Note: This prerelease is intended for both customers of the expansion AND customers of the base game. Please see below for details.Important: 2.001ZE introduced a new savegame format that is way more efficient, and which should do even better for people first syncing into large multiplayer games over slower broadband connections. No issues have been reported with it yet, and it has been well tested. However, with something of this size, just bear in mind that it takes beta trials before it is likely to be 100% bug-free. This is the second beta version with the new savegame format, so make sure and don't overwrite your existing savegames just in case -- and I would suggest testing your new savegames before you go too far with them, just to make sure everything is okay with them (nothing worse than having to redo hours of playtime, right? So better safe than sorry). Please report any errors you find, and I'll correct them asap for the next version (not that that will save any lost data from this version, so again, keep backups). Hopefully this warning is completely unneeded and everything will be fine, but with a change like this it deserves some caveats. This is your fair warning!The latest prerelease is available at
http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar2001ZF.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 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 2.001ZE:(Cumulative release notes since 2.000 are attached at the bottom)
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-The core Figher -> Cruiser -> Bomber -> Figher relationship has been redefined to Figher -> Bomber -> Cruiser -> Figher.
-Space Tanks now have 30x more shields than before, making them much harder to hit at range.
-The simulation that generates the strong/weak data now starts the ships off at about 16,000 range, making it so that range is now properly valued in the strong/weak calculations.
-Fortresses and SuperFortresses now have fewer shots, but do much more damage and have a very long range. They also now have a big bonus against all starships, a sizeable bonus against raiders and teleporting ships, and a pretty big bonus against most cloaked ships. Fortresses also now have 500 transport capacity, making them able to protect ships until they are ready to be ejected.
-Invincible ships and ships with 2 billion health or more are now omitted from the strong/weak data, as there is no useful data collected for them, anyway.
-Several bugs with the strong/weak export have now been fixed.
-The Stealth Tachyon Beam Emitter was supposed to have regular Tachyon Beam Emitters as a prerequisite technology, but did not. Fixed.
-Bombers now have a 50% penalty against bombers.
-Frigates now have a 10x bonus against space planes and etherjets.
-EtherJets now have a better bonus against fighters and bombers and armor ships.
-Raptors now have a better bonus against fighters and frigtes, and a penalty against bombers.
-Teleport battle stations now have a better bonus against fighters, raiders, tele-raiders, and tanks.
-The knowledge and crystal costs of decloakers have been halved, and their ship cap has been doubled.
-Colony ships now have a ship cap of 10.
-The attack power of mark IV and V bombers has been increased.
-Force fields now provide protection from tractor beams and tachyon beams.
-Human ships are now 40% faster than their stated values, in fast & dangerous and normal modes (this amplifies whatever the effective speed was from these two modes). This also causes the human ships to accelerate that much faster. This gives player ships an edge over the AI ships, to make chasing down incoming AI incursions easier with free-roaming defender mode. This also speeds up the game a bit without making it any more difficult (in fact, making it easier, because it is then easier to react to things while the AI is still the same speed as before).
-Fortresses and superfortresses now act as allied rally posts and mobile repair stations.
-There is now a chat message sent every time a player unlocks a tech, which is particularly helpful for coordination in co-op.
-There is now a chat message sent when a player finishes rebuilding a golem. This is helpful in co-op and in solo.
-Ships such as rebuilders and engineers would previously go all the way to their free-roaming point when given a free-roaming move order before they would do any target seeking. Now they will properly start target seeking immediately, as with all other ships, and only go to their destination if their destination is not accessible.
-If rebuilders cannot rebuild a ship from remains due to that ship already being at cap, the remains will instead be scrapped and a chat message will be sent to the player controlling the remains that were removed.
-Improved the timeliness of scout data being returned on planets after loading a savegame and waiting for multiple players (sometimes it was fine before, but sometimes not).
Changes from prior prereleases.
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-The short name and wave name of grenade launchers was misspelled in prior prereleases. Fixed.
-The health of area mines (and thus their damage output) has been reduced 8x. However, because they are able to hit clusters of enemy ships so well, they still are phenomenal against large groups of ships.
-Bombers now have a 12x bonus against acid sprayers.
-All of the different sorts of fighters now have a 12x bonus against impulse reaction emitters. Frigates also now have a 9x bonus against them.
-Sentinel Frigates have had their attack power reduced to 1/5 in general, as they were way overpowered before, and bombers now have an 16x bonus against them.
-Grenade Launchers no longer have a minimum attack range, but fighters now have a 12x bonus against them.
-The speed of Zenith Autobombs has been increased from 52 to 82, but they now have a lower ship cap. They also now have a 5x bonus against bombers.
-Beam Frigates now have a 2x bonus against regular frigates, but a 80% penalty against all of the fighter types.
-All of the fighter types now have a 40x bonus against zenith viral shredders.
-Frigates now have a 9x bonus against Zenith Polarizers.
-The replication rate of Zenith Viral Shredders has been reduced somewhat, as they were too overpowerful previously.
-A number of bugs with free-roaming defender mode have now been fixed. FRD ships are no longer indecisive, and do a better job of target selection in general. A much greater weight is placed on attacking stuff that is nearby, for instance, which makes the ships more efficient in general.
-Fixed a bug where fonts could disappear if the screen became locked and then restored in Windows Vista or Windows 7.
-Any ships that can fire through force fields can also now fire past decoy drones without their shots being deflected.
