Prerelease 3.080 (Aggregate targeting, sniper focus fire, other tweaks)

[Goekhan]

Is that not the normal behavior for an idle ship?  Or does it chase?  Or do you mean tell it not to fire until the enemy is within Y range?

Nah what I mean is (I suggested it before but got lost I assume ) like selecting my units while holding down left mouse button, selecting an area with right mouse button so that all ships being selected attack those in that area. Long range weapons tend to attack here and there (if you love zenith bombards, you'll know what I mean)

[keith.lamothe]

So it tells it to queue up an attack order for each ship in the bounding box, or it specifies an actual rectangle of game area to restrict auto-targeting to, so if ships leave that area they are no longer eligible and if other ships enter the area later they become eligible?

[RCIX]

I think the former. It reminds me of the new "Paint attack" feature in SC2, where you hold down the right mouse button and get a "paint brush" that you paint over enemy units to assign targets (first come first queued).

[raptor331]

I would like to point out 1  bug and another potential bug.

1. I have been playing a little while and I notice that the units are stacking on top of each other again. The picture shows enemy ai missile frigats stacked on top each other.

2. The picture also shows the status of an enemy Z Polarizor with its engines destroyed, and yet I have not sent any of my ships through there. My guess is that the AI may have a functional Golem that restores dead ships(forgot the name sorry), and that the ships my ion cannon killed are reinforcing that planet. But I highly doubt that is the case.

[raptor331]

Nevermind, I just updated and the problem is solved.

[vonduus]

Not sure where to post this, so here it goes:

I do not have a 'normal' internet account 24/7 like people have most. Details are irrelevant, but from time to time I have to manually download patches to one of my computers.

Not long ago there was a very nice OP standard layout for release and pre-release messages, telling you in detail where to go and what to do to create your own manual update (pointing to a directory with patches and telling you how to pack this patch file with a fake zip-file or something, so that the game could recognize the created pack file for manual update). This explanation was clear and to the point and most helpful.

This information is missing from the OP of this thread, instead it says something about some other file (Beta director xml file) that you can use if you want to update to 3.080. But this info  is not very detailed, and it was not what I wanted - what I wished for was to update a game on a computer that has no internet access, to version 3.060, by downloading and constructing the patch file on my computer and then transferring it via lan (as I have done before, most recently three-four weeks ago).

So I suggest that on every future (pre)release note you give us a link to the good old explanation on manual updates (including a link to the directory of old patches).

This really should be standard on every prerelease news post, so gamers like me with no deep knowledge of file structures can have a chance to try the prerelease for some time and then decide that they'd rather revert to the latest official version.

[triggerman602]

why doesnt x4000 just post the zip file with director.xml and the patch file in it... it takes literally less then 30 seconds.

[x4000]

New version now out: http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,4279.0.html

[x4000]

Not sure where to post this, so here it goes:

I do not have a 'normal' internet account 24/7 like people have most. Details are irrelevant, but from time to time I have to manually download patches to one of my computers.

Not long ago there was a very nice OP standard layout for release and pre-release messages, telling you in detail where to go and what to do to create your own manual update (pointing to a directory with patches and telling you how to pack this patch file with a fake zip-file or something, so that the game could recognize the created pack file for manual update). This explanation was clear and to the point and most helpful.

This information is missing from the OP of this thread, instead it says something about some other file (Beta director xml file) that you can use if you want to update to 3.080. But this info  is not very detailed, and it was not what I wanted - what I wished for was to update a game on a computer that has no internet access, to version 3.060, by downloading and constructing the patch file on my computer and then transferring it via lan (as I have done before, most recently three-four weeks ago).

So I suggest that on every future (pre)release note you give us a link to the good old explanation on manual updates (including a link to the directory of old patches).

This really should be standard on every prerelease news post, so gamers like me with no deep knowledge of file structures can have a chance to try the prerelease for some time and then decide that they'd rather revert to the latest official version.

