Prerelease/Expans 2.001 (3 New Minor Factions -- last of the expansion ships!)

[x4000]

Note:  This prerelease is intended for both customers of the expansion AND customers of the base game.  Please see below for details.

The latest prerelease is available at http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar2001.zip

That version is an upgrade from version 2.000, so you have to already have 2.000 (or greater) installed. Just unzip it into your game folder (usually C:\Program Files\Arcen Games\AI War\ unless you specified something else). Please make sure that your unzip process keeps the folder structure from the zip file, rather than just unpacking all of the files into the base target directory.

Expansion F.A.Q. Answers:
1. If you have the base game, and install this, you will go into trial mode of the expansion.  Feel free to explore the expansion that way, but if you want to go back to full mode without buying the expansion, simply go into Settings, Expansions, and turn off the expansion.
2. All upcoming prereleases for the next few months (until the expansion fully releases) will have a mix of both expansion and non-expansion content.  If you just want the latest non-expansion content, see #1.
3. If you want to preorder the expansion (and get your full license key), see this page.  It's $9.99 USD (or equivalent), and requires a valid copy of the base game to play.
4. If you want to know all about the expansion in general, see that same page.
5. PLEASE NOTE:  The new ships for the expansion are extremely preliminary at this stage.  They are fully functional when added, but they are not well balanced at all just yet.  The balance takes time, playtesting, and a fuller view of more of the ships.  So certain expansion ships are currently underpowered, while others are overpowered.  Your feedback on this is extremely valuable, as this is something we are adjusting at present based on community feedback as well as our own testing, but we don't expect to have things even close to perfectly tuned until sometime in December.  Our first priority is to get everything working and implemented, while honing the balance as much as possible, then to really heavily polish the balance once all the ships are in place.  Just FYI!
6. If you want to update an old savegame to the expansion, simply type "cmd:activate expansion 1" (without quotes).  This includes enabling the expansion ship classes, as well as enabling golems and other new capturables, although the population of those capturables is likely to be different from what it would have been if the expansion had been turned on from the start of the campaign given the same seed and other settings.  There is no way to disable the expansion for an existing game, however, so be sure not to save over your existing file if you want to go back to the non-expansion version of the game.

Steam/Impulse/GamersGate/Direct2Drive/etc F.A.Q. Answers:
1. This prerelease version is compatible with any other version of the game -- Steam, Impulse, whatever.
2. If you use this with your Steam copy of the game, however, you will be asked to enter your AI War CD key (which Steam provides, but normally you do not have to enter), and also the integration with Steamworks leaderboards and achievements will be disabled by default.  New: To enable steamworks integration with the beta versions, simply run the game with the command line argument "steam" (no quotes).  If you put the argument in correctly, you'll then see your Steam interface pop up correctly.
3. If you have preordered through Impulse, you should now have access to your beta key (as of 12/9).  They also provide direct beta downloads through their Impulse Client.
4. Steam will carry the expansion later on, and will have (probably beta-less) preorders, but they don't yet have that online.
5. GamersGate is also currently offering the expansion on preorder, and you do get a beta key, but you'll have to download the beta versions from our forums here.
6. Direct2Drive will be offering the expansion on preorder in a manner very similar to GamersGate, but they are not doing so quite yet.

What's new since 2.001ZL:
(Cumulative release notes since 2.000 are attached at the bottom)

-------------------

-The gridviews used on the high scores, achievemetns, and in-game stats windows have been completely recoded from scratch to replace the stock Microsoft versions that were being used before.  This fixes a number of bugs with the old ones.  The new gridviews also use color to make the data more readable.

-Previously, the up and down arrows were not working correctly on the custom scrollbars used by the game.  They have now simply been removed.

-Decloakers are now immune to being insta-killed.

-Previously, sometimes just-created ships would flash fully-visible and red while still fading in.  Fixed.

-All of the ship graphics have been updated so that they look better around their edges when slightly zoomed out.

