Author Topic: Prerelease 1.201J (Bugfixes, new music track, first release candidate for 1.201)  (Read 4723 times)

Offline x4000

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Note:  The official 1.201 release is now out.

The Latest prerelease is now out: http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar1201.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.

Why is this now 1.201 instead of 1.014?  Well, this release is just so huge that I felt it needed to be differentiated with a more major version number shift.  People are going to remember this as the release where the economy became flow-based and got more robust, where the AI tactics became way more intelligent in many ways, and where a ton of interface and graphical improvements came into play, amongst other rebalancing and over a dozen new ship types.  It's a whole new game from 1.013 in some respects when it comes to the advanced strategy, so this is something I felt was important to make really clear with the numbering.

What's new since 1.201I:
(Cumulative release notes since 1.013 are attached at the bottom)

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-The tooltips for Auto AI Progress have been updated.

-The ship selection filter "Select all ships regardless of military/non-military status." has been changed fro Ctrl+Shift to just Ctrl.

-Players now start new games with a forcefield, which once again helps to get players off to a faster start.

-The AI War logo has been updated in the game, and the logo is now loaded from outside the executable so that it can be altered via mods and other non-compiled changes.

-There is now a 60-second grace period at the start of new games where the AI won't do anything, giving the players a minute to get settled and get a few defenses up.

-The selected ships button has been updated to show a progress bar, and the count of ships much larger.  Additionally, it now shows its popup to the far left of the screen when it is set to be always-on, to keep long lists of selected ships out of the way of the main view.

-Fixed a bug that could cause the game to freeze when music was disabled while the game was paused.  This same bug could also cause the game to freeze when returning to the main menu from a paused game.

-The game now writes the last startup path into a LastRunLocation registry value at the Software\ArcenGames\AIWar registry key under HKEY_LOCAL_USER.  This is useful for allowing other programs such as XFire to hook into the game no matter where it is installed.

-The tooltips in the lobby and main menu are now scheduled, which makes it so that they can't flip around crazily when windows does something unexpected with the dropdowns.  Additionally, a bug that could cause the tooltips to flip around crazily sometimes with the dropdowns has at last been resolved.

-Previously it was possible to get an unhandled exception if control group assignment hotkeys were pressed at the main menu.  Fixed.

-Previously, on lower difficulties it was possible for Astro Trains to get trapped on player planets because they are normally not supposed to route through player planets.  Fixed so that they will now route through player planets if they have no other option.

-Normally engineers will not try to repair moving targets because they cannot keep up.  However, the new teleporting engineers are able to keep up, so they will now repair moving targets.

-Giving the "Stop" command to ships that are free-roaming or attack-moving will now remove those modes.

-All of the ships now properly have the multiplier in multi-planet starts, including tachyon drones and the like.

-The stated ship caps could get inconsistent between AI players and human players.  This had no bearing on gameplay, but was confusing. Fixed.

-Previously, a number of the 10 planet maps with Simple map style were nonfunctioning.  Fixed.

-Previously the chat log in the galaxy map was cut off at the bottom if it was too long. Fixed.

-Previously, if the player had units selected on a planet with a control group and selected the control group while looking at a different planet, the view would switch back to that planet with the control group AND their previously selected units all selected at once. Fixed.

-Previously, when the game was paused and a cross-planet move order was given, the red lines of the selected units would not show up until after the game was unpaused. Fixed.

-Previously, if a player tried to connect to a co-op game and could not because of a version mismatch the entry for the player would hang around in the lobby list.  Fixed.

-Previously, newly-created ships were sometimes not showing up correctly in the planetary summary.  Fixed.

-When ships are created in free-roaming defender mode or attack-move mode, they will now have a gather point that is the same as their constructor.  They will also inherit the move destination and waypoints from mobile ships (particularly useful for space tugs being constructed by a moving mobile repair station).

-Space tugs will no longer pick up ships that are self-building, since repair stations can only repair, not accelerate construction.


CHANGES FROM PAST PRERELEASES
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-Fixed a bug with the scrollbars in the stats window getting placed strangely.

-Fixed the bug with the space tugs.

-Pausing and unpausing reactors while the game itself was paused was not causing the net energy to be immediately adjusted.  Fixed.

-Unpausing a large number of ships can no longer put you into negative energy.

