Prerelease 1.999E (Unit Selection Bug Fix, Custom Planet Names, Pref Targeting)

[x4000]

The latest prerelease is available at http://www.arcengames.com/share/AIWar1999E.zip

That version is an upgrade from version 1.301, so you have to already have 1.301 (or greater) installed. Just unzip it into your game folder (usually C:\Program Files\Arcen Games\AI War\ unless you specified something else). Please make sure that your unzip process keeps the folder structure from the zip file, rather than just unpacking all of the files into the base target directory.

What's new since 1999C:
(Cumulative release notes since 1.301 are attached at the bottom)

-------------------

-The "Negative Energy" shot type has been renamed to "Dark Matter" to make it more clearly distinct from discussions of "negative energy" as it refers to the energy balance of players.

-Scouts and Scout Starships have a new "Unaffected By Negative Energy" ability, which makes them remain cloaked even when their controller's energy balance drops below zero.

-AI Force fields once again have a very slow regen (but still can't be repaired).

-The regen rate of mobile military ships (most notably cutlasses) was previously far too low when present.  Fixed.

-In recent releases, it was difficult or impossible to give cutlasses move orders if they were already chasing a target ship.  Fixed.

-There is now an altplanetnames.txt file in the main directory of the application.  Players can add their preferred names to this file, and when they host planets will take on names from this list once the game has started.  This does not affect the lobby at all (since players may have differing values in their txt files), and once the game has started everyone is synced to the values from the host player.  If there are too few entries in the txt file for the size of map that was selected, it will instead use the autogenerated style of planet names for any remaining planets.

-In 1.301, there was a bug where ships under the mouse cursor were selected when a planet was clicked in the galaxy map.  Fixed.

-The Zinth race has been renamed to Zenith for the sake of clarity.

-Ships now remember the last ship type that they were assigned by a player (human or AI) to kill. They will then adjust their targeting accordingly, preferring ships of that specific type, or if a ship of that type is not available, then any ships of that class.
    For example, if a group of fighters is targeted on a Raid Starship, then those specific fighters will forever more prefer to kill Raid Starships, or if those are not available, then Starships in general, or else whatever else they would normally kill.
    The preferred targets are shown in the hover text when hovering over a ship.  If it doesn't have a line for the preferred target, then it was never explicitly ordered to attack a certain ship type.
    Ships will still only attack targets within their normal ranging rules.  In other words, they will only attack ships that are within range if they are in normal mode or attack-move mode, or they will attack preferred ships anywhere on the planet in free-roaming defender mode.
    In general, this new mechanic allows for a lot more automation of ship battles, without as much micromanagement.

CHANGES FROM PRIOR VERSIONS
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-In the last version, engineers were unable to assist docks and other queue-based constructors.  Fixed.

NEW ART - Philippe Chabot
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Achievements Icons

[Admiral]

-There is now an altplanetnames.txt file in the main directory of the application.  Players can add their preferred names to this file, and when they host planets will take on names from this list once the game has started.

YAY!!!

Cheers...

[x4000]

-There is now an altplanetnames.txt file in the main directory of the application.  Players can add their preferred names to this file, and when they host planets will take on names from this list once the game has started.

YAY!!!

Cheers...

Yeah, you originally asked for that a LONG time ago... so many things on that list!

[x4000]

Oh, and that reminds me -- about the planet names, text file thing.  For anyone who wants to post "mods" with certain selections of planet names, that is cool.  However, please don't violate any copyright or trademark with ones you post on these forums.  For fan projects and so forth, or what you do on your own computer, that's not something I can control or am legally obliged to be concerned about (to my knowledge).  But I really don't want to get into legal entanglements because there are mods that include popular sci-fi planets inside them, hosted on our own site.  We can't afford it!

Of course, anything sci-fi that's in the public domain (planet "Verne?") is fine, as are names of actual planets, moons, phenomena, whatever.  I really don't care what's in the mods posted here, so long as it's not offensive and doesn't get us into legal trouble. /disclaimer

[Warnstaff]

What about linking to the files (i.e. putting up a mod thread here but the actual download is on say... FileFront)?

