Prerelease/Expans 2.201 (New Updater, Major Perf+, Many Bugfixes/Balance)

[Velox]

FRD mode seems to be nonfunctional in the current version. (NahtanoJ88)

     I've found this is the case as well.  FRD ships just sit there when enemy ships are present.

[x4000]

No good. Not sure if this just affects our (rather large) game, or if all multiplayer games will be affected, but we definitely cant roll with our current save in 2.200. I posted the save to the bug reports forum.

Thanks for posting the save, I'm looking into this.

Nice update x4000, just one complaint from me and a few people I spoke to on IRC. We feel the new art is very different from what is already in the game, and is detracting from the "feel" of the game. The spacedock, while it does look impressive, feels to old and drab with the texture and has a certain 3D feel, which nothing else in the game has. The same goes to the colony ship and transport, even though they do look nice, it just doesn't fit with the feel of the game. I support the idea of making them bigger. By the way the light starship is now way better!

(and)

I do agree with TheWordWillSetYouFree that the new graphics just do not flow with the current game aesthetics.

The new 3d-ish look is the direction the art is taking in general; I guess you guys haven't looked much at the expansion yet, a huge amount of it is in this style.  Quite a lot of the new stuff in general has that look (colony ships, and so on), and expect more in the future.  It's both easier to make and to make look nice, and it's more visually impressive in our view.  Anyway, this is where the game is heading over time, we'll be updating a large number of the graphics over the next year or so, though very slowly for the next months.  It's always an evolving game, but this is the direction we've chosen to go in after consideration -- it should be a more accessible look in general, and the only way that we can do truly massive ships is to render them on a 3D base; pixelart at that scale is just impossible.

FRD mode seems to be nonfunctional in the current version. (NahtanoJ88)

I will take a look at that.

Possible problem with the Control Node Auto-FRD Mobile Military once it is built it erased my current movement commands on my planets. (If someone else can confirm that for me it would be great.

This shouldn't happen, depending on what commands they had there; it may be the other bug about FRD mode simply being a bit out of whack, I am not sure.  I'd need a way to duplicate this, though; right now that part has seemed to work fine for me in testing, and looks good in code.

I think the 3d styles could be tuned a bit in photoshop - Especially the Hive golem for example, has "openings" that are not textured (one is even bright red) this looks very.. very odd

All of the 3D images are post-processed in photoshop.  Those openings are textured, just to a more slight degree.  The one that is bright red is red because of your team color.

I had a big bunch of text I was going to post on aesthetic design and the new ships, and how I like them so much. All I'll say though, is that I like the new ships because they have real character and soul and feel in line with the artistic direction of the expansion, as well as conveying their scale a bit better. I'm also a sucker for great artwork in 2D based games.

Thanks for that, glad you're a fan at least.

[x4000]

-A new updater has been put in place for the game.
Fantastic! I'm loving this feature! Does this mean I can now delete the 87 megs of MSI files the game originally installed on my C drive??

Glad you're a fan of the new stuff you mentioned above!   As for this, yes, you can delete those extra MSI files if you've downloaded this version of the game.  The MSI file you are referring to is only needed by the 2.0 updater, which will only be used one last time for players who are on 2.0 still (and not Steam or Impulse customers); anyone on the 2.200 version or above won't ever see the other updater again.

I've noticed recently that the artistic direction on AI War is in danger of losing its way.  Perhaps now is the time to revist this before things progress too far?

NOTE: If the intention here is the first step into gradually replacing all of the non-tiny objects with Render art versions then I'll shut up.  But I will say choose a perspective and try to stick to it, i.e., iso-view or deep perspective not both.

Yep, this is our intention -- that's the new artistic direction in general for all non-tiny ships.  It will just take time.

Regarding the perspective shifts, this is, after all, space.  Everything is not oriented on a plane as as it would be with a row of true buildings, right?  For visual reasons in particular, and to help bring more a sense of space, we're using a variety of different angles for the larger ships.

