Prerelease 1.007J (last 1.007 series prerelease).

[x4000]

This is the last of the 1.007 prereleases.  I had hoped to release the official version of 1.007 today, but with a few more bugs discovered in the latest waypoint logic, I wanted to get those fixed and then allow a bit more time for testing.  The 1.007 release should be coming out tomorrow instead.  The waypoints thing sucked up most of my time for this prerelease, but there are also a few other minor additions/changes here.

Here's the latest prerelease:  http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar1007J.zip

That version is an upgrade from version 1.006, so you have to already have 1.006 (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 1.007I:
(Cumulative release notes since 1.006 are attached at the bottom)

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

-It is now possible to set gather points in other planets for constructors.  This done by simply giving them a wormhole-travel order like any other ships, and then any ships that come out of the constructor will follow that same path.

-The tooltips over dropdown controls in the lobby now work a little bit more gracefully.  Before, they sometimes would cause a lot of blipping and blinking if the conditions were just wrong.

-The main menu now includes helpful tooltips, same as the lobby always has.

-A new Mobile Military option (Shift+Comma) has been added to the Galaxy Map Filter options.  This new option allows for just mobile military ships (and starships) to be shown in the My Ships, Allied Ships, and My and Allied Ships filters (Q, A, and E).  This is useful because it doesn't include things like turrets, mines, or economic structures, so it lets you find your actual fleet ships at a glance.

-The waypoints logic for ships in attack-move mode has now been made even better.

[Quitch]

I'm not sure 'I' is working.

[x4000]

I'm not sure 'I' is working.

The I key?  Seems to be working for me, I've just been using it a lot.  Bear in mind that it only shows that data for ships that are selected or that your mouse is over.  Also, it only shows that data for ships that actually have a target.  So if they are between targets for whatever reason, it wouldn't show.  Seems okay to me at the moment, anyway, if you have more info I'm all ears.

[Quitch]

Does it work for turrets?

Also had an interesting one where two science vessels are dancing. Ordered them to spot X, both dance in and out of the spot constantly trying to avoid the other. Maybe due to the wreckage around?

EDIT: Alas, movement bug has reared its head (just as I was about to post I hadn't seen it despite a couple of large fleet movements). Will work on tracking down more exact causes, didn't catch this one in action. One fleet of 350 moved without issues though so it may well be a previous order was attack move/free-roam divide.

EDIT2: Indeed, no sooner had I used attack move on this fleet at their destination and then after they were done issued a galaxy map move, they started running into problems.

EDIT3: That same sector that inspired me to ask for changes in the AI targeting has revealed a problem in the new targeting. A bunch of Mk I autocannon minipods (hah, I know the name now!) are dancing between my crystal harvester with exoshild (and two missile turret guards) and my Mk I shielded command post with massive turret armada. They get a short way from the harvester and then return to it.

EDIT4: Is it intentional that Tachyon Drones have the same icon as a Tachyon Beam Emitter?

[Admiral]

-It is now possible to set gather points in other planets for constructors.  This done by simply giving them a wormhole-travel order like any other ships, and then any ships that come out of the constructor will follow that same path.

-A new Mobile Military option (Shift+Comma) has been added to the Galaxy Map Filter options.  This new option allows for just mobile military ships (and starships) to be shown in the My Ships, Allied Ships, and My and Allied Ships filters (Q, A, and E).  This is useful because it doesn't include things like turrets, mines, or economic structures, so it lets you find your actual fleet ships at a glance.

Yay on the first!

I love the second... I had meant to mention something like this and failed. Good thing you read minds!

Cheers!

[Fiskbit]

The only really important thing needing fixing: I'm having trouble with collision detection when dealing with as few as 2 ships; they keep trying to go back to where they were commanded to instead of settling for where they collision detect to.

Ctrl+click for harvester placement fails for harvesters very close to each other. Map 1061523438 (15-planet version) has two metal resource points right next to each other on Chripfi (armored ship starter), and one of them is never covered by Ctrl+click.

If I disable TBS-friendly pause, I'll sometimes get "Waiting for other players..." messages for indefinite periods of time, which may be related to me issuing commands while paused. I figure this stuff shouldn't be happening at all if TBS stuff is disabled, nor should it if I'm the only player. The game actually becomes rather turn-based (if I start, I get the message at the start, and a last turn indicator by my name) with this option off, which seems backward to me.