-New Minor Faction: Human Colony Rebellions. Most human settlements have been destroyed or completely subdued, but every three or so hours one will rise against the machines.  However, these civilians are always outmatched despite their enthusiasm.  If you do not help them take back their planet, they will die and the AI Progress will go up.  Save them, and their unique ship production facilities are yours to use. Only works with galaxy maps with 30+ planets.

-New Minor Faction Ship: Rebelling Human Colony.  A formerly captive city filled with living humans.  AI progress will skyrocket by 100 if this is destroyed. These civilians have decided to rebel, and have erected a temporary invisibility cloak while they call for aid. When the cloak dissipates, they'll be vulnerable to attacks from the AI, and surely won't last long. When the rebels have supply, your entire team can use their facilities to build rebel ships. While you hold the planet on which they are located, their invisibility cloak will remain at full power.

-New expansion-only Minor Faction: Zenith Traders. These alien traders are happy to do business with anyone who can pay.  They travel around the galaxy, providing special ships (for a hefty fee) to both human and AI players alike. Only works with galaxy maps with 30+ planets.

-New expansion-only Minor Faction Ship: Zenith Trade Ship.  These neutral traders are happy to trade with humans or AIs, although they charge quite a lot in return -- and their wares are a bit different for AIs versus humans.  The trade ship travels slowly around the galaxy, and when it has supply from your team, your entire team can use it to build very expensive and powerful ships that you can't directly build any other way.  The AI will use it to build such things as even new Warp Gates or Astro Train Stations -- but the building of such structures passifies the AI, offsetting any later AI Progress increase that would be caused by destroying them.

-The graphics for the colony ships and transports have been majorly updated, and those units are also now larger than before.

-New ShotAcid sound effect.

-A new numbering system has been put in place for versions, which is all-numeric and more compatible with general windows updater software packages.

Changes from prior prereleases.
-------------------------------

-Some more minor localization fixes.

-The knowledge cost of EMP mines has been reduced from 4000 to 1500.

-In the last prerelease, the control node techs were not available for research.  Fixed.

-Much improved shotartillery sound effect.

-A new self-updater has been partially implemented.  This will work with beta prereleases, if all goes according to plan with it -- and it will definitely no longer have the issues with properly updating xml files that was so common with the MSI system used in the past.

[Lancefighter]

so 2.001 comes after 2.001ZL?

>.>
I was wondering what came after ZZ :p

[quickstix]

The new colony and transport ships look great! I especially like the new colony ship. Forgot to mention before, the new Raid Starships and Leech Starships look quite the part too.

[eRe4s3r]

Is it intended that i can see everything on the planets with tradeships / dysonspheres?

Especially with tradeships that basically makes it pretty easy, in a short 30 minute game, that ship uncovered 4 datacenters 2 adv labs and even 1 factory (for translocators ? what are these?) Yes its not a full scout readout but with notes and eyeball 2.0 its pretty much possible to use it as alternative scout, especially because that ship uncovered a core world so i already have both ai homeworlds pinned down to 3 planets (on a 80 planet game) i haven't even capped 1 planet yet... ;p

Sadly its moving in the wrong direction so i doubt i'll ever meet it in person.. on the other hand both AI's together lost already 1000 ships to the devourer ... and i have a question, the description says the dyson sphere is going to "help me if i do not colonize the planet but just kill the ai there" .. how is it going to help me though given that it has 0 attack (or i don't see any) ?

So its pretty kickass, stuff happening everywhere and co-processors blocking supply = thats really annoying ;p

Edit: Also, seeing these green explosions makes me wish i'd have done the red ones in that style as well, in-game these look vastly better than i'd have thought (just sayin, i know its nothing new ,p)

[Epsilon Plus]

I really like the idea of the Zenith Trade Ships; giving players access to (ridiculously expensive) ships is... interesting. However, they appear to have a slight conflict with Black Hole Machines where they'll get stuck/wedged in a system. Astro Trains have had issues, too - a few prereleases ago I gave up on a game after 5 or 6 Astro Trains piled up in one of my systems. Turning the Black Hole Machines off doesn't seem to help; logically, IMO, turning off a Black Hole Machine should be like turning off a forcefield or space dock, ceasing its ability. A better solution might be making Trade Ships and Astro Trains immune to the effects of Black Hole Machines, like scouts - the player never controls them anyways, so the player gets no tactical advantage. I haven't seen a Devourer yet but I'm concerned that they may have the same issue, essentially turning a system into a no-man's land.