[I-KP]

Agreed but from a design point of view mixed perspectives are, well, ugly.  It doesn't gel well at all IMHO.  Particularly when this isn't a true 3D game and all angles become anchored for all time.  After all there are many, many aspects of AI War that sacrifice realism on the altar of the almighty aesthetic imperative but visual consistency should be the last thing marked for sacrifice.

I understand the need to go to Render art style for the non-tiny stuff (and have commented as such several times before this) but it doesn't have to be such a massive apparent departure from the Pixel art style (which is still lookin' rather good for a fair number of the starships).  Yes, it takes time and perhaps a bit of skill in the post-process stage to make these precise Render art objects conform to the slightly off-beat and contrasty Pixel art style, but it's worth the effort.  There is a creeping inconsistency even among the more recent Render art objects (iso vs deep persepective, sharp and contrasty vs clean and clinical) and the Colony ship, Transport and Stardock have just highlighted this to many.  Nowt wrong with Render art, looks good, but it just has to all come from the same page is all.

I liked AI War for its Pixel art style, it was one of the first things that attracted me to it.  Retaining Pixel art for all things up to and including Starships should be retained IMHO.  (Some of the current Pixel art objects could perhaps do with a revisit to spruce them up a bit, granted.)  Render art for all structures and the heavy metal (Golems et al) works and looks good but only as long as it makes strong efforts to 'mimic' the contrasty nature of Pixel art. ...IMO, of course.

[x4000]

The art style isn't something I'm particularly going to debate at the moment, just FYI.  I'm absolutely overrun with work this weekend, and it's much too late to change anything anytime soon, anyway.  In our judgment, the newer art style will do a better job in general of attracting new customers, and it's the main cost-feasible way to create very large art -- pure pixelart that is 1024x1024 is literally over 1000x more pixels than in a 32x32 image, and so for large stuff it's just not feasible.  Even a 256x256 image is 64x more pixels than in a 32x32 image.  I don't want to be a jerk about this, but I simply can't get sidelined into a discussion that is -- for the moment -- not going to make any difference.  I'm about to have an aneurysm over here wondering if I'm going to get everything done in time for monday as it is, and after a long string of 16 hour work days my patience is running slightly low.  Just as a warning; not a personal comment to anyone.  Please give me some space on the art thing for the moment.

[I-KP]

 

Fair enough. 

[x4000]

Really, I'm not trying to bite your head off. Just stating my side for the moment.

Edit:  I don't even know what "bite your head up" means.  Whoops.

[x4000]

I haven't started using the new updater just yet because I want the last version directly on these forums to be fully functional in and of itself.  So here's version 2.201, which fixes the most troubling issues in 2.200, and gives yet more performance boost.

The latest prerelease is available at http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar2201.zip

Changes in 2.201

-Ships that are in cold storage were previously not being drawn at all when the players were looking at them with hidden scouts or with complete visibility turned on.  Now these ships are shown with a black border.

-In the last prerelease, there was an immediate deync in multiplayer games.  Fixed.

-In the last prerelease, FRD mode was broken.  Fixed.

-In the last prerelease, leaving a cloaked scouts sitting on enemy planets could negate any benefits from cold storage on that planet.  Fixed.

-In recent prereleases, gather points were not being loaded properly from newer savegames.  Fixed.

-The advanced factory graphic was showing up incorrectly in the last prerelease.  Fixed.

[I-KP]

Edit:  I don't even know what "bite your head up" means.  Whoops.

I just assumed it was something that fell off the raft as it tried to cross the pond.  No worries (either way).   

[aspo]

Are the dock icons supposed to be so huge when zoomed all the way out?  They take up significantly more space than any other icon does.

[x4000]

Are the dock icons supposed to be so huge when zoomed all the way out?  They take up significantly more space than any other icon does.

Larger ships in general have larger icons.  Part of the reason we made the docks so much larger is to make them easier to find -- given their ongoing importance.  At some point in the future, probably next month's DLC, we're going to make command stations equivalently larger, too.  That's another part of the reason for the increase in force field size (though that may need to increase even further with the command stations later, but that's a question for further on).

