Prerelease 1.014J (Flow-based econ, engr tweaks, gfx updates, wave increases)

[x4000]

The Latest prerelease is now out: http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar1014J.zip

That version is an upgrade from version 1.013, so you have to already have 1.013 (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 1.014I:
(Cumulative release notes since 1.013 are attached at the bottom)

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-Previously, AI ships would set their group move speed to 1 in cases when teleporter ships were present in their guard group.  Fixed.

-Regen will no longer function on ships that have been damaged within the last 3 seconds, which makes it much easier for non-bombers to finish off forcefields and other heavy defenses.

-A couple of tweaks to the text in the intermediate tutorial.

-Mobile repair stations can no longer heal/assist ships that are under construction.

-Directly-placed ships are no longer paid for up front, but rather are now paid for over time as they are constructed.  These add their outflow into the total outflows. The outflow rate for these sorts of ships will be approximately even, but will very a bit per second because of the uneven nature of the metal/crystal costs versus the build time (unlike with the dock-based ships, these do not always divide evenly).  The end cost paid will be correct, however.

-Force fields and other non-repairable ships can now have their construction accelerated, even though they cannot then be repaired after the fact.

-Ships that are under construction but are unable to keep building because of lack of resources now flash red.

-When engineers are assisting the construction of directly-placed ships, the remaining time estimation on that ship is now decreased by the appropriate amount (as the build queue amounts have been for quite some time).

-There is now an all new visual look to when planets have been destroyed.

CHANGES FROM PAST PRERELEASES
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-The size of enemy waves is now 8x instead of 4x.

-Previously, having a queue full of unbuildable ships would cause the resources to still be drawn down.  Fixed.

-Engineers are back to automatically assisting docks and other constructors when they have nothing better to do.

NEW ART - Philippe Chabot
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Planet - Exploded
Wormholes
Galaxy Map - Black Hole

[liq3]

Sounds nice. Those 8x waves are gonna be interesting.

Epic timing too, since I was just about to go Blitzkrieg the AI with 10-20 space docks producing non-stop, and this will make it much easier!

I'm going to miss Exo-shields that are near invulnerable to most enemies though.

[Kalzarius]

-The size of enemy waves is now 8x instead of 4x.

In my multiplayer game, we get no fewer than 120 ships every raid (and there are always two simultaneous raids on opposite ends of the galaxy), plus 3-5 starships.  I don't want to know what it's like to get 8 times that.

-Engineers are back to automatically assisting docks and other constructors when they have nothing better to do.

Might I suggest introducing something similar to free-roaming defender for this?  I like being able to assign my engineers to a task and have them stick to it, even if that means they sit around doing nothing for a while.

[Revenantus]

The engineers that auto-assist the spacedocks will only do so when they have nothing of higher priority to do, such as building and repairing. There's an autoassist toggle planned for engineers (exactly what form it will take is as of yet unknown) so hopefully that should serve to do what you need.

[Kalzarius]

Sounds good.

[darke]

-The size of enemy waves is now 8x instead of 4x.

Given the size of the waves previously was overwhelming even my Tech II tractor turret arrays, have you thought of actually increasing the number of ships captured by them by 8x as well so they're actually useful again? (Along with a quite considerable health/shields buff or something, since they're already going down like flies...)

It makes your static defenses much less useful if only a fraction of the ships coming through are actually going to be captured by these.

[liq3]

-The size of enemy waves is now 8x instead of 4x.

Given the size of the waves previously was overwhelming even my Tech II tractor turret arrays, have you thought of actually increasing the number of ships captured by them by 8x as well so they're actually useful again? (Along with a quite considerable health/shields buff or something, since they're already going down like flies...)

It makes your static defenses much less useful if only a fraction of the ships coming through are actually going to be captured by these.

Yes, I totally agree! I don't even bother static def anymore except a small amount to stop those 5-6 ships that wonder through and try to hurt your eco. Static def is completely useless atm to counter waves.

[Fiskbit]

Any chance you could make the black hole graphic on the galaxy map not spin, or at least not as fast? The new graphic looks neat, but the spinning makes it a little odd, in my opinion.

Edit: Would be nice if the wormhole didn't spin off-center, too..

[Kalzarius]

-The size of enemy waves is now 8x instead of 4x.

Given the size of the waves previously was overwhelming even my Tech II tractor turret arrays, have you thought of actually increasing the number of ships captured by them by 8x as well so they're actually useful again? (Along with a quite considerable health/shields buff or something, since they're already going down like flies...)

It makes your static defenses much less useful if only a fraction of the ships coming through are actually going to be captured by these.

Tractor Turret Mark IIIs are definitely needed now.  I never had a problem with the previous waves.  If I wanted more, I would have turned on 2X raids.

[Oewyn]

Experiences from 8x waves:

Impossible unless you leave your entire fleet at home to defend.

How can you stop 1200 MKII infiltrators, or 800 MKII cruiser from destroying your orbitals??? There is no way to attack anymore because the wave size is so large.

My online partner sent his fighters to help out with over 800 raiders that spawned... a couple of minutes later, we get a warning for 800 auto cannons incoming to his home base in 2 minutes.  We didn't even have time to send them back before his home base was destroyed.

And these wave sizes make the tracker beam aiming issue really prevalent.  Especially for cloakers, where they are all uncloaked for only a little(from tachyons) while before they start moving, my MKII tracker beams catch almost none.

We felt that 3x was about right as we would get some leakage through even good defenses, but not so much that we are overwhelmed.

Without totally reworking turrets and making them much stronger and fixing tractor beams, and even increasing the human ship caps so we can keep a good portion of our ships in reserve for wave defense, i don't think that 8x is even remotely feasible.  This is our experience from 2 7.3 AIs with around 240ish AI progression.

-Oewyn

[Fiskbit]

26 minutes in, I have two waves of 500 parasites each arriving at my one planet on level 8. 1000 ships. I have 3 wormholes to guard and have split up my 800 ships between them and have frantically been building defenses. I know whatever I build won't do too much, since there are only so many tractor beams and I don't know what wormholes to build them around. In order to put down the couple hundred turrets, I'm pausing the game and placing them, since I can't do any sort of effective placement quickly enough. I don't see this going well, and I worry I'm going to have to focus on defense with these larger waves so much that I won't be able to attack enemy worlds or hold more than a few planets. We'll see how this goes, I guess.

[liq3]

I'm finding the waves aren't such a big problem as the other say. I do need to leave a good amount of ships (at least a 100) to defend, but I lose almost nothing during a wave. I'm using Exo-shields combined with a mobile defense force.

Of course, I'm only getting hit by cutlasses and parasites, so that may be why I find it so easy (I have eye bots, so the cutlasses are terribly easy).

[Fiskbit]

I fended it off without too much trouble, but it was a ton of ships and I was hit with another pair of waves during the first set. At the same time, this seems to be promoting force fields / exo shields way too much, and I feel that if the AI cared enough, it could have assaulted my home command station and force field and won without issue.

[eRe4s3r]

The large waves are no problem, but they certainly are large

I play at DIF 5/5 with 100% handicap for me and the 2 ai's - the first wave was 230 Parasites (i hadn't yet neutered the gates everywhere ,p) so i actually had to catch them in a tripple pincer move ;p Good thing those parasites are out ranged by nearly everything

Aside that i hope the wormhole gets centered because it rotates off-center and i fear every time it just flies off in one direction!

[Revenantus]

Aside that i hope the wormhole gets centered because it rotates off-center and i fear every time it just flies off in one direction!

Funny you should mention that - Fiskbit and myself were commenting on the same thing. I'd also prefer that it were centred.