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 2.900:(Cumulative release notes since 2.000 are attached at the bottom)
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-The minimap is now more accurate.
-Previously, the "protection ranges" were being drawn for all ships whenever the player was in build mode. This could cause some performance problems, however -- now the game will only draw those ranges if the player holds Z, whether in build mode or not.
-Previously, there was a bug with manufactories not working when the resource they would produce is at zero. Fixed.
-The game now saves a settings.bak file before saving to settings.dat, just to make sure that if the write is interrupted before completing, data is not lost.
Changes from prior prereleases.
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-Zenith autobombs are now able to explode agains the edge of force fields, rather than bouncing off of them pointlessly.
-Fortresses and superfortresses were not doing a good job of actually repairing nearby ships, as they were suppoed to. Fixed.
-Previously, if engineers were given an order to repair a still-building transport/fortress, they would get inside instead of repairing it. Fixed.
-Fixed a bug that was causing under-construction command stations to give the warning of home command station under attack.
-Fixed a bug with engineers not moving to assist their target if their target was at the exact center of the planet area.
-In recent prereleases, engineers in FRD mode would sometimes jitter around in an unhelpful way. Fixed.
-Previously, AI guards would sometimes "dance" at the edge of their guard radii. Fixed.
