Struggling just to deselect units

[FroBodine]

I am brand, spanking new to A.I. War, just ran through the first three tutorials last night.

1. I am having a hard time just deselecting units.  Is alt-left click or alt-drag select units to deselect really the only way to deselect units?  I am constantly selecting a unit to give an order.  Then I move to another planet or another ship and select it by left-clicking to give it an order, only to find the first unit I selected is STILL selected, and now both ships are moving to the new destination!!

It is VERY cumbersome to have to alt-left click to deselect every unit after giving it an order.  I just want to click away from all units to deselect everything, or press ESC or something very quick and simple.  Not alt-click every unit to deselect them one at a time.

Please, is there something I'm missing?  There has to be an easier way to simply deselect units.

2.  How do you cancel a move order?  I click to move units to one location, then decide I want them somewhere else.  So, I click the new destination, but the units continue moving to the first spot, before moving to the second spot, following the waypoint lines.  How do you clear waypoints so the ships don't have to move to each clicked location consecutively?

Thanks!  I really want to get into this game, but the simple deselection of units has me shaking my head.

[keith.lamothe]

Welcome to the forums

Please, is there something I'm missing?  There has to be an easier way to simply deselect units.

Have you tried left-clicking empty space?  I think that's sufficient.  If not, draw a small selection box (left-click-and-drag) around empty space and let go.

2.  How do you cancel a move order?  I click to move units to one location, then decide I want them somewhere else.  So, I click the new destination, but the units continue moving to the first spot, before moving to the second spot, following the waypoint lines.  How do you clear waypoints so the ships don't have to move to each clicked location consecutively?

With the ships selected, give a Stop command (defaults to the End key, I believe).

Thanks!  I really want to get into this game, but the simple deselection of units has me shaking my head.

Let me know if you have any other questions

[x4000]

To deselect a unit, just click anywhere -- same controls as in most every RTS.  Also, if you select another ship, it automatically deselects the older one.  The only exception is if you're holding down shift when you select the new ship (which says "add this ship to my prior selection").  If you're not intentionally doing that, perhaps your shift key is stuck down and you should tap it to see if that gets it no longer stuck.  If you see the word Shift next to your cursor, then it's stuck down.

Same deal with canceling move orders to a new destination -- just give them a new order and that's where they go.  Sounds like shift is being held down there, too, as that's what causes waypoint movement, which is what you're doing.  You can also explicitly hit the End key to cancel all movement orders, but you in no way need to do that if you're giving a new order and not holding down shift.

Hope that helps!  That would indeed be incredibly frustrating and hobbling!

[Cyborg]

I have seen this behavior with (I believe) the original release build. Please make sure that you update to the latest build. I think that solves the 'sticky shift' issue. Ignore the fact that it's a beta, because it's extremely stable and a lot better than the original release of 5.0.

[x4000]

The sticky shift issue is a bug in the unity 3d engine with how it deals with the steam overlay.  All you have to do is tap shift to make it go away, but every time you bring up the Steam overlay it will cause this thanks to a bug in unity.  There isn't any version of the game that doesn't have that, but that's why the little Shift notice comes up when the shift key is held down for more than about 10 seconds.

[keith.lamothe]

The sticky shift issue is a bug in the unity 3d engine with how it deals with the steam overlay.

Similar issues with alt-tabbing, in my experience.  Basically the window is a "you can check out any time, but you can never leave" situation

[FroBodine]

The sticky shift issue is a bug in the unity 3d engine with how it deals with the steam overlay.  All you have to do is tap shift to make it go away, but every time you bring up the Steam overlay it will cause this thanks to a bug in unity.  There isn't any version of the game that doesn't have that, but that's why the little Shift notice comes up when the shift key is held down for more than about 10 seconds.

This must be what the problem is.  My shift key is not stuck down, and I have tried simply left-clicking away from all objects.  I am using Steam, and I did shift-tab to bring up the Steam overlay.  I knew it must have been a bug or something, because that was just too cumbersome of a UI the way it was behaving.

I will avoid doing that in A.I. War.  Thank you for the fix of hitting shift to clear it.  Now I can enjoy this game and really try to learn it!

[x4000]

No worries, and apologies for the confusion!

[FroBodine]

One more question - would you recommend NOT buying the game from Steam?  I like Steam because it has the built in voice chat function which is great for hooking up with friends and playing.  I don't use any 3rd party voice chat programs.  Not against them, I just like that Steam already has it built in.  Does Steam stay up to date with all updates?  It was mentioned that there is a beta which is better than 5.0 already.  Does Steam have that version?  I would rather be up to date with the latest patches than rely on Steam, if they are going to be behind.

Thanks!

[keith.lamothe]

One more question - would you recommend NOT buying the game from Steam?  I like Steam because it has the built in voice chat function which is great for hooking up with friends and playing.  I don't use any 3rd party voice chat programs.  Not against them, I just like that Steam already has it built in.  Does Steam stay up to date with all updates?  It was mentioned that there is a beta which is better than 5.0 already.  Does Steam have that version?  I would rather be up to date with the latest patches than rely on Steam, if they are going to be behind.

Thanks!

Steam has the latest official version; Valve is very good about that.  If you want the beta patches you can get them from the in-game main menu.

Also, you can use the serial keys you get from Steam in any copy of the game (including one downloaded directly from one of our mirrors: http://arcengames.com/w/index.php/aiwar-downloads ), if you want to run it without the overlay and so forth.

[FroBodine]

Right on.  So, I can apply the beta patches from in-game, and it will not screw up Steam's ability to patch when official versions are released?

If so, that is awesome!

[x4000]

Yep, that's exactly it!

[keith.lamothe]

Right on.  So, I can apply the beta patches from in-game, and it will not screw up Steam's ability to patch when official versions are released?

Yep!  If for some reason we put out a beta patch _really_ fast after an official release, and you update your steam version with that beta patch _before_ Valve gets the new official release update up, then it would overwrite your later-beta with the official and you'd have to re-update to the beta, but that's a pretty edge case.  We avoid prerelease patches between "official release" and "our distribution partners have had reasonable time to get the official release update out" for that reason.