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 via the Updates window in version 2.201 or greater of the game. Just open the game and you can quickly download the prerelease through the updates tab. If you don't yet have 2.201 or greater, you can get 2.300 (the last full package released) here:
http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,3029.0.htmlExpansion 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: Steamworks integration should turn on automatically in the latest beta versions, but if it doesn't you can enable it manually: Dimply 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 2.600:(Cumulative release notes since 2.000 are attached at the bottom)
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-Three new expansion-only map styles have been added to the game: Snake, Vines, and Grid. They provide somewhat more orderly alternatives to Tree and Spokes, with explorations in different sorts of connection-patterns between planets, providing more variety in terms of planet adjacency, numbers of hops, and so on.
-Error handling for corrupt game images is now better. It now says specifically which image is corrupt, and doesn't crash the game.
-A checkbox has been added to the updates window that allows for updates to optionally be applied without invoking admin rights. This only works on pre-Vista machines, or when the game is installed somewhere other than Program Files.
-All of the command stations except for the AI home planet command station now have new, larger graphics and icons. This includes the command station cores. This makes them more attractive, but also easier to see and select when zoomed very far out (including locating them on enemy planets).
Changes from prior prereleases.
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-Previosuly, cold storage was preventing alarm posts from working. Fixed.
-Fixed another bug relating to FRD units not chasing teleporting units properly.
-Marauders and Resistance Fighters will now travel through wormholes when there are no enemies on their current planet. This prevents them from building up too hugely on any given planet.
-Force fields were showing up in enemy territory when they should not have been (again). Fixed (again).
-In 2.600, attack-move mode was working like FRD mode instead. Fixed.
-AI Turrets and the mining golem were doing a poor job of target selection in the last release. Fixed.
-Marauders and similar now count as threat, since they can now directly attack planets that they are not on.
-Marauders and resistance fighters both now have mine avoidance.
-The laser sound effects have been improved.
