Steam release of 3.0 and Zenith Remnant is likely tomorrow.

[Tim James]

I registered just to ask why you're not trumpeting the fact that the core ship balance has changed. I casually loaded up my 2.0 savegame and had no idea until I saw things weren't dying as planned and checked the Strong/Weak Vs. notes.

It's hidden in the middle of the changelog!

It should be okay to convert a save game like that, right? I noticed a few oddities like ships at half health, I assume because they got a boost. Also, my game seems oddly quiet now with fewer random raids but maybe that's from something I did in the campaign? (Killed a special forces post maybe.) Probably imagining things but wanted to check that it wasn't broken before I get too far into it.

[Echo35]

The Steam version will now ask for the key on 3.0, actually -- this was sort of an oversight on my part, but it leads to a more unified binary and will hopefully cut down on confusion with new AI War customers through Steam, anyway (I got quite a few understandable questions about "Where do I enter the key it tells me I have to enter?").  So that's the base game key.  But, the expansion requires a different key that is entered on the settings window if you do get that.

Unfortunately, this, too, has been causing some confusion amongst users. One person in IRC and also a friend of mine were having trouble getting the game to unlock properly, saying it wouldn't accept their key. For the next version, the game should probably be more clear about what key is expected in what place. I think that'd avoid people trying to use their expansion keys to unlock the base game. The unlock for expansions is also a little hidden, so maybe there's a way to make that more obvious for people.

When I first pre-ordered Zenith, it asked for my key and I tried putting it in and it wasn't working. Turns out updating it revoked my key for the base game, so I had to enter the regular AI War key first, THEN go to the options, turn on Zenith Remnant and enter the expansion key there. If any of you are having similar problems, try doing that and see if it works.

[Cintia]

Congrats on the expansion. So much extra content rocks.

One question though: How is the game performance on slower machines compared with 2.001M or something? Has it improved or do all the extra features cause the game requirements to increase a little as well?

[Lancefighter]

Improved, from what I recall.

For instance, 'cold storage' that basically turns off anything that is not in use when its not in use (a good percent of AI planets..)

Targeting logic has changed at least once, and I believe it was changed to be better...

[x4000]

I registered just to ask why you're not trumpeting the fact that the core ship balance has changed. I casually loaded up my 2.0 savegame and had no idea until I saw things weren't dying as planned and checked the Strong/Weak Vs. notes.

It's hidden in the middle of the changelog!

Sorry, we put it right on the front page of the changes in our update notice.  Steam apparently didn't include the full list, there.

It should be okay to convert a save game like that, right? I noticed a few oddities like ships at half health, I assume because they got a boost. Also, my game seems oddly quiet now with fewer random raids but maybe that's from something I did in the campaign? (Killed a special forces post maybe.) Probably imagining things but wanted to check that it wasn't broken before I get too far into it.

Yep, you can upgrade just fine.  I still have some pre-beta versions from April 2009 that I load up to make sure they still work.  You'll find a few oddities such as ships at lower health due to their increased values, or ships that have gotten larger overlapping adjoining ships, or things like that.  There are fewer Cross-Planet Attacks in the new versions (due to popular request), but that refers just to the announced CPAs - special forces are just the same as ever.  I am suspecting that perhaps it is just coincidental, with the destruction of a key special forces post, as you say.  Anyway, you should be good to go!

[x4000]

The Steam version will now ask for the key on 3.0, actually -- this was sort of an oversight on my part, but it leads to a more unified binary and will hopefully cut down on confusion with new AI War customers through Steam, anyway (I got quite a few understandable questions about "Where do I enter the key it tells me I have to enter?").  So that's the base game key.  But, the expansion requires a different key that is entered on the settings window if you do get that.

Unfortunately, this, too, has been causing some confusion amongst users. One person in IRC and also a friend of mine were having trouble getting the game to unlock properly, saying it wouldn't accept their key. For the next version, the game should probably be more clear about what key is expected in what place. I think that'd avoid people trying to use their expansion keys to unlock the base game. The unlock for expansions is also a little hidden, so maybe there's a way to make that more obvious for people.

When I first pre-ordered Zenith, it asked for my key and I tried putting it in and it wasn't working. Turns out updating it revoked my key for the base game, so I had to enter the regular AI War key first, THEN go to the options, turn on Zenith Remnant and enter the expansion key there. If any of you are having similar problems, try doing that and see if it works.

It wasn't that it revoked your key, but rather that it had never asked for it before.  But the new version asks for it; so that's exactly what all of the Steam players will see, there.

[x4000]

Congrats on the expansion. So much extra content rocks.

One question though: How is the game performance on slower machines compared with 2.001M or something? Has it improved or do all the extra features cause the game requirements to increase a little as well?

Thanks!

Improved, from what I recall.

For instance, 'cold storage' that basically turns off anything that is not in use when its not in use (a good percent of AI planets..)

Targeting logic has changed at least once, and I believe it was changed to be better...

Yes indeed, the performance overall should be better now (3.0/expansion), rather than worse.  It will potentially use a bit more RAM, but still lower than our actual system requirements request in almost all cases (aside from extreme-unit-count games north of 100k units or so).

[Dathknight]

I bought it on Steam and I was confused by the keys BUT it works now

Thank you ... normally I had to learn for my economics exam next week but now ... 

[x4000]

@Dathknight

Also, the expansion is now live on Direct2Drive!

US: http://www.direct2drive.com/8947/product/Buy-AI-War:-The-Zenith-Remnant-Download

UK: http://www.direct2drive.co.uk/8947/product/Buy-AI-War:-The-Zenith-Remnant-Download

EU: http://www.direct2drive.eu/8947/product/Buy-AI-War:-The-Zenith-Remnant-Download