Is there a possibility of a new AI War expansion anytime soon? And Why Not?

[Cyborg]

2. Steam Workshop does not seem grand to me.

If we could get you the resources to figure out the system, would that make it better?

[Elestan]

3. In terms of the AI having massively more ships than you... well, yeah, that's part of the simulation.  This isn't meant to be a human stand-in AI, and I never claimed it was.  It's meant to set up interesting situations, and it's meant to create some unpredictability via things like larger flocks and whatnot acting various ways.  Overall I think it beats most other games hands down in that department -- aka, creating unpredictable and interesting situations you have to deal with.  Not at a micro tactics level, but this was never a game about micro tactics (also processors can only handle so much).

Absolutely; as I said, I'm enjoying the game overall. But I also agree that it could use some rework to try to bring things back together and smooth out rough spots.  So I'm happy to join any design suggestion group also.  I'm a relative AI War newbie, but I assume that you're not just hoping to sell it to the old salts.  I'm also a C++ software engineer with an AI and simulation background, so I should be able to write a good bug report.  :-)

[doctorfrog]

The possibility of new AI War is the best gaming rumor-news-planning thing I've heard all year. I'm equal parts excited and filled with a delicious anxiety.

My two cents on Steam Workshop is I ain't against it, as long as I can obtain and install the same mods without Steam somehow. I don't expect Arcen to provide the space for them, per se, just that I don't want to rely on Steam for anything. This is one guy, mind you, and I realize that the majority of gamers would wallpaper their homes in Steam if it were possible.

[Pumpkin]

(...) as long as I can obtain and install the same mods (...)

Speaking of that... Arcen chose to not support player modding to "keep the game experience in one piece". While it was a shame this great game didn't have a modding support, it made perfect sense to prevent the game from "shattering" while Arcen was pouring content in it at a sustained rate over several years.

But now it's announced to have modding support (*soon*), and I wonder: how?

I mean, yeah, XML and stuff, as Arcen does. That's how players make mods. But how will players get mods? I'm not very invested in the Starward's modding community. How does it do?

More specifically on AIW2, will they be shared on this forum? Only here? Will there be "official" mods integrated as regular on/off minor factions, downloaded with the game's updates? I'm sure things will settle down on the go. I trust this community to do it right. But is there an Arcen's stance on this topic of mod sharing?

[Mánagarmr]

Mods in general, that are not distributed by Steam workshop, are put on something like ModDB or NexusMods.

[Aklyon]

Mods in general, that are not distributed by Steam workshop, are put on something like ModDB or NexusMods.

Or in Rimworld or Starsector's case, on a forum.

[Pumpkin]

Mods in general, that are not distributed by Steam workshop, are put on something like ModDB or NexusMods.

Or in Rimworld or Starsector's case, on a forum.

Sure. I meant... What's the Arcen's stance toward mod distribution? Will there be some added in the core game? Or will community will be in charge of it (forum, ModDB and the like)?

Also, that answered "how will modders publish mods", not "how players get mods", which, in our case, is either automatically, from within the game (For example, by automatic updades as AIW1 has for its own expansions, or an integrated list a bit like Ubuntu's "software center") or by hand, by tracking mods wherever they have been uploaded and unzipping them in the appropriate place.

Needless to say, I would love an integrated, centralized solution. Maybe not like the "software center", which may seems overkill (although, why not?), but at least something "official".

I ask that, but I'm not really worried. I know we're a great community ( ) and at worst, it will be "centralized" on the forum, with clear [TAGS] and [TheLike].

[TechSY730]

If there is a "AI War II" type release (which has NOT been confirmed,or at least not in this thread), I hope the current diversity of ships can be maintained.

Something I love about AI War is that despite its crazy amount of ships, almost all of them "feel" unique, and serve a particular role.
Sure, lots of that feeling gets lost once you start getting a "deathball" rolling, but the fact it this uniqueness is there at all is remarkable.

This is something I hope isn't lost whenever the...whatever Chris and Kieth have planned for AI War comes to fruition.
It is a complicated part of the game, yes, but one that really helps set AI War apart.

[Misery]

*cough* 

With AI War, there's kind of a "worst kept secret at Arcen" that is mildly in progress, but which should bear fruit late this year I expect.  That's in Keith's pipeline for after SBR, and the timing will be something we see about in terms of what is realistic, etc.

I'm really surprised you havent info-dumped that particular "secret" yet.  You know you want to though...

I'm pretty sure I already know what it is, I think you mentioned it in emails awhile back.  I think.  I could be remembering wrong.  Not that I'll say anything about it if I've got it right though, I only "accidentally" give spoilers for Starward.  But my memory is bad here so maybe I've got it wrong.  But still, "worst kept secret", yeah...

