Prerelease 1.999P (Bugfixes!)

[x4000]

The latest prerelease is available at http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar1999P.zip

That version is an upgrade from version 1.301, so you have to already have 1.301 (or greater) installed. Just unzip it into your game folder (usually C:\Program Files\Arcen Games\AI War\ unless you specified something else). Please make sure that your unzip process keeps the folder structure from the zip file, rather than just unpacking all of the files into the base target directory.

What's new since 1999O:
(Cumulative release notes since 1.301 are attached at the bottom)

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-Previously, cloaked ships that were revealed by tachyon beams (yet were not completely visible) were not able to be caught in tractor beams.  Fixed.

-In recent releases, the game has not been recovering properly from a lost graphics device.  This affected computers that locked after going to screensaver, or Vista/Windows 7 machines where Ctrl+Alt+Delete was pressed while the game was active.  Fixed.

-More vertical size has been added to the Save and Load windows.

-Mobile Repair Tugs are no longer able to pick up force fields, fortresses, mobile repair stations, command stations, or other large-yet-mobile ships.

-Previously, ships that were directly placed would sometimes jump to the side. Fixed.

-Fortresses were incorrectly noting that they were a fixed structure in their tooltips.  Fixed.

-Previously, the health of many directly-placed ships was counting upwards too slowly, and then jumping to full at the end.  Fixed.

-In recent releases, the estimated build times for ships was always off from the actual build time when higher-tier engineers were used.  Fixed.

CHANGES FROM PRIOR VERSIONS
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-Basic Turrets were still called Short-Range Turrets in the research menu.  Fixed.

-The Expenses By Player tab was not refreshing when the player dropdown value was changed.  Fixed.

-In recent prereleases, there was a bug that would cause ships (notably force fields and repair stations) to wander about the map.

-In recent prereleases, exo-shields were dying as soon as they were created.  Fixed.

-Mark II and III command stations are no longer mobile, as that opened up a number of possible exploits.

-In past prereleases it was possible in some cases to build too many harvesters on a planet.  Fixed.

[darke]

-Mark II and III command stations are no longer mobile, as that opened up a number of possible exploits.

Yay! And a number of possible irritations too! Now if only the MkI forcefields were immobile my (AI War) life would be complete!

[x4000]

-Mark II and III command stations are no longer mobile, as that opened up a number of possible exploits.

Yay! And a number of possible irritations too! Now if only the MkI forcefields were immobile my (AI War) life would be complete!

I think in the case of the force fields, it's more useful to have them mobile.  But at least the ship level selection thing no longer includes them erroneously, so they shouldn't be accidentally moving anymore.

[Echo35]

-Previously, the health of many directly-placed ships was counting upwards too slowly, and then jumping to full at the end.  Fixed.

Does this bug affect counting down too? I was attacking some command posts the other day and was suprised as to why I wasn't doing much damage, to suddenly have them explode.

-In recent prereleases, there was a bug that would cause ships (notably force fields and repair stations) to wander about the map.

My Engineers were doing this constantly in my MP game last night. I was curious as to why.

-In past prereleases it was possible in some cases to build too many harvesters on a planet.  Fixed.

Finally! Thank you. Though I must admit, having 9 extra harvesters of each type did make me very happy.

[x4000]

-Previously, the health of many directly-placed ships was counting upwards too slowly, and then jumping to full at the end.  Fixed.

Does this bug affect counting down too? I was attacking some command posts the other day and was suprised as to why I wasn't doing much damage, to suddenly have them explode.

Nope, that was not affecting the other direction at all.  Most likely it was just luck of the draw for you before, and/or a ranging issue.  In other words, having lots of shield hits and then breaking through.  The guard posts have a fair bit of shielding to them.

-In recent prereleases, there was a bug that would cause ships (notably force fields and repair stations) to wander about the map.

My Engineers were doing this constantly in my MP game last night. I was curious as to why.

Ah, yeah -- I meant to make a mention of that, but too much going on and it's mildly tricky to explain.  Basically, I made an efficiency improvement to the collision detection algorithm in a recent prerelease that, for two moving ships, collides with where they will end up, rather than just ignoring them completely.  This is useful when, for instance, you have 1,000 ships pop out of a wormhole, they do significantly less aimless wandering around, and it keeps the game speed up in general.

Unfortunately, I did not completely think this through with regard to enemies who are directly targeting your ships, and thus have a destination of your ship's current position.  So whenever any force field or whatever was coming to a rest, it's collision detection saw that the enemy ships were going to be arriving there, and then was collision-detecting out of the way.  I put in filters to not make enemy ships count with this (since they are rarely moving in formation with your own ships anyway), and to also limit this efficiency addition to just mobile military ships, since it can cause more trouble than it is worth with the other kinds of ships.

