Author Topic: Prerelease 1.006B now available.  (Read 4087 times)

Offline x4000

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Prerelease 1.006B now available.
« on: June 12, 2009, 03:25:02 pm »
Here's the latest prerelease:  http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar1006B.zip

That version is an upgrade from version 1.005, so you have to already have 1.005 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 1.006A:
(Cumulative release notes since 1.005 are attached at the bottom)

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

-The tutorials and in-game hover text have been updated to make it clearer that bombers have a substantial bonus against force fields and other hardened targets.

-The online Mini Strategy Guide has been changed into an easier-to-read, more comprehensive Wiki.  In the game, the link to this has been updated and now reads "Online: Manual / FAQ Wiki  (Game Knowledgebase)."  The Tutorials button on the main menu now also says "Tutorials / Manual" to be more clear.

-The enemy player in the tutorials is now red, while the local player is now yellow.

-The end of the economic tutorial now touches on the issues of harvester efficiency.

-It is now possible to reorder items in the build queues.  Hold down Alt and left click to send an item to the front, or hold down alt and right-click to send an item to the rear.

-The "Game Does Not Have Input Focus..." message is now more accurate, telling you when the scroll wheel and keyboard inputs will not function (such as while you are in the controls subwindow, things like that).

-Closing the "View Controls" window now properly returns focus to the main game.  There were a few other windows (graphs, for one) that also had this problem.  All fixed.

-The buttons for metal and crystal harvesters now show up as red when being shown on a planet that the human team does not control (since those cannot be built except on team planets).

-Scouts are now excluded from the comma and ctrl+comma selections.

-The sorting of ship icons in the planetary summary palette is now better.

-In recent releases, the player color selection dialog in the lobby, and in the profile screen, was showing all of the colors twice.  Fixed.

-The dark gray player color was too hard to read, and so has been swapped out for bright orange.

-There are now options in the settings which makes the default pan and/or zoom speeds fast (holding shift will then make the panning/zooming slow to the usual speed).

-There is now an option in the settings to always show the planet names in the galaxy map (holding Ctrl then hides them, rather than showing them).

-Previously it was sometimes possible for the names of planets in the galaxy map (lobby and in-game) to get cut off at the right side of the screen.  Fixed.

-Holding the Ctrl key now shows the name of a wormhole in front of any ships or icons that are on top of it.  There is also now an option in the settings to make it so that this always shows on top by default (and holding Ctrl then hides the name).

-The text size in the scores screen has been reduced to be more consistent with the other fonts in the game, and to reduce the amount of horizontal scrolling needed.  The scores screen is also now wider, even on 4:3 monitors, to make for as much visibility and as little horizontal scrolling as possible.

-The economy tab of the scores screen now includes values for the number of producers and the efficiency loss per player.  This is to help players balance their incomes in multiplayer, for those players who are inclined to do so.

-The graphs screen now uses a listbox along the left, instead of using a dropdown at the top, so that it is easier to find and select the various graphs there.

-There is now a minimize button in the lobby, which makes it easier to go out of the game and look up your ip address.

-When in the lobby, it is now possible to click a planet and switch directly to it from another chosen planet, rather than having to deselect the old planet first.

-The priority buttons in the galaxy map are now activated with Alt+0-9 instead of just 0-9.  Control groups are now fully functional in the galaxy map.

-The circle around the current planet in the galaxy map is now shown as filled instead of just a bare outline, which makes it much easier to see.

-There is now a "selected ships" button on the galaxy map, same as there is in the main planetary view.  It has all of the same functionality, allowing sub-selection, ship removal, etc.

-The planetary summary now shows a yellow border around the icons of all ship types that have any ships selected (in other words, all of the ships of that type don't have to be selected in order for it to show yellow, just some of them do).

-Only the game host can now click the the combat style button during a game.

-When space docks, starship constructors, missile silos, or advanced factories are put into a control group, activating the control group no longer selects these constructor-type ships.  However, any ships that are produced by the constructor will automatically be in the control group of the constructor.

-Engineer IIs can now be unlocked for 3,000 knowledge.  They are identical to regular engineers, except that they have teleportation, which is a huge advantage.

-Astro Train Stations are now immune to reclamation by parasites.

-AI Home planets now show up as Tech V in the galaxy map.

-Holding the I key now shows the Hit Percent and Damage for all selected ships, or ships that you have the mouse over.  This only works for ships that are on the same team as you (enemy targeting data is of course not available to you).  The text here is colorized, which makes for easy at-a-glance viewing of how good the targets are. It is also relatively easy to spot ships without targets selected, since they have no targeting info in this view.
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Offline x4000

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Re: Prerelease 1.006B now available.
« Reply #1 on: June 12, 2009, 03:27:26 pm »
bump
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Offline Quitch

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Re: Prerelease 1.006B now available.
« Reply #2 on: June 12, 2009, 06:05:40 pm »
Amazingly sweet release, the faster mouse, the permanent galaxy names, the colour outlines down the right. Awesome. Best release yet with some really obvious improvements.

Bugs (?):

1. Planet names display over top of Totals dialog.

2. Clicking Disp causes all planet names to disappear.

3. I key is amazing, but is it accounting for modifiers? My parasite was firing on an Armour for 600 damage, but its tooltip says it has -89% against Armoured.

4. I lose selection over units when they leave the sector making it difficult to plan multiple jump moves.

5. Units stopping out of range of a target during attack move



6. Scout Starships not selected by scout key (O)

7. Unable to place science vessel in enemy system:



Either bug or should be greyed out

Suggestion:

1. If pressing space is unable to centre screen on unit selected, zoom in.

2. Consider having wormholes linking to hostile sectors have their names in a different colour from the non-hostile ones on planet screen for ease of identification.

