The Final AI War Expansion

[Pumpkin]

If it´s made I'm on it as soon as you can grab my money

Well, it went live last week, so head on over to your digital distributor of choice and ponk down your dollars.

Hem. Draco? Aren't you talking about (your) TLF expansion? It's AI War's forum, here. Or maybe I'm just out of my mind and I didn't understand what you said. If so, I apologize.

Just to clarify something: the Last AI War expansion didn't go live last week. Or else I'm an absent-minded time traveler and then I should jump in my blue box and go get this next AI War expansion right now.

[Draco18s]

Hem. Draco? Aren't you talking about (your) TLF expansion? It's AI War's forum, here. Or maybe I'm just out of my mind and I didn't understand what you said. If so, I apologize.

Derp.
I must have been tired.

[keith.lamothe]

Derp.
I must have been tired.

I just figured you'd upgraded the Zenith Spacetime Manipulator.

[Pumpkin]

Derp.
I must have been tired.

I just figured you'd upgraded the Zenith Spacetime Manipulator.

Oh! I must do it! As soon as AIW2 is out, I'll make a mod that change the picture of the Zenith Spacetime Manipulator by a tardis!

[keith.lamothe]

Oh! I must do it! As soon as AIW2 is out, I'll make a mod that change the picture of the Zenith Spacetime Manipulator by a tardis!

"Exterminate" is one of the AI's favorite words.

[Pumpkin]

Oh! I must do it! As soon as AIW2 is out, I'll make a mod that change the picture of the Zenith Spacetime Manipulator by a tardis!

"Exterminate" is one of the AI's favorite words.

Yeah, that's another mod I should do: revamp the AI's taunts.

[Draco18s]

Relevant
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e59guruVL4o

[Teal_Blue]

Just for the sake of argument, how would you feel if:

1. We released a new version of the game called AI War Reborn or similar, charging probably $20 for it.
2. We drastically upgraded the underlying engine, had copious mod support from the ground up in that, did new art, and so on.
3. We built as many of the features from all the AI War expansions as possible into that, although minus things that nobody really likes anyway (Defender mode).
4. We started with something that is really simplistic but with mod support, and then during an alpha where you guys are involved, built things back up so that you're not left out of the process until the last second.
5. We then leave the original AI War alone, period, and AI War Reborn becomes the new AI War experience that any expansions go to, and that players can focus any modding efforts on, etc.

The reasons for this are numerous:
1. Doing the sort of modding support that would be useful at all would require pretty much a complete rewrite of the game engine to do, to be honest.
2. We now have experience with exactly that sort of thing in some of our more recent work -- you would not BELIEVE how mod-friendly Starward Rogue is, for instance.
3. We've had 4+ years of engine improvements since the original AI War, and people are going to be seriously frustrated if they try to work on the older version of the engine (I sure would be), so the upgrade to a newer engine would be good all around.
4. We'd be able to ease some of the performance woes that people are likely to introduce in mods by using some more multithreading, probably.
5. We could also upgrade the network library.
6. And so on.

Basically I like what you're talking about, but what you're talking about is a completely different game from the one that exists now.  I'm not saying that the above will happen for sure, but it is something we've talked about internally.  I'm curious to take your temperature on that since you guys brought it up.

Rather than re-create the same, but new game, why not have something like AI PlanetWars? Where you have an RTS but it is an extension of AI Wars, and is on a planet (or a host of planets?) where Humanity and the AI duke it out in different kinds of ships on the surface, instead of in space? (so the ship layout and game play isn't just a copy of the first game?)

Just a thought,

-Teal   

[nitpik]

Would happily pay $20 (or $30) on day 1, and have at least two friends who would pay the same 

The biggest feature I would want would be Steam integration for multiplayer. Would still happily buy without it, but setting up Port Forwarding has been this consistent  irritation every time I try to get a new person to play, and I think every other multiplayer game I've tried in the last few years just works seamlessly with Steam.

[Pumpkin]

Rather than re-create the same, but new game, why not have something like AI PlanetWars? Where you have an RTS but it is an extension of AI Wars, and is on a planet (or a host of planets?) where Humanity and the AI duke it out in different kinds of ships on the surface, instead of in space? (so the ship layout and game play isn't just a copy of the first game?)

1) Your idea is interesting.
2) It seems Arcen and AI War's community (well, at least Chris and me ) are considering a "true" AI War game, with the same gameplay and feeling. In other words, the same but with a better backend (and mod support).

