Prerelease 3.093 (Huge golem rebalance, MRS buff, planetary summary fixes)

[x4000]

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 3.091:
(Cumulative release notes since 3.060 are attached at the bottom)

-------------------

-Broken Golems still require AI Progress to repair the same as before, but now regular Golems no longer require AI Progress for repairs.

-Broken/Regular Armored and Artillery Golems now require more metal than crystal to repair, but still the equivalent of both.

-Armored Golems now cost 2x as much to repair as Broken Armored Golems.

-Artillery Golems now cost 4x as much to repair as Broken Artillery Golems.

-Regenerator Golems now cost 5x as much to repair as Broken Regenerator Golems.

-Cursed Golems are now repairable, but no longer have vampirism.

-Hive Golems now cost 10x as much to repair as Broken Hive Golems (there is very little reason for these guys to get hurt).

-Botnet Golems now cost 2x as much to repair as Broken Botnet Golems.

-Black Widow Golems still cost the same to repair as Broken Black Widow Golems, for those wondering.

-Armored Golems and Artillery Golems now require 600,000 energy to use.

-Black Widow Golems now only require 300,000 energy to use.  Their health has also been dropped from 60 million to 30 million.

-Cursed Golems now only require 200,000 energy to use.  Their health has also been dropped from 80 million to 20 million.

-Botnet Golems now only require 300,000 energy to use.

-The default difficulty of the AI is now 6, rather than 1.

-The move speed of mobile repair stations has been doubled from 12 to 24.  The repair range of mobile repair stations has been increased from 3,000 to 15,000.

CHANGES TO PAST PRERELEASES
=======

-fixed a number of planetary summary problems introduced with earlier performance improvements, including not showing guide screens or control groups with ships not on the current planet

Updates in 3.093:

-Fixed the issue with the MRS range not really having been increased as expected.  The effective range of them was actually 1,000, before, too.

[Doddler]

Very cool balance changes.  I'm curious about the cursed golem though, does the rate of repair out-pace the rate of self damage?  The lack of Vampirism changes it's usage considerably.

[x4000]

Yeah, without the aip over time, with vampirism it could be a Von neumannmachine in combat. For the repair rate, you will need multiple engineers standing by to keep it in good health, though.

[ShadowOTE]

I like the MRS changes. It was very frustrating to have to move the fleet around them to get large numbers repaired quickly, and the increased speed should help them keep up as well as stay out of trouble. I think we'll see a big upswing in golem usage now, since the constant threat of slow but steady AIP increases from repairing them made me (and presumably others) wary of using them most of the time.

[triggerman602]

WOW love all these changes. il definalty try out golems and will also try taking the MRS into combat.

EDIT: the repair range does not seem to be any larger.

[orzelek]

-The move speed of mobile repair stations has been doubled from 12 to 24.  The repair range of mobile repair stations has been increased from 3,000 to 15,000.

I will love this when it's fixed. Currently MRS still seems to repair for 3k only. Even after being rebuilt.

[Mánagarmr]

MRS changes is <3, no doubt. Although a fix would be nice

[superking]

wahey, finally I wont feel a sense of AIP guilt when I use golems ^_^

MRS change brilliant, I was just thinking yesterday how annoying it was to have to micro them about your army too!

default difficulty 6? why not 7, where all the cool AI behaviors come online?

I would really like to see the mega high energy cost of zenith bombers/sentinels and the weakness of autobombs, cutlasses & vampires adressed next 

[TheWordWillSetYouFree]

Golems are still hugely undesirable. They just aren't worth it, and now you have shifted that for cost wise. I couldn't repair a golem even though that was my sole output of resources. In maybe 30 minutes I repaired it 10%.

On sandbox mode, which is 1 ai diff, I put the botnet golem and an artillery golem on the planet and after a few minutes I was swamped with mark 4 and core ships being spammed at me at an uncontrollable rate.
It's just insane the penalties that I had to suffer after reactivating the golem. For me at least, using a golem makes life much, much harder.

If I had spent all that resources on ships and starships then I would have had a lower AI progress and would be able to actually take on a planet without risking masses of enemy ships spawning at an uncontrollable rate and destroying my home world. The only way for me to take on that planet with the golems would have been to snipe the command center to stop reinforcements, but what happens if I just want to move my golems through that planet to bypass it? I can't. Because enemy waves spawn so fast that I have to devote the golems to stop these waves from overrunning my home world! Negating the entire point of the operation of bypassing planets!

The penalties on golem usage reverse the point of having a golem. If I did actually capture a golem in a serious game I would have to devote the golem to counter the golem's side effects! This is absolutely absurd.

Seriously, golems are great fun to use but in a serious game they are a joke.

[Doddler]

On sandbox mode, which is 1 ai diff, I put the botnet golem and an artillery golem on the planet and after a few minutes I was swamped with mark 4 and core ships being spammed at me at an uncontrollable rate.

