Prerelease 1.999J (Achievements, sniper buffs)

[x4000]

The latest prerelease is available at http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar1999J.zip

That version is an upgrade from version 1.301, so you have to already have 1.301 (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 1999I:
(Cumulative release notes since 1.301 are attached at the bottom)

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-Sniper and Spider Turrets now do 3x more damage, but also cost 3x more.

-Snipers I-IV now do 3x more damage, and have costs that are increased by 3x (or more, in the case of the higher-level snipers.

-Achievements have now been added to the game!  129 of them, in fact (43 bronze, 40 silver, and 46 gold).  Many achievements are not unlocked until the end of a campaign, but others are unlocked as the game progresses.  The achievements that are checked in-game are checked right after autosaves, every two minutes, and right on load of a savegame.

NEW ART - Philippe Chabot
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Updated Game Logo

[x4000]

Lots of cool ideas have been put forth for achievements in these forums, and not all of them are going to make it into 2.0.  This version 1.999J includes 129 achievements in all (43 bronze, 40 silver, and 46 gold), and that's already a pretty huge number, so that's probably going to be it for the 2.0 version given the already-vast number and the amount of other work still on the slate for 2.0.  More achievements will be added in the expansions, and possibly through DLC, but the amount of achievements here will already take hundreds hours to complete on their own.  I pity the completionists.

On a related note, I'd love any and all feedback on testing with these achievements.  I have tested the general mechanisms and all of the achievements by type, but there are a lot of different achievements of the same type, many of which are quite hard to get, so I have not tested them all.  I don't need people to go on a testing binge or anything, but if you see anything amiss please let me know (as always).  There is perhaps a week, perhaps two, left in development of 2.0, so my main focus now (aside from the new updater and Steam integration) is simply going to be bugfixes and balance tweaks, things that won't be a major risk for introducing any new problems into the game.

[Revenantus]

Great stuff, nice to see some of my suggestions made it in there too.

A couple of minor things;

The 'For the Greater Good' and 'What Have We Done' losses achievements both have the same description as the Kills: Xenocidal achievement.

[quickstix]

-Sniper and Spider Turrets now do 3x more damage, but also cost 3x more.

-Snipers I-IV now do 3x more damage, and have costs that are increased by 3x (or more, in the case of the higher-level snipers.)

Any prerelease with (balanced ) sniper buffs is a must download for me.

[Kjara]

Do you want to perhaps increase the engine damage on spider turrets as well? Otherwise it could almost be seen as a nerf to them if you were using them primarily for the engine damage(at least in the early game--since you now have to pay 3x the costs for the same engine damage).  Not sure if they need a 3x increase, but a small amount might be nice(up to 30 or 40 perhaps?)

[x4000]

Great stuff, nice to see some of my suggestions made it in there too.

Oh yeah, lots of your ideas!

The 'For the Greater Good' and 'What Have We Done' losses achievements both have the same description as the Kills: Xenocidal achievement.

Whoops, thanks for that.  Fixed for the next version.

[x4000]

Do you want to perhaps increase the engine damage on spider turrets as well? Otherwise it could almost be seen as a nerf to them if you were using them primarily for the engine damage(at least in the early game--since you now have to pay 3x the costs for the same engine damage).  Not sure if they need a 3x increase, but a small amount might be nice(up to 30 or 40 perhaps?)

Another great catch.  I think a 3X increase is good for now, we'll see how we do.  This is basically like letting the player have 3X as many of these sniper and spider turrets, of course, but we'll see how that goes.

[Oewyn]

Do you want to perhaps increase the engine damage on spider turrets as well? Otherwise it could almost be seen as a nerf to them if you were using them primarily for the engine damage(at least in the early game--since you now have to pay 3x the costs for the same engine damage).  Not sure if they need a 3x increase, but a small amount might be nice(up to 30 or 40 perhaps?)

Correct me if i'm wrong, but engine damage has always been a mulitplier based upon the normal damage a ship/turret does.

So if a spider turret does 20 damage and has a 20x engine damage multiplier, it will do 400 engine damage.

If spider turrets damage is increased by 3x that means that the engine damage is also increased by 3x times whatever the engine multiplier is.

[x4000]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but engine damage has always been a mulitplier based upon the normal damage a ship/turret does.

So if a spider turret does 20 damage and has a 20x engine damage multiplier, it will do 400 engine damage.

If spider turrets damage is increased by 3x that means that the engine damage is also increased by 3x times whatever the engine multiplier is.

Nope, engine damage is wholly unrelated to the main damage.  There is engine health and regular health.  Shots with engine damage damage the engine health independently of the main health, the two aren't related at all.

[Kjara]

One minor suggestion here might be to change the wording for engine damage(even if you just get rid of the x).  Currently it does look like a multiplier rather than just the amount of engine damage a unit does.

Edit: Oh the other thing I forgot to mention earlier is that you haven't tweaked the energy cost(so basically each sniper is 1/3rd the cost in energy what they used to be).  I think this is fine personally(as this is another buff above the ability to field 3x the number of them--and I feel that they need it), but wanted to make sure you realized this.

[Echo35]

A little UI Bug. In the Options Menu, where the zoom and pan options are, the check box for default move and pan speed is slightly cut off. It ends with (Hold shift to

EDIT: Also, the Incoming Wave timer is in the format 00:00:00. Are the first two zeroes really necessary? Does it need an hours indicator? Didn't think the game warned you that far ahead

[x4000]

New version:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,1592.msg10133.html#msg10133

[x4000]

One minor suggestion here might be to change the wording for engine damage(even if you just get rid of the x).

Good call, will be changed in the next version (L).

[x4000]

A little UI Bug. In the Options Menu, where the zoom and pan options are, the check box for default move and pan speed is slightly cut off. It ends with (Hold shift to

EDIT: Also, the Incoming Wave timer is in the format 00:00:00. Are the first two zeroes really necessary? Does it need an hours indicator? Didn't think the game warned you that far ahead

Thanks, good points.  I've added a topic for this to handle for version L:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,1593.0.html

[x4000]

I've now put out L:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,1592.msg10133.html#msg10133