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/AIWar2001X.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.
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 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.
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 2.001V:(Cumulative release notes since 2.000 are attached at the bottom)
-------------------
-Kills made by electric shuttles and lightning turrets were not previously being correctly logged. Fixed.
-5 new expansion-only ships: Zenith Reserve Ships Mark I-V. Destroy to capture a large cache of Zenith vessels for your own use (at some AI Progress cost).Given the large number of ships that come online at once, be sure to have between 400k and 1 million energy available to support them.
-New expansion-only ship: Distribution Node. Destroy to capture a sizable cache of metal and crystal for the player destroying it (at some AI Progress cost). Be warned, however: around 1/5 of all nodes are actually Trojan Distribution Nodes, which are empty save for a malicious electronic payload that actually cause you to lose a sizable chunk of resources before automated recovery systems can purge the malicious infection.
-Hovering over the AI Progress meter in the resource bar at the top of the screen now shows a breakdown of Total AI Progress, AI Progress Reduction, AI Progress Floor, and finally the Effective AI Progress (which is all that is normally shown). (For those who are interested, Effective = Total - Reduction, unless Total - Reduction < Floor, in which case Effective = Floor. Floor increases as Total goes up.) This should hopefully make AI Progress value calculations more clear for advanced players.
-New expansion-only ship: AI Co-Processor. Destroying a co-processor normally increases the AI Progress by 20. However, when you destroy the last co-processor, the AI Progress takes a massive drop of 120. Check your Mission Summary (right side of the screen) to see how many co-processors remain; hitting all of them simultaneously is ideal. Co-Processors also interfere with supply on their planet.
-Niche text overlays were not previously being positioned properly on 64x64 icons. Fixed.
-Since there are so many secondary mission objectives now (often 10 or more instead of the previous 4), they are now grouped into several categories: Technology, AI Progress, and Economic.
-New expansion-only ship: AI SuperTerminal. When humans capture the planet on which this resides, they gain direct access to the core network of the AI network, where they can greatly damage the AI's processing capabilities. Every 30 seconds, this simultaneously increases the total AI Progress by one and reduces the AI Progress by two. This leads to a net reduction in AI Progress, although if left going long enough it will increase the AI Progress Floor in an undesirable manner (see the hover text over the AI Progress meter at the top of the screen for more info). While this reduction is occurring, AI ships will spew out of the SuperTerminal at a rate proportional to the total current AI Progress Reduction.
Changes from prior prereleases.
------------------------------
-In the last prerelease, planetary shield inhibitors were not properly disabling enemy force fields. Fixed.
-In the last few prereleases, regen abilities were incorrectly being applied during the 3-seconds-after-being hit period. Fixed.
-The bug with the astro trains stopping moving at certain planets should be fixed for real, now (knock on wood -- please report it if you see it in W).
UPDATE: Version X Updates The Following:-Game performance is no longer severely affected when localization files are missing.
-Recent prereleases have had a bug wherein if the expansion was disabled it would trigger localziation errors. Fixed.
