Prerelease 3.179 (Warheads+, Neinzul Silos, Transport II, Harvesters II and III)

[quickstix]

Just curious, if there's going to be warheads coming my way will Core Warhead Interceptors become capturable again?

You should add an achievement for the first time you get hit by a wahead. I can just imagine the shock of the fleet ingame when they realise it wasn't their warhead that just went off.

I forgot how crazy AI War updates can get sometimes. Nice.

[Trezamere]

"Somebody Set Us Up The Bomb" I agree with this one  

And some question about nukes... Please tell me they actually kill forcefields/stuff under forcefields now (barring Core/Starship)?  Because those MKII and MKIII Nukes are still equally useless if not.  Also, what about the MKIII killing all ships everywhere, even Core/Starship (not buildings)?  I mean as it is it's just a silly gimmick, with ridiculous costs and a suicide button in the form of 5000 progress (among the other obvious things).  At least give the player SOMETHING; I mean even the tiniest glimmer of hope that their Armored Golem or whatever can kill the command station before the Juggernaut of a wave spawns in on top of him.

[keith.lamothe]

I've got to wonder, though, exactly what are Core ships made of that can withstand a ground-zero blast from a *galaxy-destroying* cataclysm?

Corningware.

That could actually be pretty cool, yeah.   Keith, do you think that could be made to work for being under human control?

I don't see any huge reason why not, just a bit of extra logic.  To clarify, there really wouldn't be anything for the human to "control", it just sits there and spews out uncomfortably large amounts of ships when antagonized.  I guess the cannon could be turned off via low-power mode, and that would also stop the internal production of ships.

the neinzul ships would be AI controlled similar to zombie ships then? that sounds awwlright

Ah, right, you would actually control the spawned ships like normal; it would probably have to spawn them in FRD mode so that they would close the range if necessary without your intervention.  They wouldn't last long enough to need special AI.

[3dfx]

We ought to have an achievement for actually winning the game with all of the planets having been nuked, come to think of it.  What do you think, Keith?

Absolutely.  Title?  "It's The Only Way To Be Sure."

"Surviving Dooms Day" or smth like.."Galaxy Destroyer" ; "The means justify the Ends"

[Mánagarmr]

The Neinzul Viral Swarmers have also been nerfed quite a bit (not before obliterating some adventurous beta testers, unfortunately), and we fixed a bug with the Hybrid Hives in the last beta version that was preventing any from spawning (whoops!).

Well that would certainly explain why I haven't seen any even five hours into the game with advanced hybrids on...Will this patch up existing savegames or only new games? (Ie, can I just update and load up my savegame and the hybrids will spawn?)

[strangelight]

new nukes sound hilarious

[keith.lamothe]

Well that would certainly explain why I haven't seen any even five hours into the game with advanced hybrids on...Will this patch up existing savegames or only new games? (Ie, can I just update and load up my savegame and the hybrids will spawn?)

Yea, it'll work fine.  All the facilities spawned properly but the hybrid spawners themselves were never getting to execute their build point increment.  So they'll start accumulating build points once you load the game; will be roughly 20 minutes before the first set spawns.

[Sunshine!]

Two points:

First, problems with the new outposts and astro trains (link http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,6649.0.html).  Astro trains can shoot through forcefields, and as such (if you're unlucky with placement) can blow up all your cryo pods within minutes of starting.

Second: Can you program in astronomically small percentages for the Neinzul Silos to launch nukes?  Something like one-one hundredthousandth of a chance for a mk1 nuke, one millionth for a Mk2 nuke, and one hundred millionth for a mk3 nuke?  Then add an achievement for getting hit by a Mk3 nuke, "Unluckiest Commander Ever" or something so we can all point and laugh.

And I agree with the title "It's the only way to be sure" for winning after using a Mk3 nuke.

[keith.lamothe]

Second: Can you program in astronomically small percentages for the Neinzul Silos to launch nukes?

I... really don't think that's a good idea

[x4000]

First, problems with the new outposts and astro trains (link http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,6649.0.html).  Astro trains can shoot through forcefields, and as such (if you're unlucky with placement) can blow up all your cryo pods within minutes of starting.

Wow, great catch!  For the next version:

* Attrition emitters, human cryogenic pods, planetary cloakers, counter spies, omega drives, rebelling human colonies, captive human settlements, home human settlements, AI troop accelerators, advanced research stations, and datacenters are all now immune to Dark Matter weapons.  This protects them from astro trains, munitions boosters, and a few other similar things.

[keith.lamothe]

* Attrition emitters, human cryogenic pods, planetary cloakers, counter spies, omega drives, rebelling human colonies, captive human settlements, home human settlements, AI troop accelerators, advanced research stations, and datacenters

What about the partridge in the pear tree?  Oh, right, it's in cryo

[x4000]

Just curious, if there's going to be warheads coming my way will Core Warhead Interceptors become capturable again?

