The latest beta is available via the Updates window in version 3.060 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 3.060 or greater, you can download 3.060
here. This prerelease version is compatible with any vendor's version of the game -- Steam, Impulse, whatever.
Note: If you have bug reports related to this release,
please log them in the
bug reports subforum with one bug per topic. It makes things infinitely easier for us. Thanks!
Looking for a Patch That Can Be Manually-Installed?Because of the time involved in creating multiple versions of each patch, we only create manually-installable patches for official versions of the game, not each beta prerelease. But you can easily create your own manually-installable beta patch! Please note that current betas can only be successfully applied to version
3.060 of the game or later (if you later wish to revert to the official version for any reason, you can download the full raw files from the above link to do so).
To create your own manual beta patch, simply download these two files:
1.
Current Beta Director Xml File.
2.
Current Beta Zip File.
If you try to open that zip file, it will say it's corrupt -- that's okay, it's not really a zip file. Finally, create a new zip file on your computer, and put both the director and the fake-zip-file inside it. Call your outer zip file something that starts with Beta and ends with an extension of .zip. Beta.zip will work just fine, or you can name it after the specific version number if you want to hang onto it. And that's it! Now you have your very own manually-installable package of the AI War beta version of your choice, which you can install by simply selecting via your Updates window in the game. Please note that "Beta" in the filename is case-sensitive.
What's new since 3.084:(Cumulative release notes since 3.060 are attached at the bottom)
-------------------
-A newer version of the Lidgren Network Library is now used.
-added support for AI plots, which are enabled in the new "AI Plots" tab in the new game lobby.
-added first AI plot: the avenger space station that spawns on the death of the core command station of the AI with the avenger plot. The Avenger is incredibly powerful, and will go straight for human home command stations.
-all command stations (I, II, III, Warp Jammer, Home, Home Core, and AI Core) now immediately retry the "am I protected by a forcefield" logic after losing protection from a forcefield. This prevents issues where the brief window between losing protection and recalculating protections allows enough firepower through to destroy the station. For performance reasons this immediate-retry logic is not applied to non-command-stations.
-turrets can now be munitions boosted, but only to 40% (for 140% damage).
-starships can now be munitions boosted, but only to 20% (for 120% damage).
-added two commands for enabling the new AI plot in existing games, "cmd:add plot ai1 avenger" for ai player 1, and "cmd:add plot ai2 avenger" for ai player 2. These are not cheats and will work on cheats-not-enabled games; the chat message will say "CHEAT" but it doesn't actually flag your game as a cheat game. Note that the command will not appear to do anything, the plot doesn't trigger until the respective ai core command station is destroyed. If the core command station has already been destroyed, the plot cannot be triggered for that ai player.
-modules are now immune to area of effect damage.
-now if you left-click or right-click on an alert (wave alerts, mining golem, rebel colony invisibility timer, command station under attack, etc) you will be taken to the applicable planet (if any, a ? ? ? wave warning or cpa warning won't take you anywhere).
-now if you hold alt+A on the galaxy map screen it will show the alert box like normal.
-added option checkbox in lobby for "Show Unexplored Planets" (defaults to true, which is the previous behavior), if unchecked, planets will not be shown on either the lobby or the in-game galaxy map until the human team has visited it. Non-visible wormhole links will not be used by any auto-pathing, so the first time to a new planet you'll need to explicitly send ships via ctrl-right-clicking the wormhole. An "auto explore unexplored wormhole" order is planned, but not yet implemented.
-added "unexplored wormholes" galaxy display mode similar to "hostile wormholes" but instead displays the number of wormholes with non-visited planets on the other end (doesn't count exo-wormholes). Only displays a number if the "source" planet has been visited, of course. This display mode can be triggered via the "X" key.
CHANGES TO PAST PRERELEASES
=======
-In the last version there was a rare crash in sound playing code, fixed.
-In the last version the "no wave warnings" ai modifier was also hiding all other messages that normally go in the alert box (devourer around, trader on one of your planets, marauders coming, etc), fixed to only hide wave warnings.
-modified multi-beam beam cannons (previously only the heavy beam cannon IV, but now also the II and III) to split their strength among all beams and compute damage application separately for each beam
-modified heavy beam cannons to interact more correctly with forcefields
-heavy beam cannon beam color changed from blueish to greenish, and a bit closer to white.
-changed aggregate targeting behavior for melee ships again, to make them much less likely to pile up on the same target
-aggregate targeting now considers a unit ineligible as a "leader" if it is in low-power-mode (and if it is a leader and is put into low-power-mode ships using its targeting data will switch "leaders" when they next check for a target list).
-fixed yet another bug with multi-ff-collision.
-heavy beam cannon IIs now fire 3 beams in a fan pattern, and IIIs now fire 5 beams. The attack power is split evenly between them. Moderate buff to the II, III, and IV attack power to compensate for the spreading out of the beam strength.
-heavy beam cannons now have a 100% power boost against forcefields.
-heavy beam cannon III tech unlock cost from 4000 to 3500, mark IV from 6000 to 3000 (it is only one turret, after all)
-"no wave warnings" ai modifier now hides the overall "wave" count on the left end of the resource display
-"no wave warnings" ai modifier now prevents incoming wave sound from playing.