On the note of an expansion as mentioned in the topic title, I always say, you cant go wrong with that for this game.  Definitely one of those "never too much content" games.  Kinda like Dwarf Fortress or something.  The game as a whole just seems to never really get old for alot of it's fans.

Though regardless of all of that, it seems SBR is still the "big one" right now.  I'm curious, do you intend on doing like a progress update post about that at some point?  I remember some stuff that was mentioned about it... but I dont think anything has been much explained here on the forums in quite some time.

[Elestan]

On the note of an expansion as mentioned in the topic title, I always say, you cant go wrong with that for this game.  Definitely one of those "never too much content" games.  Kinda like Dwarf Fortress or something.  The game as a whole just seems to never really get old for alot of it's fans.

With that said, I'd like to add the caveat that I think the game does have an accessibility/usability issue for new players.  Part of that is UI-related, and could hopefully be addressed in a rework short of a total rewrite.  Having six different types of warp gates and ten different hacking subunits is an example of an area that seems overly complex.  Yet another (and perhaps the largest) source of complexity is the number and semi-arbitrary nature of hull types and attack multipliers (Needler turrets are good against big things, but Needler guns on your Shadow ship are good against small things?).  It would be much easier to learn if the multipliers were ammo vs. hull, and it would make more sense if the size-based hulls weren't used (I can understand how a hull material can be more or less vulnerable to Lasers vs. Shells vs. Missiles, etc., but you need to stretch logic to explain a weapon that does 5x damage only to medium-sized targets.)  I'm guessing that the hull types are probably too fundamental to change in anything short of a total rewrite, though.

[Mánagarmr]

Kinda like Dwarf Fortress or something.  The game as a whole just seems to never really get old for alot of it's fans.

*looks at his 60 hours played last week*

Uhm...I have no idea what you are talking about.

[Kahuna]

[pokefun]
I've heard people say numerous times that the UI, the hacking and the hull systems are way too complex. I wonder how do they manage grocery shopping without overloading their working memory. I mean there is no six nor ten options to choose from but literally hundreds and hundreds. Hundreds of different cookies to the left, hundreds of different beers to the right, hundreds of different dairy products in front. *Dominos.. St Peter's Cream Stout.. Cheddar.. drools*. Hundreds of temptations pulling you in every possible direction. *head explodes*

Well, as we grow up (get familiar with AI War) we develop our own eating habits (strategies and play styles). You try different foods and products and you learn which ones you like and then you buy those (which turrets/ships are good at what and which play styles you find to be fun and effective) most of the time so you no longer have to push your working memory to it's limits every time you go grocery shopping (learning). You read the nutritional facts (tool tips) to know which foods (turrets/ships) are healthy (good/effective), which ones you should use (in which situation). You learn to cook (combine all of the knowledge about the game together) and you make all kinds of tasty dinners (killer fleets and brick wall (Kahuna style) defenses) and delicious desserts (surgical strikes and hacking raids).
[/pokefun]

[Cyborg]

It's a legitimate criticism. Remember back in version 2 when the bonuses were posted on the tooltip. People hated that because it seemed arbitrary. But I think it was more clear.

[Elestan]

[pokefun]Stuff about shopping[/pokefun]

Oh, I'm not disputing that people can learn to play, if they're interested enough.  I was, and I did, and I got a friend interested, and he did too.  But I have several other friends that I would never put in front of this game, because they don't have the patience to climb that learning curve.

My point is that I think there are some ways to lower the learning curve without changing the gameplay at all.  And I think there are a bunch of others that could lower the learning curve further while only changing the gameplay in very modest ways.

Take Hacking, for example.  Why are there hacking sub-units at all?  Why not just fly your Hacker up to, say, a Fabricator, and target-click the Fabricator to start hacking it?  Wouldn't that be much more intuitive?  It's what I tried to do first, and I doubt I'm the only one.

The reason, I suspect, is that constructing sub-units was the easiest way to implement the feature using the game engine at hand.  It would probably have been harder to give a single unit an "attack" that would not decloak the Hacker, and that would have different effects on different targets.  Plus, there are a few cases (design backups, sensors, knowledge) where the type of hack would be ambiguous, so they'd have to invent some other way for the user to indicate what hack effect they wanted (maybe the AI CS has a 'Sensors' module and a 'Database' module that could be targeted by the Hacker).  But those issues don't seem like showstoppers if there was already a significant rewrite planned.

The outcome would be a hacking system that was just as functional, but was also more intuitive to use.  Obviously, there's an opportunity cost, but I think it's worth considering.

[Imago]

Yeah, the fact that it's possible to learn is no excuse for it being harder to learn than it needs to be.