Important: This update contains some experimental new targeting code. We'd love your help finding any issues that might be there with it, but just fair warning. Best bet is to keep the old copy of your AIWar.exe in case you want to revert, not that we think there's anything that seriously wrong with the targeting.
The latest beta is available via the Updates window in version 3.060 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 3.060 or greater, you can download 3.060
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 you can easily create your own manually-installable beta patch! Please note that current betas can only be successfully applied to version
3.060 of the game or later (if you later wish to revert to the official version for any reason, you can download the full raw files from the above link to do so).
To create your own manual beta patch, simply download these two files:
1.
Current Beta Director Xml File.
2.
Current Beta Zip File.
If you try to open that zip file, it will say it's corrupt -- that's okay, it's not really a zip file. 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. Please note that "Beta" in the filename is case-sensitive.
What's new since 3.080:(Cumulative release notes since 3.060 are attached at the bottom)
-------------------
-When a ship is reclaimed, it looks for a friendly MRS on the same planet, and if it finds any it automatically moves toward the closest one.
-SuperFortress energy cost changed from 100 to 20000 (100 was a holdover from it's AI-only days).
-Further rebalancing of Riot Tazer:
--Recharge time from 6 seconds to 3.5 seconds
--Paralyze time from 1 second to 0.75 seconds
--Engine damage from 0 to 2
--Attack power from 400 to 300
-Ships are now much more likely to shoot at overkilled targets when no non-overkill targets are available.
-When a shot disappears because its target was already destroyed by something else (common in overkill cases), and it was fired within its firing ship's current reload cycle, and the firing ship has more than 1 second left on its reload timer, its reload timer is set to 1 second. This is an experimental change to be evaluated via prerelease.
-Changed "AI Progress If Killed" ability text to "AI Progress If Killed Or Scrapped"
-Fixed bug where shots with an engine-damage-floor (most riot module shots) were setting the target's engine health to the floor rather than doing normal engine damage capped by the floor.
-"Engine Shredder" targeting logic used by Riot modules, Spiders, and Spider turrets somewhat improved to further avoid engine-overkill.
-Minor buffs to riot machine gun and riot laser engine damage.
-Ion Cannons now prioritize higher-tech/more-valuable targets.
-Added experimental versions of Heavy Beam Cannon MkI, MkII, and MkIII.
-Various minor interface bugs fixed.
-Astro trains now no longer have an attack bonus against constructors.
-If you have no command stations or mobile builders on a planet, the "b" key will now rotate through your colony ships on the planet.
-Previously non-ff-immune ships emerging into a wormhole completely covered by multiple collidable forcefields would pop out at the same coordinates as they had on their previous planet (which had no meaningful relation to coordinates on the new planet). Fixed to displace those ships to some location outside the set of covering forcefields.
-To prevent the Dyson from winning the game for the player, normal and player-ally dyson gatlings now gradually lose health outside the dyson sphere's system, such that they should automatically expire after 1000 seconds (16-17 minutes). This attrition does not apply to ai-ally gatlings.
-MLRS rate-of-fie doubled, attack bonus against fighters reduced from 10x to 4x.
-MLRS turret bonus against fighters reduced from 10x to 8x.
-Preliminary journal window implemented along with journal entries for prologue (beginning of game), destruction of first AI home station, and victory (epilogue).
CHANGES TO PAST PRERELEASES
=======
-fixed crash bug in overkill-ok-if-nothing-better-in-range code.
-in previous version the focus fire nodes could lead to divide by zero crashes.
Updates in 3.082:-in the previous version the fix for multi-ff collisions was causing odd behavior and desyncs even in single-ff cases; this should be fixed now.
-upped heavy beam cannon range from 10500/11500/12500 to 15000/16000/17000