This is actually due to the way reinforcements are multiplied.  For example, lets say the AI wants to reinforce a planet with 100 units.

Normal: 100 ships arrive at the planet.
1 Golem: 100 * 5 = 500 ships arrive at the planet
2 Golems: 100 * 5 * 5 = 2500 ships arrive at the planet

That's kind of extreme, but more than one golem in a game is rather unlikely.  The penalties are pretty rough, but I think some of the golems warrant possible usage.  Black Widow and Armored Golem are good enough that they might see usage in a real game.  Things like Artillery, I'm not really sure what it's designed to accomplish, only good use I've had for it was to blast command centers in systems without a mass driver, but there are a lot of other ships that could potentially be given that same role.

[TheWordWillSetYouFree]

On sandbox mode, which is 1 ai diff, I put the botnet golem and an artillery golem on the planet and after a few minutes I was swamped with mark 4 and core ships being spammed at me at an uncontrollable rate.

This is actually due to the way reinforcements are multiplied.  For example, lets say the AI wants to reinforce a planet with 100 units.

Normal: 100 ships arrive at the planet.
1 Golem: 100 * 5 = 500 ships arrive at the planet
2 Golems: 100 * 5 * 5 = 2500 ships arrive at the planet

That's kind of extreme, but more than one golem in a game is rather unlikely.  The penalties are pretty rough, but I think some of the golems warrant possible usage.  Black Widow and Armored Golem are good enough that they might see usage in a real game.  Things like Artillery, I'm not really sure what it's designed to accomplish, only good use I've had for it was to blast command centers in systems without a mass driver, but there are a lot of other ships that could potentially be given that same role.

What I hate is the disparity in resources spent on fleet ships or on the golem. For the same amount of resources I could have taken that system easily and without any 2.5k reinforcements spawning on the planet! I think that this is the main issue and I don't think that a lot of people get it.

For X amount of resources I get a golem which has:
+
Constant high DPS (only in some circumstances).
-
AI progress increase,
Massive energy usage,
Massive repair cost,
Wave multipliers,
Reinforcement multipliers,
A unit that hurts itself.

For the same X amount of resources I can get a fleet that has:
+
Easy to repair(resources wise),
Low energy usage,
No AI progress increase,
No wave multipliers,
No reinforcement multipliers,
Can add units to the fleet to make it more powerful as the game goes on.
-
Maybe not quite as powerful as a golem,
DPS decreases with casualties.


Now looking at the pros and cons, I would much rather the fleet. It is just much more flexible resources wise and you can actually split a fleet in half if you wanted to! Put them in fortresses and so forth...

[x4000]

Golems are the answer to "what should I spend my money on if I already have a huge fleet?"  Golems let you double, or more, the size of your fleet.  That's way too powerful to make "desirable" in the sense of "equal or anywhere in close to cost to rebuilding the entire rest of my fleet."  The costs may not be perfect yet, but the costs of repairing a broken golem has not changed whatsoever in... well, not since release of the game.

Seriously, TheWordWillSetYouFree, it seems like you have expectations that are simply never going to be met, based on what you are saying.  In fact, what you are advocating is specifically what I am trying to avoid: picking up golems "as a matter of course" and having them be just this awesome thing that doubles your effective power (or better) for no particular drawback.  These are not front-line units that can be swapped in as an alternative for something else.  These are something that come augment what you already have -- and you're going to need to capture extra resources, etc, to support them (same as you would if you doubled your fleet).

[x4000]

New version up with that fix for the MRS

Updates in 3.093:

-Fixed the issue with the MRS range not really having been increased as expected.  The effective range of them was actually 1,000, before, too.

[eRe4s3r]

Golems are the answer to "what should I spend my money on if I already have a huge fleet?"

The answer to that would be mercenaries imo. ^^

Or did the way mercs and their ship-caps are handled change recently?

[TheWordWillSetYouFree]

The costs may not be perfect yet, but the costs of repairing a broken golem has not changed whatsoever in... well, not since release of the game.

Artillery Golems now cost 4x as much to repair as Broken Artillery Golems.

Excuse me? I wasn't talking about broken golems. I was talking about golems that have been in a fight and need repairing.

Golems are the answer to "what should I spend my money on if I already have a huge fleet?"

That's what mercenary ships are for! What is the point of introducing another unit to fill this role when mercenary ships are probably the most under used units in the entire game?

In fact, what you are advocating is specifically what I am trying to avoid: picking up golems "as a matter of course" and having them be just this awesome thing that doubles your effective power (or better) for no particular drawback.

If you are specifically trying to avoid this then what are they doing in the game? What is the point of a unit that makes life a misery for "coolness"? I didn't say that they should have no drawbacks by the way, they definitely should, but they should be something manageable.

In my opinion it should behave something like a fortress. It should have weaknesses and strengths. And for a massive ships it should bloody well have better strengths than weaknesses.