Prerelease 1.011O (Forcefield Tweaks, More Upper-Level Difficulty Tiers)

[Revenantus]

Listen for the sound of one hand clapping, and then you'll know the new difficulties have arrived.  I'm surprised no one suggested the square root of -1 -- rookie oversight, for crying out loud.

I did, honest! Look at 10 + 5i!

[x4000]

Oh, whoops.  I missed the i there.

[x4000]

Okay, new version N:  http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar1011N.zip

-A slight efficiency improvement has been made to the render logic for drawing many destination lines at once.

-There was previously a crash bug when using the N+5 key combo.  Fixed.

-The collision detection no longer causes "pies" of ships when they are stopping.

[Haagenti]

Pfft, only just beaten the game on the lowest cardinality?

Good luck beating Aleph-Omega, let alone doing it with the 'Omniscient' AI modifier on.

I prefer the Omnipotent AI modifier, preferably together with Invulnerable. Omniscient slows down my PC too much.

[Revenantus]

Pfft, only just beaten the game on the lowest cardinality?

Good luck beating Aleph-Omega, let alone doing it with the 'Omniscient' AI modifier on.

I prefer the Omnipotent AI modifier, preferably together with Invulnerable. Omniscient slows down my PC too much.

Sounds like you need to upgrade to one of those new processors with Intel Temporal Distortion(tm) support, they're pretty good at performing calculations in lots of different areas of spacetime simultaneously.

[x4000]

Here's another version:  http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar1011O.zip

-Engineers that don't have anything better to do (repairs) will now automatically accelerate queue-based constructors.

-Autosaves were not working since the GameCommand rewrite.

[eRe4s3r]

Wee Thanks 

Man you are insanely quick with fixing them bugs and exploits. <3

[x4000]

You bet!

[Admiral]

These are good, Admiral, but we need to think about future proofing here.

Well, I see what you mean. However, clearly we must proceed to higher dimensionality and give up some of our favorite concepts... Like associativity. If we have difficulty levels only specified in 10 + 8i + 6j + 4k, that still remains too easy... Clearly we will have to use eight "dimensions," then we could have enjoyable challenges where our fighters kill their cruisers, but their cruisers kill our fighters, after which our fighters can kill their cruisers, and so on.

I mean, let's be honest, just how many real numbers are there? Years from now, having fully explored the depths of the irrational difficulties, we don't want to be weeping for the lack of more AIs to conquer.

This game is hard enough without having to worry about going insane. Invocations of Cantor are no longer permitted here. *twitch*

Besides which, Colonel X already had integer and rational levels, so I decided I would avoid the obvious extension to algebraic difficulty of it and go straight for the transcendental challenge. I was not convinced of the need to take the difficulty to a whole new dimension, but you do have a point. Future proofing is always a good thing.

Hence, I conclusively propose that we no longer have a finite number of dimensions of difficulty. Generalize AI War to an infinite dimensionality for the difficulty "level" (of course, realizing that "level" implies order and so the word is clearly a misnomer here) and be done with it.

Now the question is... Exactly how do you win?

Cheers!

PS: If the difficulty "level" is set "high" enough, do you think the AI could find are a kind of number larger than rationals and smaller than reals? I wonder what kind of nightmares I'm having tonight...

[Admiral]

Pfft, only just beaten the game on the lowest cardinality?

Good luck beating Aleph-Omega, let alone doing it with the 'Omniscient' AI modifier on.

I prefer the Omnipotent AI modifier, preferably together with Invulnerable. Omniscient slows down my PC too much.

That's an interesting concept here, Haagster. What about quantum difficulty? Sometimes it wins, and sometimes it loses... But you won't know until you play the game a large number of times.

[bbcisdabomb]

Encountered a new bug- playing on a LAN with two people, one person consistently doesn't get teamed with the others. They show as hostile, can be attacked, the whole nine yards.

We're running 1.011I, do you need any other info?

[Haagenti]

That's an interesting concept here, Haagster. What about quantum difficulty? Sometimes it wins, and sometimes it loses... But you won't know until you play the game a large number of times.

This sounds depressingly like my former job

[Revenantus]

Pfft, only just beaten the game on the lowest cardinality?

Good luck beating Aleph-Omega, let alone doing it with the 'Omniscient' AI modifier on.

I prefer the Omnipotent AI modifier, preferably together with Invulnerable. Omniscient slows down my PC too much.

That's an interesting concept here, Haagster. What about quantum difficulty? Sometimes it wins, and sometimes it loses... But you won't know until you play the game a large number of times.

Obligatory: "You changed the difficulty by measuring it!"

[Haagenti]

I didn't change it: the difficulty level is a hidden variable.....

[darke]

Bug?: The "munitions booster" lines for starships are also drawn when the thing it's targeting is cloaked.