Prerelease 3.101 (Perf+, New Cheats, Sniper/Cutlass/Vamp buffs, scout star buff)

[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 3.100:
(Cumulative release notes since 3.060 are attached at the bottom)

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

-Fixed a performance-affecting bug that would cause performance to drop over time as ships moved between planets a lot.

-Fixed the description of the Deflector Drones, which was out of date.

-Fixed a bug incorrectly restricting the set of ships available for freeing by a CPA (which could make a CPA "disappear" if not enough lower-tech ships were available in a low-difficulty or low-ai-progress game).

-Fixed a minor bug that basically excluded force-field bearers and ai ships protected by them from being freed by a CPA. (units under normal forcefields will and should still be considered ineligible for CPA)

-Added the following cheats:
"send in the clowns" - spawns a normal CPA with 1 second left on the timer.
"warp in the clowns" - spawns a normal wave with 1 second left on the timer.
"pull the lever" - spawns a MASSIVE CPA with 1 second left on the timer (use with caution, particularly on difficulty >= 8 this will probably kill your framerate)

-Fixed bug that was letting the AI mapgen with forcefields even with Heavy Defense off (they can still do this on spokes maps, for the hub planets; this is intentional)

-Fixed bug where ships in cold storage were frequently not being displayed in the planetary summary.

-Fixed bug when show-unexplored-planets is off where ships won't use a valid explored path across the galaxy map if an unexplored path was shorter.

-Yet more performance improvements have been made to the speed of loading savegames.

-Snipers and sniper turrets now have a bonus against turrets, cutlasses, vampires, and zenith autobombs.

-Scout Starships now fire counter-sniper flares, making them instantly something that should go with on many raids.

-Players are now able to build twice as many vorticular cutlasses, and three times as many vampire claws/demon hands.

-Vampire claws and demon hands now cost 1/3 the crystal that they previously did.

-Fixed bug where zenith mirror shot reflection was not working, um, at all.

-Fixed bug where multiple overlapping forcefields were sometimes letting enemies move through them.

-Corrected cluster-attack-penalty math (again) so that Sentinels and whatnot should have the right effective multipliers.

-Mobile Repair Stations can now be transported inside transports.

CHANGES TO PAST PRERELEASES
=======

-In previous version loading a starship with modules into a transport would leave the modules floating in space (though they would snap back to the starship upon unloading).  Fixed to keep the modules with the starship.

[ShadowOTE]

Gah, now I have to wait for our current game to finish before I can update and pull the lever... actually, since one of the guys in our group plays DF and doesnt read the patch notes, this could be entertaining 

[RCIX]

Ok, the changes to the scout starship is really interesting. They might just be useful now! I've been wanting a mobile anti-sniper solution for quite a while... Edit: ooh, 12 demon hands, that's so much better

[x4000]

Those cheat names are courtesy of Keith.   He had to explain "pull the lever" to me, as I've not done much with DF, but I thought it was a really cool reference.  The cheats I named are peppered with many obscure game-related references, too.  I've also now added those to the official cheats list on the website.

I thought the scout starship change would be interesting, also, as I wanted a mobile counter-sniper also, and also wanted more for the scout starship to do.  And with the snipers being a bit more fearsome against a few more ships, that could lead to some more interesting back-and-forth strategies.  Melee ships + escorting scout starship = not instant death for the melee ships, etc.

On the demon hands, to be fair they are much cheaper now, too.  They may need more of a buff later, too, but we'll see.

[LintMan]

I'm sorry to say I'm having a number of problems with 3.101:

- Destroying a Zenith Reserve now crashes the game.  This happens in my old existing game and in the new game I just started to test this.  Attached is the "reserve test" save which crashes when I use the fleet at Tojuhas to destroy the Zenith Reserve there.  It says "ArgumentOutOfRange" exception in the popup, but "out of memory" in the log (also attached).  edit: (FYI: my sysem is running Windows 7 64-bit, and has 4 GB RAM)

- The Zenith Mirror bonus unit I selected at start isn't showing up in either the one or two-homeworld starts I tried where I picked it (80 planet/grid map/seed 1531250000).  On the two-homeworld start, I did receive the other unit (eyebot).  On another 1-home start with MLRS, that ship showed up fine, so it appears a problem with the Mirror.  If you load the attached saves, you'll see it isn't there.  In the "missing mirror" save, you'll see only the basic units are available.

