The release cycle is unusual.

[Buttons840]

It seems that there are new experimental ideas added, followed by an official release, and then followed by several beta releases to polish things before the next round of new features.  Thus, the betas often end up more polished than the official releases.

[keith.lamothe]

Well, actually there are experimental ideas for a while, then a few weeks of just bugfixes and balance changes, and then an official, and then a few weeks of mostly just fixes before getting more experimental again.

Particularly in 5.0's case we had a long gap (1.5-2.5 weeks, I forget exactly) between the last of the prereleases and the actual official, partly due to how the distribution worked out that time.  And even before that the experimental stuff had died down quite a bit.

But even with that long gap, there were still significant things that we did not become aware of until after the official.

And the post-5.0 betas have been more stable than usual because we've been putting almost all of our "experimental energy" into AVWW instead of AIW, and just trying to add polish to AIW.  And even most of the "new" stuff on AIW post-5.0 has been interface stuff that's been at the top of the mantis vote tallies for a while.

[Buttons840]

Seems you might benefit from another official (like 5.1 or something?) before returning to experimental feature development.  Of course, Arcen is in uncharted territory here, as no other game company does updates quite like you.

[Red Spot]

By the time most that do not know about the beta's become aware of a next official update they are again in the same boat .. 

[x4000]

We're not planning to hitting into the experimental land for a while here, in general.  Think of this as being sort of like the post-3.0 period, except with more focus on polish, balance, usability, and bugfixing, rather than on cramming in as many new features as possible. 

We're hitting a point where the game is incredibly feature-rich already, and there's not a huge amount to be gained from gameplay features that are all-new.  Why not polish the ones already here, etc.

Of course, we'll get all experimental again at some point, and certainly with the next expansion, but right now one of my personal goals for AI War is to not introduce any new bugs or balance issues if we can help it for the moment.  We're all still decompressing from the very intense run from 3.069 through 5.0, I think, both players and developers alike.

[Gallant Dragon]

What I'd like to see is a way of installing only the official updates and not the beta ones.

[TechSY730]

What I'd like to see is a way of installing only the official updates and not the beta ones.

That's simple. Don't use the auto-updater until the in-game "there is an update" prompt says there is an official and/or stable update. For beta updates, it will say it is a beta update.
I don't think there is a way to stop the updater prompt from showing up for beta updates though.

Now, if you already gotten to a beta version and want to down grade, you can simply re-download the latest full installer from the main website and reinstall over your current copy.