Prerelease 3.032 (Riot Starship updates, bugfixes)

[x4000]

The latest beta is available via the Updates window in version 3.000 or greater of the game.  Just open the game and you can quickly download the prerelease through the updates tab.  If you don't yet have 3.000 or greater, you can download 3.000 here.  This prerelease version is compatible with any vendor's version of the game -- Steam, Impulse, whatever.

Note:  If you have bug reports related to this release, please log them in the bug reports subforum with one bug per topic.  It makes things infinitely easier for us.  Thanks!

Looking for a Patch That Can Be Manually-Installed?
Because of the time involved in creating multiple versions of each patch, we only create manually-installable patches for official versions of the game, not each beta prerelease.  But, if you're running version 3.022 of the game or higher, you can easily crete your own manually-installable beta patch!  If you don't yet have 3.022, but do have 3.000 or greater, you can download a simple zip containing the files of 3.022 here.  Simply unpack those on top of your existing files in your AI War folder, and voila -- you're on 3.022.

To create your own manual beta patch, you'll want to go here.  This folder contains all of the beta updates.  You just need whatever the most recent one is at the time (probably the same version number as this post).  Download that zip file, which if you try to open will say it's corrupt -- that's okay, it's not really a zip file.  Next download the updated Director.Xml file from that folder.  Finally create a new zip file on your computer, and put both the director and the fake-zip-file inside it.  Call your outer zip file something that starts with Beta and ends with an extension of .zip.  Beta.zip will work just fine, or you can name it after the specific version number if you want to hang onto it.  And that's it!  Now you have your very own manually-installable package of the AI War beta version of your choice, which you can install by simply selecting via your Updates window in the game.

What's new since 3.030:
(Cumulative release notes since 3.000 are attached at the bottom)

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-Added shotgun noise from I-KP to the Riot Control Shotgun Module shot.

-Previously ships in FRD would sometimes ignore distant ships based on guard radius, fixed to not regard guard radius in FRD.

-Previously when loading a save (generally an autosave) that was created on the exact same Game Second as an auto AI progress increase, it would apply the auto increase again despite it having also been applied before the save was created.  Fixed to remember the last auto increment Game Second and not increment again until enough additional seconds have passed.

-Devourer Golem now completely unable to damage guard posts and command stations, in order to prevent them from freeing high mark AI ships to attack the player in the first 10 minutes.  Same applied to Dyson Gatlings, Marauders, and Resistance Fighters (this is not ideal as we would like gatlings/marauders to be able to blow up player command stations, so may revisit this).

-Previously non-cold-storage lighting turrets would fire even if only fully cloaked enemy ships were present.  Fixed so that they will not fire unless there is some legitimate target provoking them, but any fully cloaked enemy ships in their radius will still be damaged by the aoe (but they will *not* be decloaked thereby).

-Previously exo-wormholes were being treated as AI units during loading of a game, which could cause them to fail a collision check against other stationary objects and move out of the way, resulting in the exo-wormhole not being in the same place after loading a game.  Fixed to not consider collision-moving for exo-wormholes.

-Previously ships that were able to fire through forcefields were completely unable to fire at targets protected by a decoy drone AND completely unable to fire at the drone (other ships could at least shoot the drone).  Fixed so that ships able to fire through forcefields are able to fire at ships protected by a decoy drone as if the drone were not there.

-Force fields are now immune to translocation.

-Added support for removing individual AI types from consideration for random selection by placing disabledaitypes.txt file in your exe's directory (just like altplanetnames.txt) with a line for each AIType code to disable.

-AICommand objects now pooled for some performance boost.

-Added ship-based forcefield graphic from I-KP, and it is used for the forcefield generator module that can be mounted on the Riot Control Starship.

-Added some autotargetting optimizations for Riot Control Starships to disable the engines of as many enemy ships as possible.  Also applied same logic to spiders and spider turrets.

CHANGES TO PAST PRERELEASES
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-When giving an attack order to a ship with modules, all the ship's modules will act as if given the same attack order.

-Munitions booster speed changed back down from 24 to 18/19/19/20 for Mk I/II/III/IV respectively.

-Riot Control Starship speed changed from 24 to 20.

-Riot Control Starship MkI engine damage *significantly* reduced.

-Riot Control Starship damage against infinite-engine melee ships significantly boosted.

-Rapid Fire Machine Gun module for Riot Starship: increased attack power by 50%, reduced range from 17500 to 14000 and minimum hit chance from 15% to 10%.

Updates in 3.032:

-Fixed a thread synchronization bug with Game Command pooling that was causing IndexOutOfBounds exceptions in game.

[vonduus]

Ha, I managed to go to bed ten minutes before this new patch arrived.

Now I have the whole day to play .

These nerfs to the riot might do it, I will try it out right away.