Of course, if these functions are by design with the intended remedy being "stop capturing Black Hole Machines", that works too; feels slightly unfair, though, as they're pretty decent defensive structures and taking one alive can occasionally be difficult - Zenith Traders being able to manufacture them improves the situation, however.

(aside: an alert notifying the player a Trade Ship is on their planet could be useful; the only reason I noticed this one was because it was stuck.)

In a similar vein, I've had some issues with control nodes/FRD. I'll try to keep it brief (I can't find the thread posted earlier about control nodes; I believe you said that you were pretty set on their function...) but the new Marauder faction (technically last patch, I guess) and their ships spawning so far away from the planet means any standing fleet I have on a planet will run screaming off into the void when Marauders show up. Maybe the FRD-order should only kick in if enemy ships are within X units of an allied ship (similar to Engineer seek range?), allowing for a player to keep defensive units at a location or amass an army without having them all go halfway across the solar system at the slightest provocation. In a similar vein, FRD could use some added functionality in automatically returning to Rally Points if the system is free of visible enemies. Apologies if you're pretty much set on control node discussion/suggestions - it just feels like while simultaneously reducing micromanagement they're managing to stir up new forms of it.

[Shardz]

Great stuff as always! And it sounds like Microsoft is really fumbling the ball as usual with their assets. MSI is not my favorite either as it leaves a ton of files on your system drive that I always end up cleaning up later. It's ironic that you end up custom coding things to get them to do what you want with more functionality, but we all know Microsoft at this point in the game.

I love the functionality of the minor races and the character they give to the game. It's like sub quests that occur to keep things fresh (and difficult) for those who love abuse. Hehe! That must have taken forever to update all those graphics! *Phew* Keep up the awesome work!

Also, I'm not sure if it's me or what. The new graphics for the Transport Ships (2.png & 3.png) are zero byte files and are non-functional. I'm assuming those are animation frames...but they are definitely zero byties and not showing up for me.

[Nailer]

This game just keeps getting better and better. The rate of changes is blistering!
So blistering in fact, that I regret starting a new game with my friends only 2 days ago because this patch is so awesome!

[x4000]

so 2.001 comes after 2.001ZL?

>.>
I was wondering what came after ZZ :p

The new numbering system had to be all numeric -- the next prerelease version will be 2.100, and I am thinking of making the next official version 3.0 since so stinking much has changed.  Perhaps that will be my pattern going forward, a new version number for each expansion that comes out makes sense to me.

The new colony and transport ships look great! I especially like the new colony ship. Forgot to mention before, the new Raid Starships and Leech Starships look quite the part too.

Thanks!  Phil will be pleased.

Is it intended that i can see everything on the planets with tradeships / dysonspheres?

Nope, not intended, it's on my list of things to look at already though -- I suspected that might happen, but didn't have time to look into it before this last release.

and i have a question, the description says the dyson sphere is going to "help me if i do not colonize the planet but just kill the ai there" .. how is it going to help me though given that it has 0 attack (or i don't see any) ?

Go over there and see what happens. Yes, it doesn't have a direct attack.

So its pretty kickass, stuff happening everywhere and co-processors blocking supply = thats really annoying ;p

Well, you can always destroy those for a setback in AIP for a while.   Glad you're enjoying it, anyway!

Edit: Also, seeing these green explosions makes me wish i'd have done the red ones in that style as well, in-game these look vastly better than i'd have thought (just sayin, i know its nothing new ,p)

Yes, they really do look quite nice!

