Prerelease 3.169 (Bugfixes, railguns for snipers)

[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 3.168:
(Cumulative release notes since 3.120 are here http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Current_Beta)

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    *  The repair speed of golems has been slowed down 8x to account for the new, faster engineers.

    * The attack rate and amount of engine damage done by spider turrets has been adjusted so that they once again fire more lower-power shots. It's still a bit slower and more powerful than it one was, but nothing like it has been recently.

    * Immobile AI ships that were at a planet the last time the planet was scouted are now visible through the fog of war (as in many other RTS games).

    * Shots and explosions are no longer visible through the fog of war.

    * Fixed a rare overflow exception with wormhole guard posts being repaired.

    * Snipers and sniper/spider turrets now use a new Railgun ammo type that strikes its target instantly, leaving a faint white line flashing in its wake as it does so. This fixes the issues with overkill and wasting incoming sniper shots, as well as simultaneously making it easier to see where sniper shots are originating from.

    * There is a new internal format for storing player data inside savegames, which makes it easier to find issues and desyncs relating to player data.

    * Fixed a desync relating to loading multiplayer savegames with AI ships caught in player tractor beams.

    * Fixed a longstanding bug that was causing all player planets to be treated as out of supply right upon loading the game. This was causing force fields to blink off for a second right after load, as well as tractor beams to lose the ships they were holding for an instant, etc.

[Sizzle]

I'm not at home to check this out yet, but a minor request if it isn't already this way:   Is it possible for the rail gun effect to be a different color for spider shots ( e.g. A faint yellow trail for spiders vs white for snipers).  Future turrets that may use the same mechanic could use different colors.

[Buttons840]

I'm not at home to check this out yet, but a minor request if it isn't already this way:   Is it possible for the rail gun effect to be a different color for spider shots ( e.g. A faint yellow trail for spiders vs white for snipers).  Future turrets that may use the same mechanic could use different colors.

Yellow is used for order lines (order interface, shown when holding control button I believe).  I would like another color though if you can find one which doesn't get confused with the order interface.

[triggerman602]

I believe order lines are the colour of your team.

[Buttons840]

I believe order lines are the colour of your team.

Mmm...  I always play green and my lines are always yellow, but this is in single player.  In multiplayer I've seen lines of all colors.

Is white a player color?  Maybe that's why they chose white for the sniper lines?

And does the AI even build spider turrets?

[Volatar]

    * Immobile AI ships that were at a planet the last time the planet was scouted are now visible through the fog of war (as in many other RTS games).

Sweeeeet!

And the Sniper changes look good.

[drum]

Immobile AI ships that were at a planet the last time the planet was scouted are now visible through the fog of war

I like 

[Ozymandiaz]

" Immobile AI ships that were at a planet the last time the planet was scouted are now visible through the fog of war (as in many other RTS games). "


awesome

[superking]

  * Immobile AI ships that were at a planet the last time the planet was scouted are now visible through the fog of war (as in many other RTS games).

this does mean I can send a flagship on a suicide scouting spree around most the map early game and ghost all the important structures though, which is just as good as scouting for the planetary summary... unless ghosting only occours on planets on which you can see the planetary summary

[rubikscube]

imagine if the all the snipers on one planet trains it shots on one target, it would look really cool.

[x4000]

I believe order lines are the colour of your team.

Mmm...  I always play green and my lines are always yellow, but this is in single player.  In multiplayer I've seen lines of all colors.

Is white a player color?  Maybe that's why they chose white for the sniper lines?

And does the AI even build spider turrets?

It's always the color of your team for those lines, but if there are many of them they are blended together in a way that might make them look yellowish if they were lime green to start.  White isn't a player color, which is indeed why I did the sniper lines.  And the AI does not build spider turrets.  Most likely I'll keep all these white to avoid confusion for players of specific colors.

[x4000]

    * Immobile AI ships that were at a planet the last time the planet was scouted are now visible through the fog of war (as in many other RTS games).

Sweeeeet!

And the Sniper changes look good.

Awesome!  And yeah, I thought that would be a popular change, and it was quick to do.  I'm surprised nobody ever suggested it, or at least not that I saw/remembered.

[x4000]

  * Immobile AI ships that were at a planet the last time the planet was scouted are now visible through the fog of war (as in many other RTS games).

this does mean I can send a flagship on a suicide scouting spree around most the map early game and ghost all the important structures though, which is just as good as scouting for the planetary summary... unless ghosting only occours on planets on which you can see the planetary summary

Correct (on your "unless" comment), it's based off the "last scouted second," not on the last time you had a ship there.  So you won't get ghosting of enemy ships from anything other than scouts -- if it wouldn't fill your intel report in the galaxy map, it won't fill this either.

[Buttons840]

I'd still like a control node to auto-attack all trains.  I've noticed that auto-attacking the turret trains is annoying in many cases, and I'd like to be able to turn it off.

With a node, I could build and scrap the node as needed to enable/disable this behavior.

I believe that killing even the stronger trains is possible, although quite difficult.  I would still rather re-route them, but during those really long games it would be nice to eventually kill the trains rather than having them cluster up around the AI homes while you expand - after all, destroying the train stations doesn't get rid of the threat, only concentrates it someplace else.

[x4000]

Okay -- that sounds fair enough.  Keith and I are very tied up this week, though, and aren't doing any non-bugfix stuff for AI War.  The PAX 10 submission is something we're planning to do on Friday, so this is a pretty critical time for us, and I already spent a ton of time today chasing down a stupid desync in AI War.  

At any rate, I'd suggest archiving those suggestions and then bringing them back up when we have a little more breathing room; right now we're swamped, and it's going to be low-power mode for AI War updates for the next week in particular, but the next four weeks to some degree in general.  Then after that, July and August are going to be crazy with a ton of stuff for AI War, including the expansion and AI War 4.0.

AI War will suck up all our time when we let it, so for this week in particular I'm having to draw a pretty sharp line to keep myself from getting too sucked in.  I love the game, and sometimes that can be a bad thing, though it's usually good.