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 3.164:(Cumulative release notes since 3.120 are here
http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Current_Beta)
-------------------
* Fixed a bug that was causing the wrong tooltip to be displayed when in ship-placement mode.
* The Avenger no longer repairs nearby ships.
* Previously there was just a single "engineering rate" for ships that could assist construction or do repairs. Now there are separate repair rates and construction rates for engineers.
o This lets them do construction at the same rate as always, while doing repairs much faster than in the past, which in turn makes them more viable once again as an alternative to Mobile Repair Stations.
o This also makes a clearer delineation on not allowing Mobile Repair Stations to assist the construction of units.
* Acid Sprayers have been completely rebalanced.
o They have 10x more base damage, and 10x less bonus against Zenith ships.
o They now have 50% of Zenith bonuses against starships and resources, 40% of Zenith bonuses against engineers, and 25% of Zenith bonuses against turrets.
o They now have 10x lower shields.
* The ship cap of sniper turrets has been doubled, and their cost has been halved.
o The cost of spider turrets has also been halved, but the cap of spider turrets is the same.
o These changes don't affect the AI, but make the sniper turrets more useful for human players.
* Sniper turrets now have the reclamation ability, which lets them work like very weak, slow parasites. They're unlikely to capture a ton of units with this, but the reclamation ability does provide some minor more incentive to use them. This ability also applies to the AI, unlike the cost shifts.
* Golems have been majorly rebalanced, to create a new strategic landscape for them -- they have long been the most underused units in the game.
o There is no longer and AI Progress cost associated with golems in any way, from repairing them or otherwise.
o Golems now have significantly higher repair costs after being initially repaired to be operational.
o Golems now require supply, which means that they are useless for long-range raiding.
+ This encourages a (sort of) new school of strategic thought relating to adjacency to keep the golems relevant on offense. Certainly no other units emphasize this tot he same degree, anyway.
o Golems now require proximity to AI warp gates in order to function -- they have to be within one hop of an AI warp gate in order to attack, etc.
+ This prevents players from using golems to play "goalie" on their home plants, which could have created impossible-to-lose scenarios for players.
+ Thematically speaking, this is related to the golems being reliant on exo-galaxy signals echoing from the ancient Zenith civilization. These signals are normally not able to be picked up at all, but AI warp gates cause them to be amplified to the point where they are faintly available.
o The cumulative effect of these changes is that golems are no longer such a strategic risk, and they provide some new excitement on the front lines, but are not useful at deep defense or on long-range raiding.
* The attrition rate of transports is now shown via an ability in their tooltip list of abilities.
* There are now AI-specific versions of the following golems that are used by the Golemite: Armored, Artillery, Black Widow, Regenerator, Botnet.
o Those versions don't have some of the restrictions that the human-controlled versions do, but neither do they buff reinforcements or waves, and they have 1/2 the normal health for golems of those sorts.
Updates in 3.166: * Fixed a bug in the prior release that was causing the AI to repair and use broken golems on its own.
Updates in 3.167:* Normally AI engineers should not try to repair broken golems (as of the last release), and the last release had a safety check that prevented broken golems from activating even if the AI did repair them. However, in some cases the AI was already in the process of repairing them, or would otherwise do so; in that event, the players could get a massive cost savings on metal/crystal by capturing the already-fully-repaired broken golem and simply activating it.
* Now when a player captures any unit from a planet ownership change, if that unit had a lower-than-full-health starting health value, that unit is reverted to the starting health value assuming that it's current health is higher than that (if current health is already lower, it keeps the lower value).
* This fix prevents the exploit even among edge cases where the AI does something unexpected.
Updates in 3.168: * There is now a sizable cluster penalty on fortresses, making them not very useful when clumped together too much on one planet.
o Of course, with multiple players or multiple levels of fort this can be gotten around, same mechanic as with sentinel frigates.
* Golems no longer require supply.
o This change was unpopular with players, and given the prevalence of Orbital Mass Drivers probably not needed, anyway.
o Golems do still require the proximity of AI warp gates, however, as that is important for avoiding the most exploitable aspects of golems.
+ Any ship (including the AI exo-galaxy wormhole) with the "Warp Gate (Wave) or Warp Gate (Full)" abilities will work just fine for this proximity requirement, as a note.
* Sniper attack values have been increased 10x, and their reload speed has also been increased 10x. This makes them more of a "volley" type of unit, good at dealing a lot of damage right when ships enter their field of view, but then taking quite some time before they can do it again (about 60 seconds of reload in most cases).
o The above applies to both snipers-the-unit and sniper turrets.
o In the case of Spider Turrets, their values were only increased 5x since that made more sense for their engine-damage-focused abilities.
* Sniper turrets no longer have the reclamation ability, as that was definitely overpowered.
* Fixed a longstanding bug with the Zombie reclamation ability (botnet golem) that was causing ships it reclaimed as zombies to come in at half health at most.