[x4000]

I really like the idea of the Zenith Trade Ships; giving players access to (ridiculously expensive) ships is... interesting. However, they appear to have a slight conflict with Black Hole Machines where they'll get stuck/wedged in a system. Astro Trains have had issues, too - a few prereleases ago I gave up on a game after 5 or 6 Astro Trains piled up in one of my systems. Turning the Black Hole Machines off doesn't seem to help; logically, IMO, turning off a Black Hole Machine should be like turning off a forcefield or space dock, ceasing its ability. A better solution might be making Trade Ships and Astro Trains immune to the effects of Black Hole Machines, like scouts - the player never controls them anyways, so the player gets no tactical advantage. I haven't seen a Devourer yet but I'm concerned that they may have the same issue, essentially turning a system into a no-man's land.

All good, yes, those all share the same issue and should not -- definitely an oversight on my part, thanks for noting it!  I have added it to my list to fix.

(aside: an alert notifying the player a Trade Ship is on their planet could be useful; the only reason I noticed this one was because it was stuck.)

Very good point -- I will make sure to add that in, I think it will be helpful!

the new Marauder faction (technically last patch, I guess) and their ships spawning so far away from the planet means any standing fleet I have on a planet will run screaming off into the void when Marauders show up. Maybe the FRD-order should only kick in if enemy ships are within X units of an allied ship (similar to Engineer seek range?), allowing for a player to keep defensive units at a location or amass an army without having them all go halfway across the solar system at the slightest provocation.

I think this is a good idea, it was never an issue before because ships would not spawn outside the gravity well.  What I will do is make it so that while enemy ships are grossly outside the gravity well, FRD mode will not cause them to attack those ships.  Unless anyone here has an objection?

The main arguments I could see against that are: marauders are fairly infrequent, and also quite powerful -- so getting to them early and killing them before they can do serious damage might be a priority.

In a similar vein, FRD could use some added functionality in automatically returning to Rally Points if the system is free of visible enemies. Apologies if you're pretty much set on control node discussion/suggestions - it just feels like while simultaneously reducing micromanagement they're managing to stir up new forms of it.

The form of control nodes is one thing, I'm not set on their functions -- I'm always up to discussion on that sort of thing.  In this case, FRD ships do return to a FRD point when on a system -- which is the point they were ordered to go to when put into the mode.  In the case of a rally point, that would be the point where the rally point was located when they entered the system in FRD mode.  If they were manually set to FRD, or set to a FRD gather point from a dock, then they go to that point.  This is generally desirable, because it lets you group multiple sets of FRD ships around different wormholes or other places of interest.  Thoughts?

Great stuff as always! And it sounds like Microsoft is really fumbling the ball as usual with their assets. MSI is not my favorite either as it leaves a ton of files on your system drive that I always end up cleaning up later. It's ironic that you end up custom coding things to get them to do what you want with more functionality, but we all know Microsoft at this point in the game.

You know, I love MS's low-level stuff, but sometimes their higher-level controls are just rubbish.  The problem is that they are trying to make it too easy on programmers to do a variety of things with these really bloated controls, and that winds up causing a lot of issues that a custom implementation can solve.

I love the functionality of the minor races and the character they give to the game. It's like sub quests that occur to keep things fresh (and difficult) for those who love abuse. Hehe! That must have taken forever to update all those graphics! *Phew* Keep up the awesome work!

Only took Phil an hour or two to add all those changes to the graphics -- the miracle of Photoshop batch processing!  It was a great suggestion by I-KP, really improves things.  I'm pretty jazzed about the minor factions, too, I look forward to doing more of those at some point in the future.

Also, I'm not sure if it's me or what. The new graphics for the Transport Ships (2.png & 3.png) are zero byte files and are non-functional. I'm assuming those are animation frames...but they are definitely zero byties and not showing up for me.

Nope, not just you, that is correct.  There previously were 3 animation frames, but now there is only one.  Our way of "deleting" files is to replace them with a zero-byte file, since we can't literally delete files via our distribution methods.  It keeps it from wasting disk space on client machines, even if there are extra files with no space in them.  So no worries, anyway!