-In past prereleases it was possible in some cases to build too many harvesters on a planet.  Fixed.

Finally! Thank you. Though I must admit, having 9 extra harvesters of each type did make me very happy.

Haha, no problem.  I think this was only a bug in the last few prereleases, though -- or maybe as far back as drag-building, I'm not sure.  The code for limiting this was already present, but in some of my drag-building updates it had gotten to a point where it wasn't actually being called when directly placing ships, which of course is the only way to place harvesters.

[Echo35]

-In past prereleases it was possible in some cases to build too many harvesters on a planet.  Fixed.

Finally! Thank you. Though I must admit, having 9 extra harvesters of each type did make me very happy.

Haha, no problem.  I think this was only a bug in the last few prereleases, though -- or maybe as far back as drag-building, I'm not sure.  The code for limiting this was already present, but in some of my drag-building updates it had gotten to a point where it wasn't actually being called when directly placing ships, which of course is the only way to place harvesters.

Definitely there since Drag Building. If you held down Ctrl on the last point it would place 10 like Ctrl normally does, but only on your last point since doing it before then would cause you to hit your cap. And they all worked btw.

[x4000]

-In past prereleases it was possible in some cases to build too many harvesters on a planet.  Fixed.

Finally! Thank you. Though I must admit, having 9 extra harvesters of each type did make me very happy.

Haha, no problem.  I think this was only a bug in the last few prereleases, though -- or maybe as far back as drag-building, I'm not sure.  The code for limiting this was already present, but in some of my drag-building updates it had gotten to a point where it wasn't actually being called when directly placing ships, which of course is the only way to place harvesters.

Definitely there since Drag Building. If you held down Ctrl on the last point it would place 10 like Ctrl normally does, but only on your last point since doing it before then would cause you to hit your cap. And they all worked btw.

Ah, I see.  Annoying that it was there for that long, but I'm glad it is fixed now.  Those bug lists are finally getting reasonably short, which is nice.

[darke]

Ah, I see.  Annoying that it was there for that long, but I'm glad it is fixed now.  Those bug lists are finally getting reasonably short, which is nice.

Sounds like we need to be proactive and find more bugs then! 

[x4000]

Ah, I see.  Annoying that it was there for that long, but I'm glad it is fixed now.  Those bug lists are finally getting reasonably short, which is nice.

Sounds like we need to be proactive and find more bugs then! 

If they're there, I hope that you do find them.  I just hope there aren't that many there.

[keith.lamothe]

"-In recent releases, the game has not been recovering properly from a lost graphics device.  This affected computers that locked after going to screensaver, or Vista/Windows 7 machines where Ctrl+Alt+Delete was pressed while the game was active.  Fixed."

Confirmed Fixed! I'm on Vista64 and did ctrl-alt-delete and came back and it worked, then I put the whole computer into standby, came back, and it worked.  In both cases the window would be black for about 5-10 seconds (music playing) before it drew the screen again and was playable, but it did indeed come back.  Thanks for dealing with this one, it's hard to remember to not ctrl-alt-del while playing particular games on penalty of insta-death.

[x4000]

"-In recent releases, the game has not been recovering properly from a lost graphics device.  This affected computers that locked after going to screensaver, or Vista/Windows 7 machines where Ctrl+Alt+Delete was pressed while the game was active.  Fixed."

Confirmed Fixed! I'm on Vista64 and did ctrl-alt-delete and came back and it worked, then I put the whole computer into standby, came back, and it worked.  In both cases the window would be black for about 5-10 seconds (music playing) before it drew the screen again and was playable, but it did indeed come back.  Thanks for dealing with this one, it's hard to remember to not ctrl-alt-del while playing particular games on penalty of insta-death.

Excellent!

[keith.lamothe]

-Previously, cloaked ships that were revealed by tachyon beams (yet were not completely visible) were not able to be caught in tractor beams.  Fixed.

Can confirm this fixed to, just ran through that part of the tutorial again and though the raptors did manage to jump a bit away under their insane drives during the wormhole-traversal-invulnerability, they were satisfyingly caught by the tractor net and smashed in about 1 second by the 280 ships defending the wormhole.

[x4000]

-Previously, cloaked ships that were revealed by tachyon beams (yet were not completely visible) were not able to be caught in tractor beams.  Fixed.

Can confirm this fixed to, just ran through that part of the tutorial again and though the raptors did manage to jump a bit away under their insane drives during the wormhole-traversal-invulnerability, they were satisfyingly caught by the tractor net and smashed in about 1 second by the 280 ships defending the wormhole.

oh, excellent! That should make the tachyons a lot more useful.

[x4000]

New version:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,1768.0.html