You should add an achievement for the first time you get hit by a wahead. I can just imagine the shock of the fleet ingame when they realise it wasn't their warhead that just went off.

I forgot how crazy AI War updates can get sometimes. Nice.

Bear in mind the AI isn't sending nukes, so it's not quite as bad as you might think.  But, that's an excellent point about the interceptors, that is now in place for the next version.  Thanks!

And some question about nukes... Please tell me they actually kill forcefields/stuff under forcefields now (barring Core/Starship)?  Because those MKII and MKIII Nukes are still equally useless if not.  Also, what about the MKIII killing all ships everywhere, even Core/Starship (not buildings)?  I mean as it is it's just a silly gimmick, with ridiculous costs and a suicide button in the form of 5000 progress (among the other obvious things).  At least give the player SOMETHING; I mean even the tiniest glimmer of hope that their Armored Golem or whatever can kill the command station before the Juggernaut of a wave spawns in on top of him.

I'm pretty sure that they have ALWAYS killed stuff under force fields, I think what you were actually seeing was them not killing stuff that was in cold storage, which was noted as fixed in this version.  If you use the "nuke em" cheat you can get the three marks of warhead right at the start of the game.  I set off one of the mark IIIs within a minute of starting the game, and the AI's ship count fell from 13,000 to about 500.  Depending on what the human players have handy, it could still be winnable, but it will certainly be a challenge!

[x4000]

Just popping in here.  I did just buy the new expansion, but have had no time to play any AI: War due to RL issues. 

Also, been having fun with Tidalis as you've no doubt noticed.

But I've liked what I've read of the changes and hopefully will get to play a game soon.  The anti-blobbing methods really intrigue me as that was a slight issue I've had with AiW.  Anything to change this up is welcomed by me (even if I do turtle a lot  )  I can't really give any comments on this as it would require me to start up a game. 

Keep up the good work guys, this is looking like an awesome expansion. 

King

Many thanks, King!  There's certainly no rush, and we're still in progress on adding even more stuff.  It will be here when you do have time!  And, of course glad you're enjoying Tidalis -- it's much easier to fit into a busy schedule, for sure!

    * Transport Ships Mark II have been added:
          o These cost far more energy to operate, but they slowly heal all ships contained within themselves; Neinzul Younglings are healed faster.

As someone that hasn't upgraded yet, and thus can't check, have you made them any better at actually transporting ships?  Or is the regeneration effect the only difference?

Regeneration is the only difference, aside from the fact that they cost waaaay more.  Oh, actually, not quite true -- they also have 2x as much health, which makes them more resistant to attack from enemies, but their self-attrition-through-wormhole rate is the same, so they can't get any further overall.  But they DO have a notably better chance of making it to their in-range destination if there are lots of hostile AI ships along the path, thanks to the extra health.  Good question!

[x4000]

                + However, please note that the existing harvesters will NOT automatically be upgraded, as the destruction and reconstruction of them could tank your economy at a bad time. To upgrade all your harvesters, simply go to each planet, click the select all the harvesters from the planetary summary, and delete the old ones. New, higher-mark ones will appear in their place.

Are there any plans to eventually be able to do an in-place upgrade (or maybe just insta-upgrade all applicable harvesters)?

I'm not really sure what an interface for that would be, but potentially we can put in some sort of hotkey for clicking the harvester button or something.  Probably worth thinking about, though, for sure.

any chance we can have a control node to allow MK II transports to enjoy the same autodocking and ejecting that regeneration for neinzul ships that chambers have?

I think that would devalue the regeneration chambers to the point of them being completely useless, but on top of that I think it would make the transports TOO powerful in terms of deep raiding support.

That said, I did think about it, but it doesn't even make logical sense in practice if you consider it: you put in Neinzul ships and you want them to get transported, but while they are in transit they get fully healed and thus eject immediately. Whoops.   Or, you're trying to load the specific ships that you want into the transport, but Neinzul ships keep rushing into it and since they are so fast they are likely to fill it up and make it very difficult for you to get the ships you really want in there.

Thinking of those things, the logical next thing would be to enable and disable the control node, but that requires micro on your part: and so we're back to exactly what the design currently is anyway, where you can load the neinzul ships into the regenerating transport any time you like.

Anyway, that was my thought process, and why I think that's unlikely to happen.

[carlosjuero]

I have the perfect achievement title for this...

"They Started It!!"

We ought to have an achievement for actually winning the game with all of the planets having been nuked, come to think of it.  What do you think, Keith?

Absolutely.  Title?  "It's The Only Way To Be Sure."