On a related side note: being involved in various ways to various modding communities over the last 10 years or so, I've rarely seen any trademark/copyright issues besides some taking credit for others work, and even so, it's been the mod, not the developer that has suffered. I wouldn't worry to much about it, but then again, it's not my head that could roll either.

[x4000]

What about linking to the files (i.e. putting up a mod thread here but the actual download is on say... FileFront)?

On a related side note: being involved in various ways to various modding communities over the last 10 years or so, I've rarely seen any trademark/copyright issues besides some taking credit for others work, and even so, it's been the mod, not the developer that has suffered. I wouldn't worry to much about it, but then again, it's not my head that could roll either.

The main thing is that I don't have any money to spare if someone does decide to get angry -- that's the sort of thing that can summarily end the company, that's it the end.  So I'm a little on the cautious side, you know?  It's not like we just absorb the loss and our CEO misses his yearly bonus (I get a yearly bonus?), and the stockholders get annoyed.  We're running in the black right now, which is awesome for an indie developer, but part of why 2.0 is so important to me right now (and the expansion after that) is that it's looking necessary to keep us in the black after another month or so. 

Semi-related:  Sales at Impulse have majorly dropped off for us since they redid their store, because they changed our release date to be back in May, which means hardly anybody sees us there now.  So that's been something that has just recently come up, which is causing me no end of stress at the moment, on top of the other things going on in my personal life.  It should be all good, we have two MAJOR distribution deals that will kick off by the time 2.0 comes out, and the retail stuff is still in the works, but I don't have any guarantees as to how all of that will perform, so I'm trying to get things as stabilized as possible in the meantime (and meanwhile, the pirates have begun in earnest, at last... go figure the timing).

Anyway, that's not meant to scare anyone, we'll be fine and it's not like this is anyone but Phil's fulltime gig, anyway.  We'll struggle on in a half-alive form if we have to, but I'm really trying to make it so that we fully bloom instead of having to struggle quite as much, or use quite as much of my personal time, etc.

Wow, that was totally a tangent and not what you asked.  So... as far as linking to copyright-infringing stuff that is hosted elsewhere, I'm still not sure I'd be okay with that.  I think one could argue that it is being "advertised" here, which is not a good thing.  Just because no one in the past has gotten a C&D about this sort of thing, doesn't mean one won't come in the future.  And that's just all I need at the moment, is something like that.  We have a great lawyer on retainer, he's done the contracts for a lot of AAA titles you've heard of (and some of my favorite RTS titles, incidentally), but I'd prefer not to have to use him for something like that -- contract negotiations are so much more pleasant of a subject.

Anyway, so that's where my head is at.  I don't like stifling creativity or fan expression, but I also want Arcen to live to see another year.

[ldlework]

You also want to advocate Free Speech, Fair Use and promote the excersize of those rights where-ever possible. IANAL - but I'm almost certain that players providing their own custom planet-name text-files with nothing but fast-food franchise names - that that would fall entirely under principles of Fair Use. 

[Warnstaff]

Alright, got it. Anything copyrighted not posted or linked to on these forums. My desire for a Star Trek mod will have to be explored on a separate site (no, there is no actual Star Trek mod in development AFAIK).

[x4000]

Update:  I've just gone ahead and replaced the D version in this thread with E, which adds the following.  For anyone who already downloaded D, you probably want to just download E, or you can wait for F if you aren't overly interested in the preferential targeting logic update.

-The Zinth race has been renamed to Zenith for the sake of clarity.

-Ships now remember the last ship type that they were assigned by a player (human or AI) to kill. They will then adjust their targeting accordingly, preferring ships of that specific type, or if a ship of that type is not available, then any ships of that class.
    For example, if a group of fighters is targeted on a Raid Starship, then those specific fighters will forever more prefer to kill Raid Starships, or if those are not available, then Starships in general, or else whatever else they would normally kill.
    The preferred targets are shown in the hover text when hovering over a ship.  If it doesn't have a line for the preferred target, then it was never explicitly ordered to attack a certain ship type.
    Ships will still only attack targets within their normal ranging rules.  In other words, they will only attack ships that are within range if they are in normal mode or attack-move mode, or they will attack preferred ships anywhere on the planet in free-roaming defender mode.
    In general, this new mechanic allows for a lot more automation of ship battles, without as much micromanagement.



