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 3.103:(Cumulative release notes since 3.060 are attached at the bottom)
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-The balance of anti-armor ships has been completely reworked. Their costs have been reduced a bit, they now have bonuses against force fields, starships, and heavy defense, their attack power has been doubled, their attack speed has been reduced by about 1/5, and their ship cap has been increased substantially. They are still quite fragile, but they are easier to churn out now, they do more damage before they die, and with their middling range they are less likely to die so fast.
-The balance of MLRS ships has been majorly reworked. Their attack speed has been halved, their health has been increased 6x, their attack power has been increased 4x, and their ship cap has been reduced slightly.
-The assistance boost rate of Mark II engineers is now 2.0 instead of 1.5. The assistance boost rate of Mark III engineers is now 3.0 instead of 2.0
-The energy costs of the higher-level engineers now goes down instead of up, the shield rating of the mark II tier is now doubled, and the metal/crystal costs and time to build the higher-mark engineers is now reduced instead of increased versus the lower-level engineers.
-The metal and crystal costs of Zenith Autobombs have been halved.
-Updated auto-shape move from ugly borg-square to filled-in-circle.
CHANGES TO PAST PRERELEASES
=======
-The strong vs and weak vs data has been recalculated.
Updates in 3.105:-"Planetary roamer" type ships are now able to be special forces like normal. This includes most melee ships, starships, and similar.
-Starships and fortresses/superfortresses now act as unit coordinators, and will recruit other, smaller ships to be their entourage. The coordinators have various sorts of other ships that they prefer to bring with themselves.
-The transport numbers now only appear above allied ships, not enemies.
-Schizophrenic waves were not working in conjunction with cross-planet waves. Fixed.
Updates in 3.106:-AI Unit coordination has been disabled, as it was causing lockups.