- Unit caps seem to be messed up for multiple-homeworld-start games.  Previously, starting with 2 homes gave you a double unit cap, and it appears it no longer does.  (I really hope this isn't a planned change!)  In any case, this seems to have mixed up my existing game, which got all confused about how many existing ships I had after I deleted a bunch.  Unfortunately I accidentally deleted this save.  

- Cleanup Drones and Remains Rebuilders nolonger seem to have the "R" or "C" underneath them in the summary bar on the right side of the planet screen.

[FrostyThePyro]

my ship caps have gone wonky with 3.101, by which i mean in a single homeworld game the ship cap for mark I, has dropped to 100, all other fleet ships have had a proportional drop (except scouts which apear to be uneffected).  Starships are uneffected.  Also i started a 2 homeworld game and it also had the same ship caps (100 for mark one triangle ships).

[LintMan]

Oops, yeah, I was so focused on the 2-planet start caps being wrong that I didn't even pick up on the fact that the caps for a 1-planet start were wrong for me, too!

[Kalzarius]

my ship caps have gone wonky with 3.101, by which i mean in a single homeworld game the ship cap for mark I, has dropped to 100, all other fleet ships have had a proportional drop (except scouts which apear to be uneffected).  Starships are uneffected.  Also i started a 2 homeworld game and it also had the same ship caps (100 for mark one triangle ships).

I can't help but wonder if this is in any way related to this bug: http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,4720.0.html

[Epsilon Plus]

I am also having ship cap weirdness - I have 149 Fighters out of my cap of 100, with a similar problem with Telestations.

Also unrelated, but Beam Cannons don't seem to be hitting Train Stations - is this intentional?

Here are some saves from the same game where each error (slash potential error) is happening (I can't remember where the station was in the beam error file).

[quickstix]

The Scout Starship change is fantastic. It gives them a real sense of purpose as frontline recon now.

[superking]

-Fixed bug where zenith mirror shot reflection was not working, um, at all.

lol... who posted a thread about them being overpowered two weeks back? face PALM

x4000 I gotta say I'm impressed at the quality of the support you give AI war, considering I paid for it once but it gets better every week

that said, allowing more cutlass dosn't really compensate for them sucking so hard  what is the logic behind disallowing them from attacking turrets?

[Fiskbit]

I'd like to point out that cutlasses used to be the scourge of the universe. If the AI sent a wave of cutlasses against you, there'd be nothing you could do. They'd all go straight for your command station and no amount of effort you could put forth would protect you from the swarm. Immune to tractor beams, immune to force fields..they didn't even have a good counter at all for the longest time. Can you even damage the engines on these things? I seem to remember that not being possible, either.

So, be careful what you wish for. I don't think they've ever been very good for the player, but they've been unstoppable in the hands of the AI.

[WinterBorn]

I'm guessing DF means "Dragon Fable"

[superking]

dwarf fortress
(the best game ever, if you have infinite time on your hands)

[superking]

I'd like to point out that cutlasses used to be the scourge of the universe. If the AI sent a wave of cutlasses against you, there'd be nothing you could do. They'd all go straight for your command station and no amount of effort you could put forth would protect you from the swarm. Immune to tractor beams, immune to force fields..they didn't even have a good counter at all for the longest time. Can you even damage the engines on these things? I seem to remember that not being possible, either.

So, be careful what you wish for. I don't think they've ever been very good for the player, but they've been unstoppable in the hands of the AI.

I still think they need a rethink

The self damage mechanic (along with the inability to repair them and their really slow regen rate) makes them frustrating to use and liable to self destruct when attacking some units.

Their inability to attack turrets is totally unintuitve; its a slow moving kickass melee unit so players naturally assume they will specialise in demolitions.. but no!

the immunity to all the things that hardcounter them makes them horrible in the hands of the AI (which is not concerned with metal/crystal costs), while their otherwise general ineffectivity makes using them as a human player annoying because they tend to die constantly

*

how about recasting them as anti-turret anti-starship demolitions? it makes a lot more sense that somthing big and slow and easily kited is suited to trashing big targets rather than little stuff. bring back some ability to hardcounter them, maybe engine damage, so players dont infallable lose the com station if they prepare right, and adjust or remove the self damage/no repair mechanic