Something about overzoom's a little wonky; there are unshaded areas along some edges are certain zooms and positions.

[x4000]

Does it work for turrets?

Yep, does for me -- just checked to be sure.

Also had an interesting one where two science vessels are dancing. Ordered them to spot X, both dance in and out of the spot constantly trying to avoid the other. Maybe due to the wreckage around?

Yeah, Fiskbit also mentioned that below.  It's a collision-detection issue, I'll have to look into that.

EDIT: Alas, movement bug has reared its head (just as I was about to post I hadn't seen it despite a couple of large fleet movements). Will work on tracking down more exact causes, didn't catch this one in action. One fleet of 350 moved without issues though so it may well be a previous order was attack move/free-roam divide.

Hmm, okay, that stinks.  I haven't seen it on the new versions.

EDIT2: Indeed, no sooner had I used attack move on this fleet at their destination and then after they were done issued a galaxy map move, they started running into problems.

Okay, added back to my list, sigh...

EDIT3: That same sector that inspired me to ask for changes in the AI targeting has revealed a problem in the new targeting. A bunch of Mk I autocannon minipods (hah, I know the name now!) are dancing between my crystal harvester with exoshild (and two missile turret guards) and my Mk I shielded command post with massive turret armada. They get a short way from the harvester and then return to it.

I think this is the collision detection bug again.  Will have to see, but I'm pretty sure that's all it is.

EDIT4: Is it intentional that Tachyon Drones have the same icon as a Tachyon Beam Emitter?

Yeah, that's a pretty minor drone and I didn't want it to get confusing with things like scouts, etc.  So I figured that having a consolidated "tachyon" icon would be easier on people overall.

[x4000]

-It is now possible to set gather points in other planets for constructors.  This done by simply giving them a wormhole-travel order like any other ships, and then any ships that come out of the constructor will follow that same path.

-A new Mobile Military option (Shift+Comma) has been added to the Galaxy Map Filter options.  This new option allows for just mobile military ships (and starships) to be shown in the My Ships, Allied Ships, and My and Allied Ships filters (Q, A, and E).  This is useful because it doesn't include things like turrets, mines, or economic structures, so it lets you find your actual fleet ships at a glance.

Yay on the first!

I love the second... I had meant to mention something like this and failed. Good thing you read minds!

Cheers!

Glad to be of service!  Yeah, one of my alpha testers had the same idea this past Saturday on the second, so I added that into my list based on his comment. Great minds think alike, I think they say!

[x4000]

The only really important thing needing fixing: I'm having trouble with collision detection when dealing with as few as 2 ships; they keep trying to go back to where they were commanded to instead of settling for where they collision detect to.

Yeah, that's really nasty, I'll try to fix that tonight.  It's causing Quitch's problems, above, as well.

Ctrl+click for harvester placement fails for harvesters very close to each other. Map 1061523438 (15-planet version) has two metal resource points right next to each other on Chripfi (armored ship starter), and one of them is never covered by Ctrl+click.

That's a strange one, I'll check it out.  Thanks!

If I disable TBS-friendly pause, I'll sometimes get "Waiting for other players..." messages for indefinite periods of time, which may be related to me issuing commands while paused. I figure this stuff shouldn't be happening at all if TBS stuff is disabled, nor should it if I'm the only player. The game actually becomes rather turn-based (if I start, I get the message at the start, and a last turn indicator by my name) with this option off, which seems backward to me.

Okay, this sounds like the issue that Admiral was having.  I'll have to look at this and see what the deal is.  This shouldn't be happening, to say the least.  Must be related to my changes to TBS-based pause.

Something about overzoom's a little wonky; there are unshaded areas along some edges are certain zooms and positions.

It's probably the very strange resolution I know you have, but also it may be just related to matrix floating point rounding issues.  There's not much I can do about it that I know of, simply because of the fact it is a rounding error on the graphics card itself.  I've seen something similar in the past, but the precision of overzoom on really large resolutions is such that it will get less accurate by definition.  Unfortunately...

[x4000]

New K version, with fixes to the serious issues raised here (the rare movement bug excepted):  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,139.0.html