there for nearly a month, amusingly enough) preventing the creation of new Defender-mode games.  Also fixed a laundry list of issues recently brought up by testers.

[KDR_11k]

Keith's unaltered voice going "oops" would be a good AI taunt.

[keith.lamothe]

Keith's unaltered voice going "oops" would be a good AI taunt.

Indeed!

I'd have trouble using my unaltered voice, though, I'm so used to narrating when reading aloud to my family that I naturally fall into one alter-voice or another when speaking for effect.  Maybe "Oops" in the Gabriel Angelos voice would suffice?

(not that that's going to work, I don't have a studio mic)

[Vyndicu]

Actually if you try loading any of them in 6.036 the blade spawners should be back up and running   Let me know if not.

Sorry forget to mention that yesterday the spire blade spawner are indeed working now as of current 6.038 version.

[keith.lamothe]

Actually if you try loading any of them in 6.036 the blade spawners should be back up and running   Let me know if not.

Sorry forget to mention that yesterday the spire blade spawner are indeed working now as of current 6.038 version.

Thanks for the confirmation

[chemical_art]

Alright devastators, time to smack down the incoming exo wave...including even the mighty hunter kill-




Oh. Fudge.

[keith.lamothe]

Did the HKs find the zevestators tasty?

Edit: more palatable than the zevestators found a freight-train made of Command-Grade, I mean.