Prerelease 1.0.10I (Tachyon Missiles, Spider Range, Missile Cost Reductions)

[x4000]

The official version of 1.010 is now out: http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar1010.zip

That version is an upgrade from version 1.009, so you have to already have 1.009 (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 1.010H:
(Cumulative release notes since 1.009 are attached at the bottom)

-------------------

-Engineers and mine layers that were in attack-move mode would previously cover the entire planet.  This was an older design decision that is now confusing with the addition of free-roaming defender mode.  Now engineers and mine layers will only cover the whole planet if they are put in free-roaming defender mode.

-Previously, scouts were not being insta-killed by counter-spies, but scout starships were.  Fixed.  Scouts are no longer immune to being insta-killed, although the shots from ion cannons have little hope of hitting them before they re-cloak.

-The attack range of spiders has changed to match that of cruisers, making them vastly more formidable.

-Anti-starship arachnids no longer deal engine damage, and their regular attack strength has been halved against all ships except starships.

-The Backdoor Hacker AI type has been demoted from being a HARDER AI type to being a MODERATE.

-Lightning Turrets and Electric Shuttles now emit lightning that hits ships under force fields.

-The warning sound for command stations being attacked was playing too frequently.  Fixed.

-The metal/crystal cost and ship cap of the missile silo is now identical to that of the starship constructor.  This lets players build up to five missile silos instead of always being limited to one.

-The metal and crystal cost of nukes has been cut in half.  

-Setting off EMPs and Lightning Missiles now causes an increase of 2 to the AI Progress, but their costs have been reduced to 15k each of metal and crystal.

-The metal and crystal costs of armored missiles have been thirded, but they now cause an increase of 40 to the AI Progress when detonated.

-A very few missile silos (about a third the number of starship constructors) are now seeded around the maps for players to find and capture.  This should help encourage players to discover and use missiles.

-New ship:  A relatively inexpensive tachyon missile is now available in the missile silo.  Setting these off reveals all of the cloaked ships on the current planet for 30 seconds (allied and enemy alike).  This also causes the AI progress to go up by 1, but that is a comparably little amount for getting great insight onto where all of the cloaked enemy ships are on the current planet.

-In very rare circumstances, it was previously possible for latent AI-requested commands to be executed in a new or saved game directly after quitting the prior game.  Fixed.

[Pandemic]

Suggestion:

I keep forgetting to suggest this, but it's really annoying me...

I like being zoomed out, because 1) It gives me a good view of the map, and 2) It shows me the pretty little gifs of the ships. Once you get zoomed into a certain level though, the cute, information-giving gifs vanish... leaving "better" graphics in their place. Dunno if I have any support with this, but would adding in an option to keep the pretty pictures (until *maybe* zoomed into the max) be difficult?


-Pandemic

[darke]

I there was a setting for that on the, err, settings page? Some sort of slider to set at what level it shows/hides the icons, there's also the F9/F10 keys to temporary show/hide. Not at my gaming computer at the moment so can't check.

[MorphingJar]

When you highlight the MLRS III under research.  It says Error in blue and red under the description.  This normal?

[Pandemic]

Wow...

*facepalm*

Note to self: check for setting option before asking for an option next time...

*Ahem*

Anyway, I guess I just missed it amongst the array of options. May I ask for scaling, then ? Although that is exactly what I asked for, the images don't get bigger, so it would appear that you have empty space (where you can build something) where you actually don't...

...Or maybe I can just live with good-enough, if this is too difficult


-Pandemic

[darke]

When you highlight the MLRS III under research.  It says Error in blue and red under the description.  This normal?

That's fixed by this:

One last feature that is not in this version is an updated set of in-game stats for the rebalanced and new ship types.  That will be included in the final release version or the next release candidate if there is one.

[x4000]

Wow...

*facepalm*

Note to self: check for setting option before asking for an option next time...

*Ahem*

Anyway, I guess I just missed it amongst the array of options. May I ask for scaling, then ? Although that is exactly what I asked for, the images don't get bigger, so it would appear that you have empty space (where you can build something) where you actually don't...

...Or maybe I can just live with good-enough, if this is too difficult

No worries, there are a lot of options.  I think it was Admiral(?) who beat you to asking for this one, and it hasn't been there all that long (maybe since 1.009, not sure).

As for the scaling, that's not really something I can do without it still looking really off, and completely like crap also (since many of those icons will have to scale to 100x or more of their size).  Someone else had asked about this one, too, but I just don't think it's feasible; the scaling also puts more stress on the graphics card, especially when done en masse on 2x however many ships are on your screen at a time (one for the main colored part of the icon, the other for the white border).

