AI War 2 v0.764 Released! "Mercenary Surge"

[x4000]

Release notes here.

Okay, tons of bugfixes in here.  Fixes, fixes, fixes, all the live long day.  I'm pleased with the result, though.

Mercenaries in particular have been made vastly more functional, and seem to work mostly correctly now.  They just hadn't had a chance to be fully tested previously, and so they needed to go through the wringer of testing like any other new feature.  Thanks for being a part of the first wave of that and helping us save some time internally, for those who did -- it really means a lot.

A cool side benefit of some of the changes to how things are seeded on the map is that now not only do things seed in a prettier fashion, and spread out better on planets than before, but it actually generates faster and thus cuts lag in the lobby way down when you're generating a new seed, etc.

One of the really big things in this build, also mercenary-related, are the six new mercenary factions created by RocketAssistedPuffin.  Badger created the other five or so factions, so between them they've created quite a pretty few.  We need to get the costs on Badger's to go up out of the token amount range, and I forgot to do that today, but it's on my list now that I thought of it again.

More coming tomorrow (Friday), and then possibly a bit Sunday, before we start all over with more releases next week.  Friday is a half-day for me because I have some personal things to attend to in the morning, but then I'll be back up and at it for the afternoon.  Thanks for your support!

The Usual Reminders

Quick reminder of our new Steam Developer Page.  If you follow us there, you'll be notified about any game releases we do.

Also: Would you mind leaving a Steam review for some/any of our games?  It doesn't have to be much more detailed than a thumbs up, but if you like a game we made and want more people to find it, that's how you make it happen.  Reviews make a material difference, and like most indies, we could really use the support.

Enjoy!

Chris

[BadgerBadger]

My Mercenary Groups were defined literally as examples of how to use the XML, so having groups with some actual thought behind them is wonderful.

Also, this is really nitpicky, but if we call the Mercenary Groups "Factions" then I at least am going to be really confused, because the Mercenaries themselves are a Faction in my head. And it seems weird to treat a single group of mercenaries as a Faction in the same way that the Dyson Sphere or Nanocaust is a faction.

I'm not committed to "Mercenary Groups", but I think calling them factions will just confuse people.

[RocketAssistedPuffin]

Ahh. I was going to go through the pre-existing ones and try to upgrade them a bit, while keeping the theme. No idea how to do that with the Lone Wolf guy though, since he's a single ship. Rest should be fine when I get to it though.

Good point Badger. Imagining I'm a new player, and I read that Mercs are a faction...it would be confusing. They don't work at all like the others. Groups might just have to do it for now though.

[steelwing]

I'm not committed to "Mercenary Groups", but I think calling them factions will just confuse people.

Imagining I'm a new player, and I read that Mercs are a faction...it would be confusing. They don't work at all like the others. Groups might just have to do it for now though.

What about calling them "Mercenary Companies"?  A merc organization in the real world is often called a company, not in the sense of the military unit, but in the sense of a corporate organization.

[RocketAssistedPuffin]

It's an interesting idea. It doesn't mesh well with some of the new groups, but for what people typically think of when hearing mercenary, it fits.

I like it, myself.

[BadgerBadger]

Puffin, you're welcome to tweak the existing mercenaries as you see fit

[zeusalmighty]

I think making a mercenary (or whatever they end up being called) might be a good way to learn how to mod--definitely have more ambitious ideas but got to learn how to walk before you can run

The idea I had was a merc group (asteroid miners; haven't come up with a name yet) that just straps engines and targeting computers on bunch of asteroids.

They go super fast, self-destruct on contact, and do quite a hefty amount of damage. I would like them to come in volleys but we'll see how my attempt works out

[zeusalmighty]

Could call them "freelancers"

[RocketAssistedPuffin]

Thanks Badger. I'd like to use their names at least - not great at that kind of thing, hence why all of the new ones are non-persons.

I like the name Freelancers...I'll take that in consideration as well.  So far I lean more towards that.

Yep, mercenaries are fairly simple. They got a few additions that really open them up (more as AIP increases, donate to player (which works perfectly Badger)). You can look at PuffinMercs for those lines and examples of them.

[BadgerBadger]

Modding in mercenaries is a really easy way to get started. We should actually do a writeup for how to create your own mercenaries in the wiki under the Modding section.

[zeusalmighty]

I've been a fan of the ideas of the mercenaries from their inception--would definitely like to contribute to their proliferation!

On that note, since they are now subsumed in the AI Sentinels, the player has no means to add/subtract how many communicators are in a present game (as far as I know).

Maybe this should be tied to galaxy size? E.g. For every 10 planets, seed one communicator

[RocketAssistedPuffin]

They're fairly simple, really.

Not sure how that would go with the seeding. Right now, on an 80 planet map, that'd cause 8 communicators. 2 Groups per communicator. We don't actually have enough to populate that, but I imagine that'll change very soon. I don't have any new ideas, mostly fixing up the current ones. Got some new things to add into them...

Or maybe it just pops one mercenary group into a few to make up for it.

You can probably just ask me directly in Discord about any of it, the reasoning behind mine, bits of the workings, whatever, no problem.

The wiki writeup is interesting. Maybe on a day where I'm not so confused (not as much sleep) I'll...try that. I'll put all the functions in it, including the new ones Badger just made.

[x4000]

Lots of good discussion -- I like the term freelancer, too.  Is that for replacing "mercenaries" or replacing "factions?"  Basically "mercenary freelancers?"  I'm a bit confused on that.

On another note, I got absolutely nothing done today, sorry everybody.  I had an echo stress test on my heart, and fortunately the news was super good.  But it was still exhausting partly because I could not have coffee before, and partly because... well, still trying to figure that out.  Looks like maybe asthma instead, at this point.  At least it's not some sort of more serious heart condition, which is really good!

Assuming I have the mental energy on Sunday, I'll be on then; otherwise I'll have to slide to Monday.  Tomorrow is my son's birthday, so I won't be around at all here during that.

[zeusalmighty]

Glad to hear your heart test came back with good news, Chris!! 

We already got several updates this week so I don't think we'll mind waiting a while for the next one 

I like the term freelancer, too.  Is that for replacing "mercenaries" or replacing "factions?"  Basically "mercenary freelancers?"  I'm a bit confused on that.

Freelancer instead of mercenaries. I like factions denoting what they do already and don't really see any reason to change that.

[BadgerBadger]

What I had in mind was

The Mercenary Faction is always enabled. Having that faction on causes a bunch of Mercenary Beacons to be seeded on the map. Hacking those beacons allows you to summon Freelancers, which are groups of ships that will aid you against your enemies.

or

A Freelancer is a group of units that is summoned as part of the behaviour of the Mercenary Faction.