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 3.156:(Cumulative release notes since 3.120 are here
http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Current_Beta)
-------------------
* TryFindAssistTarget (engineers looking for something to repair or assist) is now separate from the TryFindOtherTargets throttle, and has been cranked down since those searches can take so long.
* TryFindTachyonTargets (tachyon emitters checking for cloaked ships in rage) is now separate from the TryFindOtherTargets throttle, and is fairly generous since even a partial second's delay can make a difference between your turrets eating the raptors for lunch and the raptors eating your command station for theirs.
* Some performance improvements to collision checking, target list filtering and sorting, and the generic basic range checking function.
* Some performance improvements to the "move ship" logic that handles a lot of every-cycle logic for non-cold-storage ships.
* Dyson Gatlings are now immune to black hole machines. Removed the logic added in previous version that removes black hole machines from planets with a dyson sphere (as this could be disconcerting to the joker who builds one via Zenith Trader and sees it disappear when loading the game).
* Units now check for protections (e.g. forcefields) and supply after loading and before the first simulation cycle, to prevent some of the significant combat differences when reloading in the middle of a fight.
* Cloaking starships now check for ships to cloak after loading and before the first sim cycle, to prevent embarassing moments when you park in the wrong lot.
* Flak turrets were not properly being considered a turret for the purposes of standard ability flags and attack bonuses. Fixed.
* Flak turret attack power moderately decreased against ships outside its specialty.
* AI turret proclivities adjusted; notably it should build fewer flak turrets now, but will now build them as part of higher level turret sets.
* A number of small performance improvements all throughout the application, moving away from the System.Drawing structs to custom ArcenPoint, ArcenRectangle, and ArcenSize structs. These structs are more efficient in terms of RAM and CPU, and are Unity-compatible, which the others were not.
* The seek CPU efficiency of teleporting engineers has been increased significantly.
* Fixed a bug where using Manage Players to open a new Active slot with blank name or name of "
" and then having someone join in that slot would lead to an immediate desync.
* The DEF build category was really a misnomer at this point, and has been renamed to SUP instead (Support instead of Defense, which more accurately describes those ships).
* The Avenger graphics have been updated to be at least a little more unique.
* The existing Fortress is now renamed to Fortress Mark III, and has had its stats (and costs) increased somewhat.
* Two new units have been added: Fortress, and Fortress Mark II, which are scaled down (and cheaper) versions of the Fortress Mark III.
* The SuperFortress has been buffed again, and the Fortress line has been tweaked in general. Fortresses now have very long range, longer than any non-sniper turrets or units, but a bit weaker attack on average than before.
* There are now three separate levels of basic AI command stations, same as the basic human command stations have three levels.
o The AI command station variants have 5X more health than their human counterparts, and no longer have the human-specific abilities such as resource/energy production, warp detection, build menus, etc.
o The AI command stations are now the only ones that cause AI Progress to increase. That was previously already the case (the AI Progress went up only when a command station controlled by the AI was destroyed), but now that these are two separate units the tooltips are substantially briefer and clearer.
o Existing savegames and new games now use only AI command station variants for the AIs, as follows:
+ On the AI home planets, they use AI Core Command Stations (same as always).
+ On Mark I and II planets, they use AI Command Stations Mark I.
+ On Mark III planets, they use AI Command Stations Mark II.
+ On Mark IV planets, they use AI Command Stations Mark III.
* Command Stations are now shown on the Planetary Summary icon lists on the galaxy map.
* The human-controlled Command Station Home Cores, and the AI-controlled Core Command Station, did not have their internal mark levels correctly set. Fixed.
Updates in 3.158: * Fixed a bug with loading some savegames, related to TryProtections when the CurrentRollup is null.
