Warning: There are some significant AI shifts in version 1.011A and up, which is likely to make it much harder given the same difficulty level. So if you are loading older savegames that were close, you might find yourself losing if you are not careful. Just fair warning!The Latest prerelease is now out:
http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar1011I.zipThat version is an upgrade from version 1.010, so you have to already have 1.010 (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 1.010 are attached at the bottom)
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-AI ships now send three little Mark I fighters through wormholes immediately prior to the emergence of every wave. This prevents things like electric shuttles and lightning turrets from doing quite so much damage in the first blast (and is a tactic that human players use to great effect, too).
-AI melee ships under force fields won't lurk, but will attack as normal.
-Several efficiency improvements have been made to the AI thread, and the AI tactics have had a few tweaks to make them a bit faster and more accurate also. This is mostly relevant for single-processor CPUs.
-The AI now queues up multiple potential targets on each targeting pass, which means there is much less stopping and starting when it is chasing player ships from a long distance when player ships are commonly being killed.
-The targeting algorithm on the main thread has been made more efficient for planets with large numbers (4,000+) of enemy ships. The efficiency gain is around 10%-20%, depending on the type of ships in use.
-The collision detection algorithm has been made much more efficient for batches of ships that are thousands or more in size. This also makes the blob of ships more "spiky," but the efficiency gain is worth it for the really large fleets.
-A new "Zoom-In Hotkeys Center On Cursor" option has been added to the Zoom/Pan section of the settings window.
-Space tugs will no longer try to bring ships back to still-under-construction mobile repair stations.
-Space tugs will no longer randomly push ships around when there is no local mobile repair station to bring them to.
-Space tugs will no longer pick up ships that are in the middle of assisting another ship (like engineers assigned to repair/accelerate).
-The AI now views starships and ion cannons as higher-priority targets to take out, since they are expensive (and in the case of ion cannons irreplaceable).
-The knowledge counts over science labs now only appear over ships of the same team as the local player.
-The message log between players now keeps the last 40 messages instead of the last 15.
-The range of tachyon beams emitted by astro trains and the scout starship has been increased.
-It is no longer possible to issue move orders that would try to send ships outside the valid area of a planet.
-The basic size of force fields have been increased, but force fields now shrink in size as they take damage, protecting fewer and fewer ships as they shrink.
-The way the per-AI-player per-planet ship cap is calculated is now different. Previously it was always just a flat 2000 per player. Now it is 250 x the number of command posts and stations, with a minimum cap of 250 and a maximum cap of 2500. This makes clearing command posts a lot more effective a way of limiting AI growth in planets (it already was effective, but now it is even more so).
-It is now possible to use the ship level limiters (N+0-5) in conjunction with one another. So N+1+2 limits to all tech 1 and 2 ships, for instance.
-There is now a ship selection limiter of N+7, which selects only ships with damaged engines. Also there is now Space+N+7, which selects only ships with perfectly healthy engines.
NEW ART (by Philippe Chabot, Arcen's new artist)
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-Mode button (Fast & Dangerous or Normal)
-Timer background box.
-Mission background box.
