The latest prerelease is available at
http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar2001B.zipThat 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.
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 $12.95 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. This prerelease version is compatible with any other version of the game -- Steam, Impulse, whatever.
6. 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 may be disabled. So you may want to make a separate install of the preorder version if you use Steam, at least for the moment.
What's new since 2.001A:(Cumulative release notes since 2.000 are attached at the bottom)
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-Trial mode now allows players to use all ship types, not just the simple ones. This is particularly useful for people who want to test the expansion ships without buying them.
-Fixed a network multiplayer glitch that could occur in the 2.0 version when Skip Batch Network Sending was not enabled.
-In recent releases, AI Parasites were not taking over human ships. Fixed.
-Previously, there was an issue where multiplayer connections would fail the first time, but succeed the second time, for some players. This should now be fixed.
-New cheat: "activate the omega" creates a new "Omega Drive" unit. This omega drive generates incredible amounts of resources (+1000/s metal and crystal, and +1 million energy), but will cause a boost of 1,000 AI progress if detroyed. This new unit will only ever appear in the game through the use of this cheat. It's useful for testing, and for players who want a certain style of deathmatch play.
-The descriptions of dreadnoughts have been updated to reflect the fact that they are no longer good against force fields. Additionally, dreadnoughts have gotten a boost in general, with new bonuses against munitions boosters, zenith bombardment ships, teleport battle stations, fighters of all sorts, zenith autobombs, raiders, and tele-raiders. This makes dreadnoughts a much more versatile and interesting ship in general, especially against the power of massed AI zenith bombardment ships.
-Previously, there was still a minimum range set on the raptor mark II, which caused it to act strangely. Fixed.
-Six new cheats have been added for spawning broken or fully-functional versions of the new golems: busted teensy, teensy, busted ohm, busted shinra, shinra. These only work when the first expansion is enabled for the current game.
-There is now a much more severe penalty to the ranked/weighted scores for using cheats. And, there is also now a 100,000 points score cap for ranked/weighted scores during the first hour of the game, to prevent extremely low gametimes from being able to create astronomically high scores.
-Colony Ships now have mine avoidance, are immune to sniper shots, and are immune to tractor beams. This should make colonizing certain planets more feasible, since Mobile Builders now require supply and so can't always be used to build a colony ship on site.
-The following ships can now be transported by transports, in addition to all of the general mobile military ships: engineers i-iii, mine layers, mobile builders, space tugs (all kinds), colony ships, science labs i and ii, decloakers, and tachyon drones.
-The splash screen now shows status messages for the progress of loading the game. This also prevents windows 7 and vista from thinking the program is nonresponsive on startup.
-New Armored Golem (expansion only): Incredibly highly armored, this golem fires 30x powerful flame waves in quick succession, letting it really chew through groups of enemies. Each shot also damages itself, however.
-New Artillery Golem (expansion only): Must be manually assigned targets, but fires extremely, extremely powerful artillery shots over long ranges. Is very slow, and heavily damages itself when firing, though. Great for taking out very heavily defended targets.
-New Black Widow Golem (expansion only): Relatively low health for a golem, but doesn't damage itself when firing. Fires 50x fairly powerful shots at a time, dealing extreme engine damage with each volley. Excellent for immobilizing or outright destroying large fleets.
-Regarding all golems: Golems are extremely powerful ships, and thus are very concerning to the AI. Golems cause the AI to send larger waves and reinforcements to the planets the golems are on, as well as causing the AI Progress to increase when they are repaired. All golems start out in a broken state when captured by players, with 25% of their health remaining, and must be repaired to full health before they will become operational. This initial repair generally increases AI Progress by 100, but the power of the golem itself is a match for that.
