Prerelease/Expans 2.001ZG (Control Nodes, Co-Op Adjustments, Bugfixes)

[x4000]

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/AIWar2001ZG.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 2.001ZF:
(Cumulative release notes since 2.000 are attached at the bottom)

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

-Updated Fortress and SuperFortress graphics by I-KP.

-Colony ships and transports both now have a ship cap of 60.  However, they also now each take 4,000 energy to run instead of 50 in order to discourage having large numbers of these ships just sitting around as free decoys against the AI.

-Fixed a bug where ships could be built on non-controlled planets using a control group exploit.

-Players are no longer able to gift home command stations between each other.  With the addition of home command station cores, this is no longer neccessary, and it also prevents an exploit.

-There is a new category under command stations and mobile builders: CTRL. In this category, various "control nodes" can be built.  These are basically very cheap (1 metal, 1 crystal) control options that are perma-cloaked and which can be built by players in order to change how the current campaign works.  In many respects, these are simply like per-player lobby options, except that they can be set at any time during the game's play.  These are distinct from the overall settings options in that they are per-player, and a per-campaign.  Most settings will continue to be accessed via the lobby or the settings screens, but certain gameplay-centric options that need to be per-player per-campaign will be available via the new CTRL category at the command stations.  These options will typically center around ship behavior.

-New Control Node: Allow Team Control Of Ships. Allows all teammates to share control of your ships. This is useful when players wish to share control of their empires with allies, but doesn't require that all players in a multiplayer game share control of their empires at once.  Player A can share control of their empire, while Players B and C keep control of their own ships to themselves, for example.

-Previously, there were several bugs with engineers assisting objects under construction and how the costs were calculated and reported.  All fixed.

-Previously, if engineers from Player A assisted in the construction of a unit belonging to Player B, then this would add to Player B's cost and not cost Player A anything.  This was highly unintuitive, and has now been switched so that the controller of the engineers now always pays the cost.  Additionally, the expense associated with the engineer is now reported as part of the engineer itself rather than as part of the constructor/building-unit in the Expenses By Player tab (even when both units are controlled by the same player.  The same applies to ships that are being built through queues.

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

-Fortresses no longer act as a rally post.  Having them be too multifunctional could lead to irritating side consquences for players (they just want a fortress, but want a rally point somewhere else, etc).

-Fixed a bug that would sometimes let multiple command station home cores be created.

[Volatar]

Awesome! Now I can assist my allies in their building, with my resources! 

[x4000]

Awesome! Now I can assist my allies in their building, with my resources! 

Yes, it was completely an oversight that this was not already the case.

[Shardz]

*Rubs hands together* Alright! It's always a pleasure to see a new version up with new goodies to play with! I'm *still* playing my first game ever with the core release and it's going on 20 hours strong.  I would start a new game but I'm having too much fun raking in achievements in the process.  I had one question; I was looking for a Screenshot hotkey in the commands and didn't find one. Am I blind or is there one in this game? It would be great if it could dump serially numbered jpgs to a Screens sub-folder off the root (just not in My Documents, I hate that MS system crud). I can always use Hypersnap to do it, but it would be more convenient in-game. Anyway, great list of stuff! Keep up the awesome work!

[Revenantus]

*Rubs hands together* Alright! It's always a pleasure to see a new version up with new goodies to play with! I'm *still* playing my first game ever with the core release and it's going on 20 hours strong.  I would start a new game but I'm having too much fun raking in achievements in the process.  I had one question; I was looking for a Screenshot hotkey in the commands and didn't find one. Am I blind or is there one in this game? It would be great if it could dump serially numbered jpgs to a Screens sub-folder off the root (just not in My Documents, I hate that MS system crud). I can always use Hypersnap to do it, but it would be more convenient in-game. Anyway, great list of stuff! Keep up the awesome work!

There isn't any in built screen shot support right now, but the game is compatible with Xfire which provides a screen shot shortcut. Alternatively, you can use some other software as you say.

[Ryalth]

Fortresses no longer act as a rally post.  Having them be too multifunctional could lead to irritating side consquences for players (they just want a fortress, but want a rally point somewhere else, etc).

Good call.  I was playing just the other day and I had a rally post but my teammate kept building fortresses and my ships would keep going over there.

-Previously, if engineers from Player A assisted in the construction of a unit belonging to Player B, then this would add to Player B's cost and not cost Player A anything.  This was highly unintuitive, and has now been switched so that the controller of the engineers now always pays the cost.