[vonduus]

So far I don't feel the nerfs. At all. On the contrary, now the riot ships kill structures like guard posts. They didn't do that yesterday, I believe. To verify that it really was the riot ships doing all this damage, I sent my dreadnoughts away, separated the riots from the main fleet and sent them unsupported towards an outlying guard post. They killed 12 or more garrison ships of various kinds in less than a minute, and the guard post itself in less than two minutes.  I then sent them after a Special Guards Station, here their performance looks a bit more reasonable: I pounded away for five minutes, long range, and only reduced the Special Guards station some 25%. I moved closer, to medium range, and killed the remaining 75% in less than two minutes, but that cost me three on-board forcefields and almost killed one riot ship before the rest of the fleet came to their rescue.

With me being so focused on testing, the AI managed to kill one of my heavily defended gate planets, and now he is heading for my home planet, so this game is probably lost  .

I haven't yet met any melee units, so I will start a new game and make sure the AI will use those. More feedback later, then.

I-KP, the new forcefields are gorgeous, also in-game.

PS I love these ships, it is with a bleeding heart that I recommend nerfing them.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Hmmm, I don't think its a problem especially if 5 100k resource starships can kill a guard post with only a dozen guards. xD

[vonduus]

The problem is that in combination with a decent size mixed battlefleet they become virtually invincible.

How do I 'make sure' that the ai will use melee ships? Which ais prefer those ships?

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Strangely there's no Braveheart AI.

Zenith Descendant starts with Viral Shredders, I think.

[vonduus]

Thanks for the info. I was lucky, I went for random ai and got tag teamers, they have cutlasses. I found out when they came and destroyed my starship constructor and my 90% finished riot ship. I love this game .

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, not done tuning the Riots (mostly down). Part of the problem this time around is that while I *significantly* nerfed the engine damage I also made it's auto-target logic deadly to engines.

Here's the 3.030v3.031 comparison:

Ship	"3.030"	ED/Shot	Shots	Cycles	EDPC	VS "3.031"	ED/Shot	Shots	Cycles	EDPC	Difference	EDPC	Percent
Riot Main Gun		150	5	70	10.7		100	5	70	7.1		-3.6	-33.33%
Riot Machine Gun		40	2	20	4.0		30	3	20	4.5		0.5	12.50%
Riot Laser		100	4	80	5.0		35	4	80	1.8		-3.3	-65.00%
Riot Shotgun		110	50	100	55.0		22	50	100	11.0		-44.0	-80.00%
Riot Tazer		100	1	120	0.8		50	1	120	0.4		-0.4	-50.00%

I ran a number of tests of 5 riots in 2M/2L/2S versus 2000 bomber MkIs emerging from one wormhole 17500 range away and running to another wormhole just behind them.  I measured their impact by the count of bombers that made it into the other system.

3.030 numbers with old autotargetting: ~1300 bombers made it (700)
3.031 numbers with old autotargetting: ~1700 bombers made it (300)
3.030 numbers with new autotargetting: ~400 bombers made it (1600)
3.031 numbers with new autotargetting: ~ 1450 bombers made it (550)

So there was a fair bit of colliding changes that make the nerfs difficult to evaluate.

One question: how many bomber MkIs (200 engine health each) should a single riot MkI in optimum configuration be able to disable from range 20000? (by "optimum config" I don't mean 2M/2L/2S, I mean "using the best modules for multi-engine-damage, whatever those are after balancing")  Right now it's a little over 100.

What about a MkII riot? A MkIII?

[x4000]

Updates in 3.032 (now out):

-Fixed a thread synchronization bug with Game Command pooling that was causing IndexOutOfBounds exceptions in game.

[vonduus]

One question: how many bomber MkIs (200 engine health each) should a single riot MkI in optimum configuration be able to disable from range 20000? (by "optimum config" I don't mean 2M/2L/2S, I mean "using the best modules for multi-engine-damage, whatever those are after balancing")  Right now it's a little over 100.

What about a MkII riot? A MkIII?

I can see you have reduced the numbers a lot. Perhaps with the right auto-target logic it will turn out to be just fine for a mark I.
A little over 100 you say - what is the time frame? 100 per second, or per minute?

Based on my knowledge of the behavior of the current model of the ship (= index 100) I believe the relative numbers should be:

Mk. I:
Optimal long range configuration: 50 (at most).
Optimal medium range configuration: 70-80

Mk. II:
Long range: 70
Medium range: 90-100

Mk. III:
Long range: 90
Medium range: 110-120

I don't know about short range, as of now the taxer is on the same hardpoint as the shotgun and the forcefield, so I would probably never buy one. The shotgun should really compete with the laser and not with the force field - and thereby force the player to choose between a decent long range capability and a devastating (but more risky) medium/short range one.  I have no objections against Riot ships being overwhelming on medium or close range, where they can be reached by a lot of different enemy ships.

