AI War Beta 3.801, "Lobby Revisitation," Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2010/10/ai-war-beta-3801-lobby-revisitation.html

Copied:

This release has a lot of miscellaneous stuff in it, but there is particular attention paid to the lobby in there.  Specifically, all of the known lobby bugs should be resolved as of this release -- including that squirrely one where settings weren't really taking, etc.

Also in this one:

• Unique graphics for the avenger and hybrid hives, and upgraded graphics for the Neinzul Enclave Starships.
• Multiplayer chat improvements.
• Various balance fixes.
• Expansion logos on the main screen to show which expansions you have installed and available.

The Avenger

This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 3.701 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time.  If you don't have 3.701 or later, you can download the windows installer for 3.711, or the OSX installer for 3.712. Once you do an in-game update, they'll both be on the latest version, despite starting at slightly different versions.

[Mánagarmr]

Holy gawd, you're quick!

[Shardz]

I found a minor text overlap bug for one of the tooltip descriptions in the Lobby - Mantis report filed.

[Mánagarmr]

Many really nice hodgepodge fixes all around. I like it!

The expansion logos are now drawn on the main menu in addition to the main game logo if the expansions are installed and enabled (full or trial mode).

This in particular is a nice addition.

[superking]

loving the new layout of structures on homeworld, and multiple MK II scouts on startup... good stuff. cool new sprites too!

the energy cost of the MK III gravity turret is way out of whack (like 10x that of the MK II).

How much this is a problem depends upon developer intentions, but atm with tractor turrets SO cheap to run it is extremely easy to possess enough tractor turrets to paralayse each and every wave with lots of turrets left over to spare, plus spread them out elsewhere and generally have loads of them. this makes defending SO much easier and removes the element of risk vs cost the turrets used to have (I never used to use enough tractors to stop entire waves because of the high costs, usually enough to stop about half a wave and then rely upon turrets to stop the mobile half... now I can stop everything, every time, easily.) I dont perceive any reason to unlock MK II because for 5000 energy (which in the scheme of things is TINY) I can support enough tractor beams to stop like 1000 ships which is more than enough in the early game even on high difficulties.

[Mánagarmr]

Hmm, I've yet to play long enough to gauge the effectiveness of tractors in this version. I only know they used to be 10k energy a piece, which was crippling in the early game (they also cost about 36k crystal).

[Epsilon Plus]

Is it intentional that the ship caps in the lobby aren't the same as the ship caps in game?

[keith.lamothe]

The tractor crystal cost on low-ship-caps was such that if you immediately tried to speed-build _one_ with your two starting engies then you would run out of crystal before the tractor was done   That said, they don't need to be too cheap.

[Winter Born]

sound glitch makes music un bear able   

glitch times

1:14, 1:36, 1:59, 2:21, 2:44   later same game 7:50, 8:23, 9:11, 9:35, 9:59

new game 1:11, 1:46, 2:20, 2:50

BTW
Nice to have the home station organized tight can use 2nd FF for additional defence fairly well now
left borders of boxes on planet map show up now and the hotspots now align with the assigned buttons now
all nice polish 

[x4000]

Okay, folks, here's the next one: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,7359.0.html

[Collic]

I'm very impressed at how polished this is. Love the UI smartening up that's gone on. The galaxy map is so much more readable - and there are some very nice usability enhancements there too. The balance feels good. Its running quite well so far; there is the odd music skip, but it seems fairly rare enough. The  MAP/STATS/CRTLS buttons now feel much more consistent without making the rest of the icon graphics clash.

I noticed the context menu is also done now, as well I will suggest one thing if it hasn't been mentioned, I do think it might be a good idea to try and resurrect the function of the old movement button (for group or lone). Maybe call it something like 'move' and include all movement modes in a drop-down. I mainly suggest this because its helpful for new players since a lot of people will learn about things like this by noticing the UI option, or just remember its there. Not something essential for a final release though by any means (sorry, i know i should be using mantis to suggest stuff).

Really great work

[x4000]

Thank you!

As for the move button, that's been moved under the Ctrl button window.  New players can still learn about it from there, but it wasn't important enough to be taking up screen real estate constantly.

Onwards and upwards!

[keith.lamothe]

I noticed the context menu is also done now, as well

Far from done   Lots of functions from the SlimDX one haven't been ported over yet, but they'll have to wait until later.  Some of them needed more beta time anyway (paint attack, notably).

[Collic]

Oops, yeah I did mean to type almost done It feels a lot closer anyway. I love the galaxy map; so much better than the last SlimDX version I played.

[x4000]

I love the galaxy map; so much better than the last SlimDX version I played.

Thanks!  I'm really pleased with how that turned out, too.