That didn't seem worth making a whole new thread for, even though it's some really cool stuff.  Also, important note for those of you who are making an altplanetnames.txt.  Be sure to back this up!  As the new versions of this 1.999 and 2.0 version come out, they will continually overwrite your file.  If you don't make backups, you'll lose your list of planets. You might not notice this right away, since any custom names would stick around in your actual savegames, but the next time you started a game you'd notice all your stuff was lost.  This won't be an issue after the 2.0 version is out, but for now it's something to watch out for.

And that's it for me tonight!

[quickstix]

-In 1.301, there was a bug where ships under the mouse cursor were selected when a planet was clicked in the galaxy map.  Fixed.

So I WAS deselecting those ships!

-Ships now remember the last ship type that they were assigned by a player (human or AI) to kill. They will then adjust their targeting accordingly, preferring ships of that specific type, or if a ship of that type is not available, then any ships of that class.
    For example, if a group of fighters is targeted on a Raid Starship, then those specific fighters will forever more prefer to kill Raid Starships, or if those are not available, then Starships in general, or else whatever else they would normally kill.
    The preferred targets are shown in the hover text when hovering over a ship.  If it doesn't have a line for the preferred target, then it was never explicitly ordered to attack a certain ship type.
    Ships will still only attack targets within their normal ranging rules.  In other words, they will only attack ships that are within range if they are in normal mode or attack-move mode, or they will attack preferred ships anywhere on the planet in free-roaming defender mode.
    In general, this new mechanic allows for a lot more automation of ship battles, without as much micromanagement.

This, I like. A lot.

[x4000]

Glad you like it!

[x4000]

New version:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,1531.msg9692.html#msg9692

[Admiral]

I really don't think that a file of names of planets would could violate copyright, unless it's the "compilation copyright" because you copied someone else's list of names into which they put editorial effort (i.e., a non-obvious selection criteria). You can't copyright facts (or, you can't in theory copyright facts) and "the fact that the following collection of letters has been used as a name of a planet or solar system in some context at least once in recorded history" is, in my opinion, a fact, and a list of such things are, again, still facts.

I'm also not a lawyer - but I have spent a lot of time with my IP lawyer on the phone over the last nine months.

As to trademarks, I also don't think a list of names could be said to violate trademarks. A trademark is a certain mark used in a certain context (i.e., one company could trademark Apple for computers, and another could have a simultaneous trademark for Apple in sound recordings. Oh wait, that actually happened.), and a list of names, used in the context of "this is a list of names," could hardly be said to violate trademark law (which is the use of a trademark in a manner that would be confusing to a typical consumer per my layman's understanding).

Note that this allows the use of trademarks in a very broad fashion: I can say My Soap (TM) is better than Your Soap (TM). I don't have to say My Soap (TM) is better than My Competitor's Soap Which Is In A Box That Is Orange With A Circle On It But Which I Cannot Name. (Although that was the fad for ages, which is beyond me.)

Furthermore, as a forum provider, you have essentially 100% immunity if you respond to any "takedown notice" by actually "taking down" the content in question (regardless of the veracity of the claim). You can even refuse to put it back up if the takedown is disputed. I don't necessarily agree with the law here (I think it's too easy to abuse) but it has definite protections.

So, really, this isn't something I would, as a practical matter, worry about. Of course, it's your call - it's your forum.

I'm happy to refer you to my IP lawyer; she mostly works for large firms but does small stuff (at reasonable prices) on referral if she likes the client.

And as to "other stuff going on in my life" - I'm there with you.

[x4000]

All right... Fair enough.  None of that would be copyright infringement, as you say, and most of these names (even the really well-known ones) are probably not trademarks.  So I suppose I will recant and allow people to post any lists of names that they want, as long as they do not contain offensive content.