Prerelease 1.202Q (Sound effect mixing upgrade, more icon updates, minor tweaks)

[x4000]

The latest prerelease is available at http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar1202Q.zip

That version is an upgrade from version 1.201, so you have to already have 1.201 (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 1.202P:
(Cumulative release notes since 1.201 are attached at the bottom)

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-The in-game ALSO SPECIAL THANKS TO part of the credits are now alphabetized so as to not give the appearance of favoritism amongst the players there.  Previously it was ordered by the order in which they were added to the list.

-Sniper Shots are now gold, and have a more muted sound effect to make them less annoying on sniper-filled planets.

-The mixing of sound effects during battles is now much better scaled, so that the game now sound significantly different when there is a small battle versus a big battle versus a giant battle.

-All starships except the scout starship are no longer immune to snipers (This makes spider turrets effective against them, for example).

-The AI will no longer abandon its guard posts in order to chase armored missiles.

NEW ART - Philippe Chabot
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More Updated Ship Icons

UPDATED SOUND EFFECTS - Pablo Vega
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ShotDoubleLazer

[x4000]

Also, as an added note, work is proceeding very nicely on localization.  Fiskbit has been handling most of that now, but a good chunk of my morning was taken up with some of that.  My next goals are going to be clearing out the critical list and the remaining open bugs, etc.  Hopefully by some point tomorrow we will basically be at a point where it is ready for an official release.

[Revenantus]

I haven't had a chance to play with the new supply changes yet, though I thought I'd like to hear Haagenti's players' thoughts on this;

Have the changes really stopped marauding fleets?

For example, could the player not continue marauding by keeping colony ships with the fleet? They could form a select few 'outpost planets' where they destroy the AI's command station, and construct their own. They then replenish their fleet, and move on. The outpost planets don't need to be defended, the player just builds a new command station there whenever they stop by.

By reusing a small number of outposts, the effect on the AI progress level could potentially be fairly minimal, and perhaps even offset by the knowledge collected from the outpost and its surrounding planets.

I'm not sure if this is practicable, but I'll give it a try when I can, thoughts?

[eRe4s3r]

I will not say Otherwise it becomes nerfed too, needless to say a good Deep raid neutering fleet composition is not affected by this nerf, though it adds another 20 minutes or so. This is also the only reason why i am not running amok for this change, because marauding human fleets are definitely a valid tactic (its called guerrilla warfare).

In many ways, this will lead more players to neuter everything in any range to them. What has no command post you can colonize and research raid too, just adds another 10 minutes to the 2nd raid build up.

I would definitely not advocate a remote planet strategy like in that mockup - that stretches you too thin and is un-defendable. A proper raid plan gives you about 10-15 connected (neutered) planets , which is enough to research raid for full MKIII fleets. After that its just finding the homeworlds and killing them.

(So: Deep raiding just requires you now to take engineers with you ;p) You can build colony ships with mobile builders after all.)

But given that i could not yet try my claim - You might want to try it for yourself. If all fails one has to build the colony ships at the homeworld, that makes really no difference to the raiding strategy.

[x4000]

I haven't had a chance to play with the new supply changes yet, though I thought I'd like to hear Haagenti's players' thoughts on this;

Have the changes really stopped marauding fleets?

For example, could the player not continue marauding by keeping colony ships with the fleet? They could form a select few 'outpost planets' where they destroy the AI's command station, and construct their own. They then replenish their fleet, and move on. The outpost planets don't need to be defended, the player just builds a new command station there whenever they stop by.

By reusing a small number of outposts, the effect on the AI progress level could potentially be fairly minimal, and perhaps even offset by the knowledge collected from the outpost and its surrounding planets.

I'm not sure if this is practicable, but I'll give it a try when I can, thoughts?

I would imagine that this will work just fine -- the tradeoffs of the AI Progress and the added exposure basically address my concerns, and this is precisely the sort of varied tactic I'd see working quite well and being very valid.  In your example, you're basically having to go out into the galaxy and capture some territory, even if not much, rather than just being able to hole up in a corner of the map while neutering planets.  That's just what I was going for!

[liq3]

Any chance you could buff cutlasses regen in the next patch? It's so low (40 mins for Mark I) they're still fairly useless in the hands of a player, since you get one 1-2 medium sized fights with them, then you gotta wait 40-60 minutes for them to regen, or you gotta rebuild em (which costs a TON).

[x4000]

Any chance you could buff cutlasses regen in the next patch? It's so low (40 mins for Mark I) they're still fairly useless in the hands of a player, since you get one 1-2 medium sized fights with them, then you gotta wait 40-60 minutes for them to regen, or you gotta rebuild em (which costs a TON).