The rules for how to do this have changed since we moved to Amazon S3 -- there is no way to browse a directory there, so you have to download the files individually.  Aside from the fact that you cannot browse a directory, however, the instructions in the OP here are the same ones that I have been using for months.  Here is the old explanation that you are reminiscing about; it's really the same thing, aside from the fact that you can no longer browse the directory to find the zip file (thanks to Amazon S3).  If you have suggestions of what would make this clearer for you, I'd be happy to hear them, though -- I'm not sure what the points of confusion are at the moment.

Oh -- and regarding updating to 3.060, there are simply links (as always) on the official release here: http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,4192.0.html  It has the manual patch, which is simply a zip file you can download, as well as the raw full files of 3.060.  It's only the prereleases where you have to construct something yourself.

why doesnt x4000 just post the zip file with director.xml and the patch file in it... it takes literally less then 30 seconds.

With small updates, it would be fairly quick.  With larger ones, it can add around 10+ minutes to the entire prerelease process.  If I can't do it for all releases, I'm not going to do it for any.

[x4000]

For the next version, I made a few improvements to the manual-patch-creation instructions, hopefully those will help: http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,4279.msg28633.html#msg28633

[vonduus]

it's really the same thing, aside from the fact that you can no longer browse the directory to find the zip file (thanks to Amazon S3). 

I am a computer illiterate, I was brought up on a macintosh  . So imo it is far from the same thing, the fact that I could visually browse the directory list made it very simple for me quickly to locate and download the files needed. Without browsing I tend to find some pages with computer speak that leaves me mystified. I see and understand that it is not possible to go to this directory any more. Which is okay, I don't believe many people will want to revert to an old version. I myself just needed a patch to the latest official release.

Oh -- and regarding updating to 3.060, there are simply links (as always) on the official release here: http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,4192.0.html  It has the manual patch, which is simply a zip file you can download, as well as the raw full files of 3.060.  It's only the prereleases where you have to construct something yourself.

There should be a direct link from any prerelease post to the latest official release post:

"If you for any reason want to update to the official release version (3.060) manually, the links can be found here."

If you have suggestions of what would make this clearer for you, I'd be happy to hear them, though -- I'm not sure what the points of confusion are at the moment.

No confusion, you just explained it to me   .

A workaround to avoid confusion could be to stickify the official release on the general discussions forum.

And for suggestions, well, the old, good explanation just said:

"Click here and choose what you want, then click here to download another file, and finally do some magic to those two files" (+ magic explained).

The new one should basically do the same without the directory:

"Click here and here to download the two necessary files for a manual upgrade, then do some magic etc."

Another question: If I update to the latest prerelease, will it then be possible to downgrade to the official version by patching, or will I have to do a full reinstall? The answer to this question also should be shown in the prerelease posts.

[vonduus]

Ha, you beat me there. This new explanation is very simple and to the point, thank you. If it had been available yesterday, it would have saved me from a few hours fighting a rather idiosyncratic modem. 

But I still think the prerelease post should point people at the official release version, and it should tell us what to do if we for some reason wants to downgrade.

edit: The link to the official release is there all right, my mistake. So all I need to  know now is: If I happen to have upgraded to 3.081, and I for some mp-related reason very quickly want to downgrade to 3.060, will I then have to reinstall the game? (Or keep two copies?) Remember, I know next to nothing about computers, so to me a patch could well work both ways?

[x4000]

I just updated the new one to also include the link to the latest official, which is a good idea, thanks.

As far as reversion goes, you pretty much need to download the entire full raw files of that version (which it now notes there), because sometimes we replace "removed" images with 0-byte files that then cause the older versions of the game to crash.  Other than that one thing, reverting should work fine, but it's common enough that the CTD risk with the non-complete reversions is probably too high for comfort.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, if you're reverting for stability's sake, keep your official install handy

[vonduus]

AIWar is amazing in great parts of its user friendliness. I got plenty of time to play with betas, but my Brother-in-Arms is a very busy man, so when we meet to play we don't want no fuzzing around with potentially unstable programs, or modems or routers or computer speak, we just want click, click and here we go.

I am contemplating to move on to 3.081 to see what this new targeting thing is all about, but I understand that I'd better install a second copy of AIWar for this, thus ensuring that me and my friend can always play a quick match of AIWar whenever my friend has got the time.

Thanks a lot.