Prerelease 1.009A (Selection Rectangle Counts & Team Income Display)

[x4000]

Here's the latest prerelease:  http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar1009A.zip

That version is an upgrade from version 1.008, so you have to already have 1.008 (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 1.008:
(Cumulative release notes since 1.008 are attached at the bottom)

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-In recent releases, long-range shots (such as cruisers) that were targeting a ship under a force field would fail to hit that force field.  They would only succeed if the shot was short-range enough, if the shot was directed straight at the force field itself, or sometimes if the mode was Fast & Dangerous.  Fixed.

-In recent releases, the CounterSpy ship was unable to actually hit cloaked ships.  Fixed.

-Previously, if there was no command station present at an AI planet receivingreinforcements, then some of the ships would just appear at the center of the planetary area.  Now those ships will appear at one of the command posts, or the ship that is providing the reinforce ability.

-When players are dragging the selection rectangle, there are now little counts of how many ships belonging to the local player, to allies, and to enemies are present on the planet.  This makes it much easier to determine the size of forces at part of a planet instead of at the planet as a whole.

-Previously, if a ship caught by a tractor beam cloaked, it would disconnect from the tractor beam but it would also become immobile until the game was saved and reloaded.  Fixed.

-There is now a "Team Income" line in the intel summary view for planets owned by the human team.  It shows the aggregate amount of metal and crystal being produced per planet, taking into account the efficiency reductions and other negative/positive effects, but NOT taking into consideration metal/crystal manufactories, since those are really a secondary conversion control and not a primary source of income.

[darke]

After destroying the enemy control center (and thus the invisible wormhole bases), it seems that there's still an invisible tachyon detectors there. I can't see them, and can't target them, but they seem to be decloaking my scouts and such, and I can see the beams they're emitting.

[darke]

This seed: 1921386719 on 60 planet "Realistic" only generates 5 starting worlds to choose from, rather then the usual 8. Looks like a bug.

[darke]

Also I thought the map on the start-a-new-game screen had a little "x3" or whatever on the top left of the start worlds saying how many connections they have, it seems to have disappeared recently.

[Revenantus]

Thanks for the selection rectangle ship counts - really handy. They've however created a small scouting loophole in that the enemy ship total readout is available regardless of whether there is a friendly Command Station/Scout in the system. It's possible to ascertain the number of enemy ships in a system by sending a non-scout ship through, hitting pause and dragging a rectangle around the whole gravity well. Perhaps in the absence of a scout if there's an enemy ship in the selection rectangle it could read something like 'Enemy: ?'.

EDIT: The tool also serves as a slightly sneaky way of identifying the locations of enemy cloaked ships.

As an addition to the selection rectangle tool, whilst dragging a selection rectangle around a given area, what if holding down T caused a break down of ships by type to be drawn along the side of the box? Having to hold down a key would prevent unwanted clutter on the UI. Maybe there could be an option to make the key toggle whether ship types are displayed, to save players having to press it every time if they use it regularly.

[x4000]

After destroying the enemy control center (and thus the invisible wormhole bases), it seems that there's still an invisible tachyon detectors there. I can't see them, and can't target them, but they seem to be decloaking my scouts and such, and I can see the beams they're emitting.

This isn't a bug, or a new feature even -- just a Stealth Tachyon Beam Emitter (you can build these too, if you unlock them).  Just send in a tachyon drone or something, and you can kill it.

[x4000]

Also I thought the map on the start-a-new-game screen had a little "x3" or whatever on the top left of the start worlds saying how many connections they have, it seems to have disappeared recently.

Hey, you're absolutely right -- thanks, added to my list.

[x4000]

Thanks for the selection rectangle ship counts - really handy. They've however created a small scouting loophole in that the enemy ship total readout is available regardless of whether there is a friendly Command Station/Scout in the system. It's possible to ascertain the number of enemy ships in a system by sending a non-scout ship through, hitting pause and dragging a rectangle around the whole gravity well. Perhaps in the absence of a scout if there's an enemy ship in the selection rectangle it could read something like 'Enemy: ?'.

Great point -- added to my list!

EDIT: The tool also serves as a slightly sneaky way of identifying the locations of enemy cloaked ships.

Whoops, I forgot to make it not work on cloaked enemy ships.   Added to my list, great catch

As an addition to the selection rectangle tool, whilst dragging a selection rectangle around a given area, what if holding down T caused a break down of ships by type to be drawn along the side of the box? Having to hold down a key would prevent unwanted clutter on the UI. Maybe there could be an option to make the key toggle whether ship types are displayed, to save players having to press it every time if they use it regularly.

I like it, although the T key is already taken.  I'll find a free key and add this to my list.  I'm thinking that maybe a setting option for doing this by default is a good idea.  Then the key is always a "hold to show," which gets inverted to "hold to not show" when the settings option is on.  That's a pretty cool addition!

[darke]

After destroying the enemy control center (and thus the invisible wormhole bases), it seems that there's still an invisible tachyon detectors there. I can't see them, and can't target them, but they seem to be decloaking my scouts and such, and I can see the beams they're emitting.

This isn't a bug, or a new feature even -- just a Stealth Tachyon Beam Emitter (you can build these too, if you unlock them).  Just send in a tachyon drone or something, and you can kill it.

Hrm... I was sure I swung past with one of those tachyon drones and it didn't pick it up. I'll pay more attention next time.

I also noticed that the scout's cloaking boosters also cloaking boost the mines. Not sure if that was the intended effect, but they are all cloaking boosting the mines of mine they're sitting next to in preference to each other, which does seem a little strange.

[x4000]

I also noticed that the scout's cloaking boosters also cloaking boost the mines. Not sure if that was the intended effect, but they are all cloaking boosting the mines of mine they're sitting next to in preference to each other, which does seem a little strange.

Yeah, the preference should go the other way -- I'll check on that, thanks!

[Revenantus]

When in attack-move mode engineers seem to oscillate as they repair.

For example, the engineer repairing my turrets starts repairing them, then starts to head towards its attack-move point, as soon as it is out of repair range it turns around and heads back to the turret and repeats the cycle until the turret is back at full health. It's not being forced to move by other ships/turrets, it just moves back and forth in empty space.

[x4000]

When in attack-move mode engineers seem to oscillate as they repair.

For example, the engineer repairing my turrets starts repairing them, then starts to head towards its attack-move point, as soon as it is out of repair range it turns around and heads back to the turret and repeats the cycle until the turret is back at full health. It's not being forced to move by other ships/turrets, it just moves back and forth in empty space.

Hmm, I had not noticed that -- it's caused by all the changes to the movement/waypointing logic in 1.008, I have no doubt.  I'll take a look, and try to put in a fix for this that won't break anything else.

[Revenantus]

I have some AI engineers sitting directly on top of a Special Forces Command Post as they repair it making them difficult to see/target, not sure if this is intentional.

[x4000]

I have some AI engineers sitting directly on top of a Special Forces Command Post as they repair it making them difficult to see/target, not sure if this is intentional.

Nope, that's another minor glitch related to all the waypoint/movement changes.  *Sigh*  Added to the list.

[Revenantus]

Just in case it's of any help in tracking down what's causing the engineers to wander back and forth;

I checked back on the engineer 2 hours into the game and the behaviour had stopped - he was repairing turrets as appropriate. However, when I gave him another attack-move order he started wandering off whilst repairing again.

It seems to stop occurring once the engineer has managed to reach the attack-move location once.