-Previously, the metal and crystal outflow rates on the constructors quick-button were 26x too small.  Fixed.

-In recent prereleases, the white items in the planetary summary were not timing out and disappearing after 60 seconds.  Fixed.


NEW MUSIC - Pablo Vega
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Energy Storm (replacing the prior Thor track, which was often unpopular)
« Last Edit: September 01, 2009, 05:41:51 pm by x4000 »
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Offline Fiskbit

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Firstly, many thanks to Pablo for such a fantastic new track and a wonderful addition to the soundtrack. I was surprised that Thor was getting replaced (and if there's time down the road, then having Thor in there and some sort of in-game control over what songs are played would be good, since there were surely people who liked it). Its replacement is really amazing, though, and probably my favorite of the soundtrack now. Really well done; great work.

Also, that bugfix list is huge, Chris. Really great job on that; the extra wait for this release is definitely worth it, if only for the added polish of all of these fixes. Looking forward to playing around with it all tonight.
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Offline liq3

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Quote
Energy Storm (replacing the prior Thor track, which was often unpopular)
Noooooooooooo. *renames Thor.ogg to save it from horrible deletion*.  :D

Offline Fiskbit

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Yeah, I saved my copy, as well, in the event I want to hear it again. I'm not usually one to delete stuff, since I might like it later. :P
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Offline Huw

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-Space tugs will no longer pick up ships that are self-building, since repair stations can only repair, not accelerate construction.

YES!  Thank you thank you thank you! :D
I play evenings UK timezone

Offline Varek Raith

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some sort of in-game control over what songs are played would be good
That would be awesome if it were to be done.
EDIT;  Personally, I liked the original Thor theme.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2009, 03:48:44 am by Varek Raith »

Offline x4000

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I'm glad a number of you liked the original Thor theme, and feel free to just call it ThorOriginal.ogg or whatever and then have it play with the new track, as well.  This was just too divisive of a track to be left as part of the main game, unfortunately; enough people complained about it that it's something that needed to go, despite that some other people either like it fine or really love it.  The main goal is not having any sort of avoidable potential turnoffs for new players, as I'm sure you can imagine...
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Offline x4000

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-Space tugs will no longer pick up ships that are self-building, since repair stations can only repair, not accelerate construction.

YES!  Thank you thank you thank you! :D

Sure thing!  All those other tug fixes should be a big help for you, too, I imagine!
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Offline PVega8

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Thanks for the compliments guys! I loved writing this new piece. It's one of my favorites too.
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Offline PVega8

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I will say though (for those of you who have seen "Grandma's Boy", you have to have Robot ears to listen to "Thor". haha!  8)

Chris Park... you NEED to watch that movie.
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Offline x4000

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I will say though (for those of you who have seen "Grandma's Boy", you have to have Robot ears to listen to "Thor". haha!  8)

Chris Park... you NEED to watch that movie.

I'll be sure to add it to my Netflix list. :)
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Offline AcidWeb

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Next prerelease or normal release incoming right now ;p

Offline Echo35

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I will say though (for those of you who have seen "Grandma's Boy", you have to have Robot ears to listen to "Thor". haha!  8)

Chris Park... you NEED to watch that movie.

I'll be sure to add it to my Netflix list. :)

Yeah, I've been thinking about getting Robot Legs. Its a risky procedure, but I think the results will be well worth it.

EDIT: Oh, and thanks for the Thor replacement! Its not so much that I didn't like Thor, because I do kinda like it. Its that, I'm playing, listening to nice, soft piano tunes and strings drifting off into space, and then all the sudden, THOR!!!!! Just didn't fit with the rest of the music imo.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2009, 03:26:11 pm by Echo35 »

Offline PVega8

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EDIT: Oh, and thanks for the Thor replacement! Its not so much that I didn't like Thor, because I do kinda like it. Its that, I'm playing, listening to nice, soft piano tunes and strings drifting off into space, and then all the sudden, THOR!!!!! Just didn't fit with the rest of the music imo.

No problem! I had a blast writing it :)
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Offline Kalzarius

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NEW MUSIC - Pablo Vega
--------------
Energy Storm (replacing the prior Thor track, which was often unpopular)

First and foremost, awesome new track!  However, I have kept the old one around as well because I rather enjoyed it.