3. Bring priority assignment in line with building placement, the priority disappears from cursor once placed unless shift held.

4. Minelayers are selectable on the mobile constructor/engineer key yet there they are displayed on neither menu. They should be listed one one of them IMO, probably mobile constructor as I suspect you'll have less of those.

5. Allow me to issue orders to something before it has finished building.
« Last Edit: June 12, 2009, 07:40:00 pm by Quitch »

Offline x4000

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Re: Prerelease 1.006B now available.
« Reply #3 on: June 12, 2009, 09:39:48 pm »
Amazingly sweet release, the faster mouse, the permanent galaxy names, the colour outlines down the right. Awesome. Best release yet with some really obvious improvements.

Awesome!  That's always good to hear. :)

1. Planet names display over top of Totals dialog.

2. Clicking Disp causes all planet names to disappear.

Those both sound like bugs to me.  Added to my list.

3. I key is amazing, but is it accounting for modifiers? My parasite was firing on an Armour for 600 damage, but its tooltip says it has -89% against Armoured.

Yep, it is indeed accounting for modifiers.  See here for an explanation of the -89% thing:  http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Strong_Vs_Weak

4. I lose selection over units when they leave the sector making it difficult to plan multiple jump moves.

This has come up before with other players.  I'm not sure what to really do about this, I can't support selection across multiple planets without gutting a lot of stuff, and it would cause more issues than it would solve I think.  I don't know... this keeps coming up in several contexts  Man is that a can of worms, though.

5. Units stopping out of range of a target during attack move

I don't think this is a bug.  Ships in attack-move mode will only attack and pursue enemies that are actually in their range.  Apparently, based on where you told them to attack-move to, they never went into range of the target.  Hence they never locked onto it.  If you want them to attack any target on a planet, you'll want to use Free-Roaming Defender mode.  Let me know what you think, maybe I'm missing something.

6. Scout Starships not selected by scout key (O)

Oh, nice catch -- thanks.  Added to the list.

7. Unable to place science vessel in enemy system:
Either bug or should be greyed out

Wow, that's strange.  It sounds like a bug -- or else old logic that I forgot about and never removed.  The only things that should be limited are the metal and crystal harvesters.  I'll look into this.

1. If pressing space is unable to centre screen on unit selected, zoom in.

Hmm, I could see that annoying a lot of people.  They push one button expecting one result, but then it also zooms them in.  If you hold space while flicking the mouse wheel in (or press space after that), then it solves the problem right there.  This is the sort of design assumption that, in my past experience, makes some users happy but others really unhappy.  I guess I could make this another setting option (default off) if you'd like.

2. Consider having wormholes linking to hostile sectors have their names in a different colour from the non-hostile ones on planet screen for ease of identification.

Oh, great idea! :)

3. Bring priority assignment in line with building placement, the priority disappears from cursor once placed unless shift held.

Yeah, that's true, consistency is good.  I don't know why I never did this before.

4. Minelayers are selectable on the mobile constructor/engineer key yet there they are displayed on neither menu. They should be listed one one of them IMO, probably mobile constructor as I suspect you'll have less of those.

Awesome, another great one.  Added to the list.

5. Allow me to issue orders to something before it has finished building.

Hmm, that's a good point -- with constructors in particular.  I think I can make this change without too much heartache.

Thanks for another great round of suggestions!
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Offline Quitch

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Re: Prerelease 1.006B now available.
« Reply #4 on: June 12, 2009, 09:45:28 pm »
Quote from: x4000
I don't think this is a bug.  Ships in attack-move mode will only attack and pursue enemies that are actually in their range.

I think in this instance I had either

a) Ordered an attack on the target, or

b) Used attack move on the opposite side of the target to where you see the ships.

I'll keep an eye open for similar behaviour in the future and start making saves of this stuff.

Offline x4000

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Re: Prerelease 1.006B now available.
« Reply #5 on: June 12, 2009, 09:49:50 pm »
Ok -- but if you had directly told them to attack, I'd be shocked if they did not move in range.  I guess they might sit out of range while reloading, then move in range and fire, and then collision detect and possibly go out of range again.  When you have a huge mass of guys (not that you really did), that can happen and it doesn't hurt your efficiency much.  But other than that, I have not seen any glitches with them attacking stuff that they were specifically ordered to target.

Though -- and this is an interesting thing -- the fact that they are showing the red numbers at all means that they DID target it.  I had not thought that through until just now.  Hmm, so that means that they were stopping out of range.  I do see that they were reloading, did they ever move in range?  I can't really see what kinds of ships those are.  Are those fighters?  I'd like to see if I can duplicate that.
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Offline Quitch

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Re: Prerelease 1.006B now available.
« Reply #6 on: June 12, 2009, 09:53:23 pm »
They're bombers, MkII, maybe MkIII, or MkII parasites.

If the damages are all wrong for those then they are MkI fighters, but I don't think I had any present.

Loving I BTW, it makes it obvious why you want bombers to handle shields.
« Last Edit: June 12, 2009, 09:56:29 pm by Quitch »

Offline x4000

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Re: Prerelease 1.006B now available.
« Reply #7 on: June 12, 2009, 10:10:57 pm »
They're bombers, MkII, maybe MkIII, or MkII parasites.

If the damages are all wrong for those then they are MkI fighters, but I don't think I had any present.

Loving I BTW, it makes it obvious why you want bombers to handle shields.

Cool -- thanks for the extra info!  And glad you like I so much; that info was already available, but you really had to dig to see it.  Now it's much more convenient.
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Offline x4000

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Re: Prerelease 1.006B now available.
« Reply #8 on: June 13, 2009, 09:27:42 am »
New prerelease has a number of these in there:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,93.0.html
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