Interesting, I predict this will a significant impact on gameplay, as now as long as anyone has resources, a player needing ships can build them, so if someone takes a big loss they don't have to recover on their own.  Probably a good thing, altho we used to have someone specialize with swarms of mark-III engineers and just build stuff quickly for us, and we can't do that anymore because it would come out of their budget.   
Unless all team-members could have a completely shared resource pool, which I personally would like to see an option for, maybe cap at 600,000 * team_count - (team_count-1)*factor

[Volatar]

Now that is a really good idea! Shared ENTIRE team resource pool? I like the idea!

[I-KP]

If you could set a Reserve -- in multiples of 100K, set via game start-up options or one of those Control Node thingies for dynamic and personal situation configuration -- that never gets farmed out to meet the needs of your team mates then you'd avoid sapping one poor soul dry (which will always happen with a 100% shared resource model).

[Volatar]

sapping one poor soul dry (which will always happen with a 100% shared resource model).

What kind of badly-coded resource-sharing systems have you played with  Theres nothing wrong with a single shared resource pool if everyone is equal.

[orzelek]

I'm using the ZH small version from bomber thread. I have problem with fortress graphic - whole image jumps between two places. The disk in team color is only one that stays still.

[Pandemic]

Now that is a really good idea! Shared ENTIRE team resource pool? I like the idea!

The smell of communism is in the air... .

But it would be interesting. I liked the Total Annihilation way of sharing resources, and I think it worked well. Maybe think of implimenting something akin to that?


-Pandemic

[eRe4s3r]

Shared Resources where someone is equal?  

So instead of you get yours, and i get mine, we average income and both get the SAME .. average ? You do realize that when someone now looses income due to a raid, income goes down massively for both and thus a raid attack by the AI on one homeworld can cripple production for all players without warning.

And worse, when more than 2 players play gaining massive production can, in worst case only increase your actual income by 25% (4players) when it could have been 50% (2 players) or 100% (1 player)

Thus, Resource Sharing promotes playing with less people, it only works when you have not that many players in 1 team... preferable only 2


on the other hand, if done right (ie, not a average!) this could promote team play so my lengthy post is not against the idea, just against an flat average ^^

[Pandemic]

Shared Resources where someone is equal?  

So instead of you get yours, and i get mine, we average income and both get the SAME .. average ? You do realize that when someone now looses income due to a raid, income goes down massively for both and thus a raid attack by the AI on one homeworld can cripple production for all players without warning.

And worse, when more than 2 players play gaining massive production can, in worst case only increase your actual income by 25% (4players) when it could have been 50% (2 players) or 100% (1 player)

Thus, Resource Sharing promotes playing with less people, it only works when you have not that many players in 1 team... preferable only 2


on the other hand, if done right (ie, not a average!) this could promote team play

Average? Who said average? I'd refuse to play with this if it were average...

I can't remember exactly how the TA resource system worked, but I do remember that it was really epic. It was something like you kept a certain amount of resources, and everything else was given to the team pot.

Example:
You set your share number to 10,000 metal. You have 9,000 metal, so you're not sharing any. But if you ever go over 10,000 metal, say 11,000, you'll have 11,000 metal, but if your buddy builds a Starship, you're prone to lose that 1,000 metal, bringing you back down to 10,000. After that you're at your sharing limit though, so he'll have to use his own resources .

Thoughts?


-Pandemic

[eRe4s3r]

afaik ta allowed you to specify an "over" value on the resource bars, if your storage was filled beyond a certain point your ENTIRE continuous resource rate surplus would go to the ally, if he needs it (ie if his resources are not in the positive and filled to his "over" value.

The thing is, this only works well if you can specify to whom , and in what priority order you give resources to (if you have more than 2 players..)

[Pandemic]

afaik ta allowed you to specify an "over" value on the resource bars, if your storage was filled beyond a certain point your ENTIRE continuous resource rate surplus would go to the ally, if he needs it (ie if his resources are not in the positive and filled to his "over" value.

The thing is, this only works well if you can specify to whom , and in what priority order you give resources to (if you have more than 2 players..)

I suppose you could, but randomness isn't neccissarially a bad thing. I mean, unless Joe is making a nuke to 'splode my Home planet, I don't mind that he and Bob are fighting for my excess 20,000 resources .


-Pandemic