[darke]

Teleport raiders don't seem to have a useful enough range to actually raid against non-static ships. I had about 60 of them trying to chase a pair of mine layers down before they rebuild a particularly irritating minefield, but they'd bamf in, then they'd bamf to non-collision detect, then by the time they got ready to shoot the enemy had moved out of their range. Rinse, repeat.

Also, with enemy mine husks, can the attack AI prioritise them to be the least important item to attack? Currently they don't bother with it leaving the AI to continue to toss mine-layers to repair them again and again. I can manually shoot them, but when you're going against the mine-obsessed AI, it's way too tedious and I usually end up just playing wormhole peek-a-boo with the mine layers on first entering the system to wipe at least the current ones out.

[x4000]

Teleport raiders don't seem to have a useful enough range to actually raid against non-static ships. I had about 60 of them trying to chase a pair of mine layers down before they rebuild a particularly irritating minefield, but they'd bamf in, then they'd bamf to non-collision detect, then by the time they got ready to shoot the enemy had moved out of their range. Rinse, repeat.

They should be getting a shot off each time they are in range -- that's what I've observed, but I'll have to give it another look later on.

Also, with enemy mine husks, can the attack AI prioritise them to be the least important item to attack? Currently they don't bother with it leaving the AI to continue to toss mine-layers to repair them again and again. I can manually shoot them, but when you're going against the mine-obsessed AI, it's way too tedious and I usually end up just playing wormhole peek-a-boo with the mine layers on first entering the system to wipe at least the current ones out.

This is a job for engineers!  Set your engineers on free-roaming defender mode, and they'll clean up the mines for you.  Otherwise, like you say, you have to manually shoot them.

[darke]

Also, with enemy mine husks, can the attack AI prioritise them to be the least important item to attack? Currently they don't bother with it leaving the AI to continue to toss mine-layers to repair them again and again. I can manually shoot them, but when you're going against the mine-obsessed AI, it's way too tedious and I usually end up just playing wormhole peek-a-boo with the mine layers on first entering the system to wipe at least the current ones out.

This is a job for engineers!  Set your engineers on free-roaming defender mode, and they'll clean up the mines for you.  Otherwise, like you say, you have to manually shoot them.

Only problem is when you're attacking a system, and want to keep the entrance wormhole clear, the engineers will prioritise healing your ships over clearing the mines, so when you move away from the entrance, your engineers will continue to follow you (and the little mine layers will sneak back in and fix the mines...), and never get around to mine clearing until your troops are healed, which never happens.

[x4000]

Only problem is when you're attacking a system, and want to keep the entrance wormhole clear, the engineers will prioritise healing your ships over clearing the mines, so when you move away from the entrance, your engineers will continue to follow you (and the little mine layers will sneak back in and fix the mines...), and never get around to mine clearing until your troops are healed, which never happens.

True.  But this works both ways.  The AI ships don't go after your mine remains, either, which is important because otherwise your mine layers would be completely useless (as would theirs, incidentally).  It's not meant to be super easy to completely remove a minefield that is still contested, in either direction.

[darke]

Teleport raiders don't seem to have a useful enough range to actually raid against non-static ships. I had about 60 of them trying to chase a pair of mine layers down before they rebuild a particularly irritating minefield, but they'd bamf in, then they'd bamf to non-collision detect, then by the time they got ready to shoot the enemy had moved out of their range. Rinse, repeat.

They should be getting a shot off each time they are in range -- that's what I've observed, but I'll have to give it another look later on.

... mine layers are immune to minor electric shots. That explains things.

[x4000]

Teleport raiders don't seem to have a useful enough range to actually raid against non-static ships. I had about 60 of them trying to chase a pair of mine layers down before they rebuild a particularly irritating minefield, but they'd bamf in, then they'd bamf to non-collision detect, then by the time they got ready to shoot the enemy had moved out of their range. Rinse, repeat.

They should be getting a shot off each time they are in range -- that's what I've observed, but I'll have to give it another look later on.

... mine layers are immune to minor electric shots. That explains things.

Oh, yeah.  Except that the teleport raiders shouldn't be trying to chase them, since they are immune...

[darke]

Probably not an intended effect: I took over a planet that already had a energy generator on it, except it was under an enemy forcefield. When I finished building the command center it "popped" out from under the field, moving physically on the map (despite the fact it shouldn't actually be able to move) before it was taken out by the AI.

[x4000]

Probably not an intended effect: I took over a planet that already had a energy generator on it, except it was under an enemy forcefield. When I finished building the command center it "popped" out from under the field, moving physically on the map (despite the fact it shouldn't actually be able to move) before it was taken out by the AI.

Actually, that's more or less intended.  The force fields repel any ships that are inside them (so if you for instance had parasites that could shoot through force fields -- these don't exist, but you see what I mean -- then you'd get a similar effect as those inner ships are expeled outward).  You can actually use mobile forcefields to "push" enemy ships in much the same way, which is kind of cool.