Okay, so this is probably going to be the last prerelease for today. My focus now is to make sure that everything is stable and functioning properly with all these new features that have been added, so that there are no problems with the full 1.005 release. Any playtesting that you guys would like to do on this latest version is much appreciated (as always) in that light! Right now I'm a bit on the fence as to whether to release this today, or wait until there is more testing done sometime tomorrow. My gut says to wait until the morning of tomorrow at least, and so that's probably what I should do.
Here's the latest prerelease:
http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar1005J.zipThat version is an upgrade from version 1.004, so you have to already have 1.004 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 1.005I:
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-Science Labs have been moved to the right in the ECON menu of command stations.
-Science Lab II has been added to the ECON menu of command stations. These gather knowledge half as fast as a regular science lab, and cost 8x as much, but they are heavily armored for taking into high-level enemy planets.
-In recent prereleases, ships were sometimes closing their distance too far when attacking an enemy ship. Fixed.
-The keyboard shortcuts for three of the galaxy map display buttons have been remapped. We will endeavor never to change existing keyboard shortcuts, but in this case we felt it was worth it so that some of the new display keyboard shortcuts (see below) would be consistent with similar shortcuts in the main view.
-There are now galaxy display modes for showing the individual counts of crystal and metal on planets, as opposed to just showing all the resources combined. A small letter (M, C, or R) now identifies which of these modes is currently in use.
-There are now galaxy display modes for locating scouts, starships, starship constructors, and all constructors. All of these show totals from your entire team.
-There is now a galaxy display mode for showing incoming wave counts.
-There is now a galaxy display mode for showing how many hostile wormholes each planet has (enemy planets with a warp gate). This is invaluable for planning and managing your defenses.
-The game settings now support setting specific window width/heights (instead of always fullscreen), and it now supports having the cursor not snap to the window or having the toolbar be shown on the window.
-A message is now shown at the top of the screen when the game does not have input focus (so that players can see why their mouse wheel and keyboard inputs are not being registered).
-If the main game form does not have input focus for whatever reason, it will refocus itself the next time a player clicks it. This should prevent most issues with Alt-tabbing in and out with the new windows-messages-based keyboard input, and it should also prevent sub-fields (textboxes, mostly) in the application from inadvertently deciding to steal input focus.
-The message in the lobby about how to select a starting position also explains that this is how to select a ship type, and it also flashes so that new players will see to do this.
-In recent prereleases, the backspace key was not functioning in textboxes (but the delete key was). Fixed.
EDIT: Here's a new update, with a couple of fixes: http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar1005K.zip-The game no longer scales incorrectly when in windowed mode (that was causing slight graphics degradation, as well as slightly-off mouse click detection).
-The game now includes an "are you sure?" popup when being killed by Alt-F4 or clicking the window X in windowed mode. This prevents players from accidentally closing their game and losing their progress through a stray click or keypress.