However, a more "normal" RTS in the universe of AI War would be interesting. Maybe we could come up with a mod from an existing RTS (AgeOf 2, SupCom, TA... maybe Sprint). I feel like I can handle both gameplay and coding, but I won't be able to do more than copypasting actual AIW's pictures for the art part. It would require time, and while I have few those days (and months), I will consider this for my next off-job activity.

The biggest feature I would want would be Steam integration for multiplayer. Would still happily buy without it, but setting up Port Forwarding has been this consistent  irritation every time I try to get a new person to play, and I think every other multiplayer game I've tried in the last few years just works seamlessly with Steam.

I totally support this!
Does it sounds hard to code or feasible? Arcen? Any comment on this point?

[x4000]

Generally speaking, trying to integrate with the steamworks features is like murder for us.  Mostly because we're not C++ programmers, and we've not seen any stellar bindings for C#.  Steamworks.NET had a lot of problems, and I have not really seen clear bindings from Valve, though I know they released them (I guess I can't find them, I don't know).

[robertat]

Hey, I have been playing this game for a little while now and I enjoy it. I also would be in support of a remake of it. As part of the ui changes, could you do something about the modular units? the ui to equip modules to them always seemed a little clunky. Additionally, when you have multiple of the same module attached, only one renders when zoomed in so you can only see the status/health of one module on the unit. This change would be especially useful with champions when I am often pushing the bare limits of them (sending them in for raids and pulling them out with barely any health left, etc.) so it would be nice to be easier to know the remaining status of modules, especially shields. If you guys could try to work on a new solution to that and update/clean up the layout for the champion/riot control starship/protector starship/etc I think many players would appreciate that! thanks and I really enjoy the game!

[zoutzakje]

I personally never really cared for mods in most games, except maybe the total war games. But I could see myself using them in a revamped version of AI war regularly if they were easily accessible, preferably in some sort of ingame checkbox menu like someone suggested in a previous post. Ai type mods would probably be my most played ones.

As for names...
I like:

Ai War: Regenerated
Ai War: Recompiled

And my own 2 cents:
Ai War: Upg(raid) engine  (get it?)

maybe a few others, but it's late and I'm out of crappy ideas.

If you guys go through with something like this in the future, I'm looking forward to seeing the usual development cycles, comparing the differences between the games and enjoying various mods.

[Pumpkin]

Hey, I have been playing this game for a little while now and I enjoy it. I also would be in support of a remake of it. As part of the ui changes, could you do something about the modular units? the ui to equip modules to them always seemed a little clunky. Additionally, when you have multiple of the same module attached, only one renders when zoomed in so you can only see the status/health of one module on the unit. This change would be especially useful with champions when I am often pushing the bare limits of them (sending them in for raids and pulling them out with barely any health left, etc.) so it would be nice to be easier to know the remaining status of modules, especially shields. If you guys could try to work on a new solution to that and update/clean up the layout for the champion/riot control starship/protector starship/etc I think many players would appreciate that! thanks and I really enjoy the game!

Mantis is the place for suggestions like these. IIRC, there is already many concerning that kind of UI roughness.

For a more specific comment, I think modules can't be individually destroyed (except the shields). And for the champion, the current shield points and percentage are displayed in place of the resources (next to the shadow power gauge) when the champion is selected. And for Riot Control Starships and the like, there is a blue bar below the green/orange/red health bar to indicate the shield's status.

I hope that helped.

[Draco18s]

Hey, I have been playing this game for a little while now and I enjoy it. I also would be in support of a remake of it. As part of the ui changes, could you do something about the modular units? the ui to equip modules to them always seemed a little clunky. Additionally, when you have multiple of the same module attached, only one renders when zoomed in so you can only see the status/health of one module on the unit. This change would be especially useful with champions when I am often pushing the bare limits of them (sending them in for raids and pulling them out with barely any health left, etc.) so it would be nice to be easier to know the remaining status of modules, especially shields. If you guys could try to work on a new solution to that and update/clean up the layout for the champion/riot control starship/protector starship/etc I think many players would appreciate that! thanks and I really enjoy the game!

Mantis is the place for suggestions like these. IIRC, there is already many concerning that kind of UI roughness.

For a more specific comment, I think modules can't be individually destroyed (except the shields). And for the champion, the current shield points and percentage are displayed in place of the resources (next to the shadow power gauge) when the champion is selected. And for Riot Control Starships and the like, there is a blue bar below the green/orange/red health bar to indicate the shield's status.

I hope that helped.

Modules are, or should be, rendered in different places based on what slot they're in.  But having two "small" shield modules makes them both render in the same place.