[Shardz]

I noticed that the Starship Constuctor icons are now the same as the Star Dock icons.

Due to the change of size of the Star Dock, some of my old buildings are now underneath the Star Dock in my old save game. I will need to select from the summary and rebuild them. Also, reported units on the galaxy map are grossly off from the real number by thousands. This could probably be remedied by starting a new game I imagine. So far I only see one planet that has AI units in sleep mode (due to my scout parked there) - the units themselves are all mostly black with a couple pixels of "lights" only. Just a couple observations here.

[x4000]

I noticed that the Starship Constuctor icons are now the same as the Star Dock icons.

Always were, but since the starship constructor has not been made larger yet, that does cause it to look odd.  Will fix.

Due to the change of size of the Star Dock, some of my old buildings are now underneath the Star Dock in my old save game. I will need to select from the summary and rebuild them.

Yep, that happens whenever we resize ships; pretty unavoidable, unfortunately.

Also, reported units on the galaxy map are grossly off from the real number by thousands. This could probably be remedied by starting a new game I imagine. So far I only see one planet that has AI units in sleep mode (due to my scout parked there) - the units themselves are all mostly black with a couple pixels of "lights" only. Just a couple observations here.

Can you post the save you're referring to, there?  It is entirely possible there is an issue with the "cold storage" stuff, I'm still working the (hopefully) last kinks out of that.  The enemy counts in red, where the scouts are sitting -- is that what you're referring to?  And the fact that they show up as black, with just the "lights on" (good description) is intended.  That makes it easier to know that ships are out of cold storage and working properly later if it seems there is some issue with ships not getting targeted or what have you; just kind of a sanity check thing there.

[Shardz]

In the planets of Bachus, Naverra, and Ralarkub there are 1000+ units hanging out, but galaxy view reports very minimal numbers. Yes, that's what I'm talking about...not a big deal since I already know those planets are crammed full of baddies. It's probably a save game thing. Regarding the black units with lights on (LOL), I understand what you are saying. I was just wondering if that was intentional.

I know the AIP is out of control, but the AI is turned way down cause this was my first "lone tutorial" play through and I didn't wanna get pummeled before I learned the game. It actually balances out OK like this even though I took over 17 planets so far. I'm trying to complete all objectives before I sack the final AI home. As you can see the hours I played so far stacked up. I'll start a new real game after the final release (and when I complete this game finally).

**Edited 12 times cause NFL playoffs are about to come on and I need to get with the program. LOL

[quickstix]

-A new updater has been put in place for the game.
Fantastic! I'm loving this feature! Does this mean I can now delete the 87 megs of MSI files the game originally installed on my C drive??

Glad you're a fan of the new stuff you mentioned above!  As for this, yes, you can delete those extra MSI files if you've downloaded this version of the game.

Right on. I remember the first time I niavely deleted them all. Ah memories.

The new graphics look absolutely awesome. Really. I still love the new colony ship. However, the more I think about it, the more I feel a bit conflicted over their coexistence with pixel art. I love the sharpness and crispness of pixel art, and it really suits AI War. 2D games and pixel art are a match made in heaven. But a trip to the Zenith Remnant preorder page reminded me of how well pixel art suits AI War, and how good all the stuff looks (Shield Boosters/Inhibitors for example, are a prime example of awesome, crisp, distinct and sharp pixel art). The perspective change threw my brain for a little loop too.

Just my thoughts at this stage, so I'll leave it at that.

I've given it some more thought and I don't think I was thinking quite straight when I wrote that as I've always loved the artistic direction of the Zenith Remnant. I blame late posting last night and the heatwave in Adelaide (43 Degrees celcius today, 109.4F for the farenheit guys). I do believe the new stuff co-exists well, and all the other stuff on why I like them so much (scale, design, lore, and so on), not just because they are new and fancy. Long story short (or I'll end up waffling), I personally like the new artwork and I feel it really suits the direction of AI War and feels in line with its current direction.

Oh, to the northern hemisphere guys, I won't trade my heatwave for your cold.