Oh yeah, I think you asked about that before and it got lost in the shuffle (I think I read it on my phone, and was not in a position to make a note of it).  So thanks for bringing that up again -- I'll definitely tweak those numbers somewhat at least.  I'll aim more for the 10-minute mark, I think, because that's basically a good amount of time that could be between waves, or between moving through planets.  But it's not so much that they are easily healing in the midst of battle.  Cutlasses are wicked effective against most military ship types at this stage, and part of the tradeoff of this is that they are expensive to rebuild after their essentially one-shot battles.  This regen will help with that to an extent, but it's mainly just intended to keep you from needing to delete/replace cutlasses that are damaged.

[Haagenti II]

I haven't had a chance to play with the new supply changes yet, though I thought I'd like to hear Haagenti's players' thoughts on this;

Have the changes really stopped marauding fleets?

I have started a new game. But it will take me a while to get to the marauding stage.

For example, could the player not continue marauding by keeping colony ships with the fleet? They could form a select few 'outpost planets' where they destroy the AI's command station, and construct their own. They then replenish their fleet, and move on. The outpost planets don't need to be defended, the player just builds a new command station there whenever they stop by.

Yes. But colony ships are fairly fragile. The advantage of mobile builders is that you used 10 or so, and when most were dead, you would build 10 new ones on the spot, and they build fast. To build new colony ships you have to be in supply and they build slow.

You also need to defend the outpost to be in supply while you are knowledge raiding.

By reusing a small number of outposts, the effect on the AI progress level could potentially be fairly minimal, and perhaps even offset by the knowledge collected from the outpost and its surrounding planets.

Yes...you would still minimize it. But there would be some. And AI triggers on both progress and "planets it does not control". I would get to Core planets at AI 8 with 6 planets not controlled and Progress < 200. That meant that the Core planets were basically not reinforcing. So that needed to be changed.

So will it be harder? Yes. Will it be hard enough? I don't know.

[eRe4s3r]

I just want to say that the new Interface (i play for the first time since a while) is absolutely awesome. Especially the icons in the sidebar and galaxymap are now SUPER readable, what a difference that is to 1.09 when i started playing!

Absolutely awesome.

- Supply is not at all as bad as some make it out to be - Raiding is possible - But, Neutering is key. I neuter everything around me to have a lot of large "sweep in" areas where i can catch fleets on sensors before they jump in my system, and now i just have to bring a colony ship with escort to raid - Thus deep raiding and neutering remains a valid and working tactic (and of course, i scrap those outposts again). At that stage a colony ship is NOT a problem to procure and escort (neutering involves cleaning the defenders anyway) and it gives the game a really nice flow for the deep-raid complexity.

- Shield Changes
Man, when i read that in the changelog i was befuddled but i was just being silly i guess - That works out really well making you build shields next to the tractor turrets and turrets way-off but still in range - that way turrets get less damage (shield range effects)

That wasn't obvious to me when i read that, this change actually changes nothing - units still shot preferable at the closest thing when they come out of wormholes, thus the shielded tractors remain as useful as ever.

It is not as easy to come by to research now but it still is entirely possible to get several MKIII ships unlocked from your neighbors alone.

Given that my tactics all work fine (playing as usual, actually) i fully endorse the way this game goes atm ;p Since deep raiding always involved repairs and rebuild behind enemy lines, the only change now is that one needs colony ships.

Edit. Also the change that starships are no more immune to spider turrets is SUPERB (Does that mean i can now slow them down like regular ships too?)

[x4000]

I just want to say that the new Interface (i play for the first time since a while) is absolutely awesome. Especially the icons in the sidebar and galaxymap are now SUPER readable, what a difference that is to 1.09 when i started playing!

Phil will be very pleased!  We're actually winding down on a lot of areas of updates for the graphics for the 2.0 version of the game.  Remaining are the last icon tweaks, the weapon effects, and then updates to the ships themselves.  Obviously, that last category there is a huge one, and will take a while (until early October at least, most likely), but I have to say I'm really pleased with how it's coming together, too.  Go Phil!

That wasn't obvious to me when i read that, this change actually changes nothing - units still shot preferable at the closest thing when they come out of wormholes, thus the shielded tractors remain as useful as ever.

Yeah, for anything that doesn't shoot -- like tractor beams -- that will still work completely the same as before.  This was mainly a nerf for putting (literally) hundreds of turrets under a force field and using that to make it a death fortress of impenetrable doom.

Edit. Also the change that starships are no more immune to spider turrets is SUPERB (Does that mean i can now slow them down like regular ships too?)

Yeah, they have had non-invincible engines for a few releases now (can't remember exactly since when).  So great counters for starships are now spider turrets as well as the other new things like Gravitational Turrets, etc.  I think that will really help out with players who were getting beaten to a pulp by starships in the past!

[x4000]

New version:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,1392.msg8903.html#msg8903