[x4000]

This game just keeps getting better and better. The rate of changes is blistering!
So blistering in fact, that I regret starting a new game with my friends only 2 days ago because this patch is so awesome!

Haha, well, don't worry -- it's going to stop changing quite so rapidly after this next week, when we'll be working on our next title.  There will still be monthly free DLC releases (really monthly, not every three months like it has been lately), and there will I'm sure be prerelease updates on at least a weekly or biweekly basis, but it will mostly be tweaks and fixes, with the occasional new ship or two, rather than hordes and hordes of new content every couple of days.  Of course, in another 8-10 months again, we'll start working on the next expansion and will go through this blistering-pace process all again.

[Epsilon Plus]

I think this is a good idea, it was never an issue before because ships would not spawn outside the gravity well.  What I will do is make it so that while enemy ships are grossly outside the gravity well, FRD mode will not cause them to attack those ships.  Unless anyone here has an objection?

The main arguments I could see against that are: marauders are fairly infrequent, and also quite powerful -- so getting to them early and killing them before they can do serious damage might be a priority.

---

The form of control nodes is one thing, I'm not set on their functions -- I'm always up to discussion on that sort of thing.  In this case, FRD ships do return to a FRD point when on a system -- which is the point they were ordered to go to when put into the mode.  In the case of a rally point, that would be the point where the rally point was located when they entered the system in FRD mode.  If they were manually set to FRD, or set to a FRD gather point from a dock, then they go to that point.  This is generally desirable, because it lets you group multiple sets of FRD ships around different wormholes or other places of interest.  Thoughts?

I've also noticed, in retrospect, that snipers didn't seem to want to fire on Marauders. I never had any other turrets in range to test otherwise, although I think there's still a cruiser blob coming in my game. Either way, I've never had FRDs return to a point in my games - on my home planet, ships end up in a big smear any time an AI ship arrives, and they function similarly on different planets. Maybe I'm doing it wrong?

I dunno if this counts as form or function, but specifically with the FRD nodes I think I have an argument for making them per-planet. One FRD node at any planet you control sets all your ships into FRD mode when they have no orders. This is useful on some planets but not others. Example: my preferred way of taking a planet is to pop in, fortify my exit wormhole and decapitate the AI locally by taking out the Command Center/Warp Gate. Then I'm free to place my own Command Center, gaining access to any capturables (useful when they're nice, defensive structures like Black Hole machines or Ion Cannons). However, the Center (on completion) automatically sends my ships into FRD mode. This is fine on less-populated planets, or planets that I took out other targets of opportunity on before engaging, but it's occasionally a nuisance. One game I played had me fumble an attack on the planet next to an A.I. Homeworld; I managed to set up a defensible beachhead but simply didn't have the forces to marshal to take the rest of the planet. Building a Command Post let me build more buildings (in addition to capturing a few key buildings and drawing enemy ships into a killzone), but also had the habit of sending my ships off to fight whatever they pleased. Destroying the FRD node at my home planet, however, obviously means that my ships won't automatically enter FRD anywhere.

Suggestion, then: divide control nodes into per-planet/global varieties. This also gives the user more choice in other situations; for example, on some planets you want one engineer auto-maintained, whereas other planets (like your main production planet or homeworld) may want several Engineers. Putting down a global Engineer MkI auto-maintain node would keep one Engineer at every planet, and on other planets individual Nodes could be placed to affect that planet only. Per-planet FRD nodes could be useful, too, especially in multiplayer games (theoretically; I've not conned any friends into playing with me yet); one player can then keep ships around wormholes while others can operate under FRD to catch stragglers. Alternatively, there could be per-planet "anti-nodes" that nullify the global ones?

Speaking of Nodes, you mentioned that you were probably going to add other varieties. As the number of Nodes in the game increases, is it possible to decrease their cost in K if they require unlocking? Right now, at the start of the game I unlock a few of the Node techs - a few expansions from now, if I need to unlock 6, that's quite a bit of K on what's essentially "convenience" for the player. Frankly I'm not entirely sure why they need a cost at all, is it some sort of engine limitation? Or is there some sort of game design principle I'm not catching on to?

e: I just now found the thread on Control Nodes, oops :< If you feel the discussion is valid/interesting, I can crosspost it to the other thread?