In my ongoing game I bought a Zenith Power Generator, so I am under almost constant attack by waves of up to a thousand ships, still early game (3 hours in). As long as I keep my 5 Riot ships = 20 lasers away from the action (edit: But of course still in range), I have nothing to fear. I believe that 2000 bombers might be a challenge though, and this is the main reason why I feel that the Riot ship version 3.031 really is a mark III. Normally you don't get 2k raids before the late game, and at that time you will have the mk. III to face the challenge.

edit: Idea to a new slogan for Arcen: "We patch your game while you write"

[Anticept]

-Devourer Golem now completely unable to damage guard posts and command stations, in order to prevent them from freeing high mark AI ships to attack the player in the first 10 minutes.  Same applied to Dyson Gatlings, Marauders, and Resistance Fighters (this is not ideal as we would like gatlings/marauders to be able to blow up player command stations, so may revisit this).

How about an alteration to the AI subroutines so that they will not attack the player planets until that system is made aware of the players presence? They would continue to attack any enemies passing through, though. Also, do not allow these units to spawn within 1 system of the player's homeworlds to prevent the rare moments where they might actually still assault a high level world bordering the player. If the player was the one who attacked and killed the guard posts or command stations, then it would make that system aware of the player's presence.

Also, are anti-armor ships supposed to be ineffective against tanks?

[x4000]

-Devourer Golem now completely unable to damage guard posts and command stations, in order to prevent them from freeing high mark AI ships to attack the player in the first 10 minutes.  Same applied to Dyson Gatlings, Marauders, and Resistance Fighters (this is not ideal as we would like gatlings/marauders to be able to blow up player command stations, so may revisit this).

How about an alteration to the AI subroutines so that they will not attack the player planets until that system is made aware of the players presence? They would continue to attack any enemies passing through, though. Also, do not allow these units to spawn within 1 system of the player's homeworlds to prevent the rare moments where they might actually still assault a high level world bordering the player. If the player was the one who attacked and killed the guard posts or command stations, then it would make that system aware of the player's presence.

That would pretty much drastically change both how the AI Alert works, and would make threat pointless and AI retreats really ineffective.

Also, are anti-armor ships supposed to be ineffective against tanks?

No, they are supposed to be strong against them.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

One question: how many bomber MkIs (200 engine health each) should a single riot MkI in optimum configuration be able to disable from range 20000? (by "optimum config" I don't mean 2M/2L/2S, I mean "using the best modules for multi-engine-damage, whatever those are after balancing")  Right now it's a little over 100.

I think not very many. 30? 40?

With 5 Riots that is still 150-200... That would overprice Riots probably, but that's fixable. Right now Riots are kind of victory in a can.

A useful number to have purely for comparison purposes might be to look at how many ships an old Dreadnought group with old AI could disable. Consider how useful the Dreadnought groups were with much less engine damage capability, and consider that the player can readily kite. Especially since Riots are much faster than Dreadnoughts.

If a riot can disable 100 bombers (more engine health than most) in 17000 range, then 5-10 riots could readily disable all the ship at a core world with thousands.

After all a MkIV bomber has the same engine health as a Mk I, and Mk Is are by far the fastest bombers to boot.

Ironically, a horde of MK I units is far more resistant to Riots than  a much smaller group of Mk IVs...

[I-KP]

It all depends on the cost of the Riot MkI doesn't it.  No need to explain the logic behind that I expect.

Is it possible for the Shotgun weapon to damage engines rapidly but only down to a floor of 25% engine health remaining?  That way the weapon remains ideal for slowing a mob down, but never actually stops them dead in and of itself thus relying on the Main Guns, MG and Las weapons to finish off the job in the usual engine-killing manner.  The result should be a huge spreading out of an attacking mob with far fewer actually being shot to a standstill.  This would require the Shotgun, due to its poor range and reload cycle, to be extremely effective per blast, i.e., being able to reduce the engines to 25% on a pretty big mob.

What is the ship cap on the Riots per Mark?  Limit it to 3/2/1 and you can afford for individual stats to be a bit on the hot side.  If a full set of six in one place slows 1'000 ships to 25% engine speed, and perhaps the support guns are than able to shoot something like 25% of those to a full stop, then that is effective in stringing out an attacking horde but hardly enough to render it trivial and almost entirely immobile.  The full on combat ships would still have to do most of the work, it's not as if the Riots could do it on their own.

Keep in mind what a full set of other star ships can do on their own for their cost.  A handful of Zeniths can pretty much solo most MkI, II & III worlds.  Could 2 MkII Riots ever compete with that?  Certainly not in their current form. 

[vonduus]

It all depends on the cost of the Riot MkI doesn't it.

Is it possible for the Shotgun weapon to damage engines rapidly but only down to a floor of 25% engine health remaining?  

ship cap ... Limit it to 3/2/1 and you can afford for individual stats to be a bit on the hot side.  
 

Cost, ship cap and retarding rather than immobilizing, these suggestions may take us a long way in the right direction. I still feel the need of a nerf in the long range department, though.

I just met a CPA (1200 assorted ships, mostly mark III and IV). I had my Riot Ships, long range version, and 700+ ships. In the chaos the AI managed to kill four out of five Riot Ships. So they are not unvulnerable, as I almost claimed. Nor invincible, as I actually did claim .

But I am not sure if we can conclude anything important about the ships from my not being able to withstand a CPA. I am really not very good at CPAs.