[eRe4s3r]

Well what a bummer, reading what the description of the trade golem read it seems every building the ai buys increases ai progress reduction.....

This means i am for all times at 1 or so progress, reduction is already 130

Also the tradeship got unstuck now... it seems to ignore black hole generators after a while (not a long enough while though)

So yeah - Game is running pretty well so far.. marauder daggers are the only thing left ,p

[x4000]

Can you post the save?  It looks like something was reducing your AI Progress by a whole lot.  If you don't know what it was that reduced it by that much, then go ahead and send a save and I'll take a look at it.  But, otherwise, as long as you know what it was that reduced it by that much, it looks perfectly correct to me.

Regarding the number of raiders that were sent, that also is entirely possible.  The AI sends a lot more raiders than most ships (2.5x as many -- this has always been the case), and there is some natural variance in the size of waves, based on how long it was since the last wave.  Looking at the internal math, I can see that the variance can be up to 1.7x longer between waves, and thus also 1.7x larger than normal.  So, in total that would be 4.25x larger than a normal wave for raiders at worst case.

Average ships at AI Progress 1 on difficulty 7 is 64.71 ships, which at 4.25x would be 275 ships worst case with raiders under normal circumstances.  However, on an offensive wave some AIs have larger waves than normal -- mad bombers have 3x, most raider-type ones have 2x, and a few others have 1.5x (all of these at an expense to the normal reinforcement rates).  So, with a mad bomber on AIP 1 on difficulty 7, at the longest time interval, you could actually have a wave of 825 raiders.  That's highly unlikely, of course (and mad bombers are pushovers on their own planets), but if you are playing against a raider type of AI and just got a moderate wave of raiders, you're definitely within normal possible bounds.

[eRe4s3r]

The ai bought 3 Blackhole Generators 2 MK3 Gravitational Distortion Turrets (slowdown thingies) - and MANY warpgates, this planet next to me has 3 of them now and i have seen many many more weird thingies i have no idea what they do (perma cloaked?).

I also noticed the trade ship does NOT enter my area at all

Also - heres the save but its way past marauders and that wave - i figured it was pretty weird to see 300 ships at progression 1 but it turned out that these died faster than i thought (mrls turrets be thanked)

The planet below my home world is the one the trade ship camped nearly 20 minutes at before it arrived all there was was a co processor - now its more like a fortress world (without fortresses ,p)

Also - these marauders are kickass - no idea what other people are doing but i think they add a lot of action to the game - their announcement is enough to rebuild entire defense fleets and these weird bombs don't do that much damage ... though i wonder what the scatter fleet command was..

[x4000]

The ai bought 3 Blackhole Generators 2 MK3 Gravitational Distortion Turrets (slowdown thingies) - and MANY warpgates, this planet next to me has 3 of them now and i have seen many many more weird thingies i have no idea what they do (perma cloaked?).

Ah -- so this is why the AI Progress has been reduced so much.  It's because the AI was buying things that reduce the AI Progress -- like warp gates.

I also noticed the trade ship does NOT enter my area at all

It's just chance.

Also - heres the save but its way past marauders and that wave - i figured it was pretty weird to see 300 ships at progression 1 but it turned out that these died faster than i thought (mrls turrets be thanked)

I think we have this one figured out, thankfully -- it's the trade ship's influence.

The planet below my home world is the one the trade ship camped nearly 20 minutes at before it arrived all there was was a co processor - now its more like a fortress world (without fortresses ,p)

Yeah, but in return you have that HUGE amount of AI Progress reduction.

Also - these marauders are kickass - no idea what other people are doing but i think they add a lot of action to the game - their announcement is enough to rebuild entire defense fleets and these weird bombs don't do that much damage ... though i wonder what the scatter fleet command was..

Glad you like them!