AI War 2 v0.898 Released! "Galactic Linkages"

[x4000]

Release notes here.

Mostly this one is about refinement, but it has some major quality of life additions on the galaxy map, most of those thanks to Asteroid.

• You can now adjust the scale of icons on the galaxy map (this one I added), and the default is a bit bigger. The smaller size was nice last version, but a little TOO squint-causing on most monitors. Now the default is larger and you can tune to taste.
• You can now hover over the links between planets and see intel about them, which explains all the various things that you otherwise had to memorize (why a dashed line, why red, etc, etc). Huge thanks to Asteroid for implementing this.
• Also, linkages that are having an actual wormhole wave coming now show up with an animation. Again thanks Asteroid!
• Nanocaust ships and Macrophage ships can now stack! Hooray for performance in those games that have those factions in huge numbers. Big thanks to Badger, this required a hefty extension to the core mechanics there.
• The stacking code was not working well at ALL with transports, causing all sorts of problems. Thanks to a lot of folks for help there, but particularly to WeaponMaster for figuring out the problem areas.
• The colors of some of the factions are now clearer in the quick starts -- big thanks to Puffin for that one.
• Several other bugfixes, balance tweaks, UI improvements, quick start improvements, and so on thanks to all of the above folks. Everybody has been really busy. Thanks all!

More to come soon. Enjoy!

Problem With The Latest Build?

If you right-click the game in Steam and choose properties, then go to the Betas tab of the window that pops up, you'll see a variety of options. You can always choose most_recent_stable from that build to get what is essentially one-build-back. Or two builds back if the last build had a known problem, etc. Essentially it's a way to keep yourself off the very bleeding edge of updates, if you so desire.

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]

It's worth noting that if people want a different style for planet link colours then that's doable via a Setting. Maybe you just want all links to be coloured grey? Or maybe all links connecting the AI should be a single colour or something. If there's a strong desire for something in particular then that could potentially be added.

[I-KP]

First glance: looks good, guys.

If I may...

- I like the animated link lines denoting active wormhole and incoming attack. Not-so-keen on them being bright, bloomy white tho; I would prefer to change the colour to red. Also, the animation jarringly 'cycles' every three seconds.

- Planet overlay text is still the same colour as some link lines that pass under them. Makes some information presented there hard to read. Putting a 1px border around some of the overlay information isn't enough either.

- Still don't like the giant hotkey number over fleet icons. I still find myself moving Fleet ships that haven't loaded up first, having to mouse-over the icon each time to ensure first. Tedious. It was so much easier when the Stack counter was there instead. (I know that wasn't its purpose but it served that job well nevertheless.) Also, the hotkey numbers stop showing when you've got more than 10 fleets so the idea of them being there to help visibility stops holding water. The Stack number doesn't come back for fleets numbered 11+ either. (The tiny green circle thing under the icon is of almost no value when obscured by a giant hotkey number. They're really difficult to see even without those number overlays.)

[BadgerBadger]

If I'm going to be issuing orders via the galaxy map, I definitely like to know whether my units are Transported or not. I don't really care about the game telling me the hotkey number.

[Asteroid]

- I like the animated link lines denoting active wormhole and incoming attack. Not-so-keen on them being bright, bloomy white tho; I would prefer to change the colour to red. Also, the animation jarringly 'cycles' every three seconds.

Already replaced by something brand new and more performance-friendly for the next version . I'm sure it'll still need further tweaking, but the new version shouldn't blind you and animation won't be as janky as the initial proof-of-concept (was kinda mesmerizing to watch though ).

[kasnavada]

If I'm going to be issuing orders via the galaxy map, I definitely like to know whether my units are Transported or not. I don't really care about the game telling me the hotkey number.

I do care about both, because when I'm on the map, all fleet have the exact same icon. The hotkey is currently the only and single way to be able to differentiate 2 fleets when just watching the map. Knowing if stuff is transported would be good to.

[I-KP]

- I like the animated link lines denoting active wormhole and incoming attack. Not-so-keen on them being bright, bloomy white tho; I would prefer to change the colour to red. Also, the animation jarringly 'cycles' every three seconds.

Already replaced by something brand new and more performance-friendly for the next version . I'm sure it'll still need further tweaking, but the new version shouldn't blind you and animation won't be as janky as the initial proof-of-concept (was kinda mesmerizing to watch though ).

Sweet.

[I-KP]

I have noticed something else with this update: sometimes planet icons stop being double-clickable at some zoom-in levels. When this happens if I zoom all of the way out the planet icon functionality returns.

At maximum zoom-out the planet icons always function.

[Asteroid]

I have noticed something else with this update: sometimes planet icons stop being double-clickable at some zoom-in levels. When this happens if I zoom all of the way out the planet icon functionality returns.

At maximum zoom-out the planet icons always function.

Is it just the double-click that's broken, or are you unable to select the planet and/or view hover information? A save would be appreciated (preferably on Mantis) if it's the latter.

[I-KP]

It's the double-click and the planet tooltip. It's as if the hotspot moves or shrinks at some zoom levels. Icons can behave a bit odd in this respect too from time to time; the hotspot moves to the right of the icon.

Over the last few hours I've not seen this happen again so I'm not sure the save will be of any use to you now. If it does happen again I'll save it at that instant and drop it in here.

[I-KP]

Attached.

The planet 'Bal' (blue; right side; top of lower cluster) was not responding to double-click or producing a tooltip at mid-level zoom. It comes and goes during play. Icon always works at max zoom-out.

Some of the ship icons seem to have a displaced hotspot on some zoom levels; usually to the right of the icon. Again, this comes and goes. Difficult to reliably repeat.

Also noticed that the Alert tabs at the top don't always goto on RMB. Some do, some don't.

[Asteroid]

Attached.

The planet 'Bal' (blue; right side; top of lower cluster) was not responding to double-click or producing a tooltip at mid-level zoom. It comes and goes during play. Icon always works at max zoom-out.

Some of the ship icons seem to have a displaced hotspot on some zoom levels; usually to the right of the icon. Again, this comes and goes. Difficult to reliably repeat.

Also noticed that the Alert tabs at the top don't always goto on RMB. Some do, some don't.

If it even extends to ships and notifications it's not at all what I thought it might be, definitely a problem for Chris.

What OS (with as precise a version as you can give) are you on and what are your hardware specs including screen size and resolution? Have you customized any of the in-game options, especially changed the size/scale of any GUI element? Those might be useful to Chris.

[I-KP]

Windows 7 64bit
770GTX over three monitors, all at 1920x1200; only playing the game on the middle screen as fullscreen
I've fiddled with all of the scale settings, but only slightly; nothing dramatic

[Pat]

I have seen the same issue sometimes, on the galaxy map : fleets are selected but they don't want to target the planet.

Also, sometimes the first click does not register, I need to click 2 - 3 times before I hear the "beep" feedback (my mouse buttons are OK).
It also manifests in a more visible way which does not affect gameplay at all, but I don't know, they might share the same origin :
-put the mouse pointer over a junction between 2 planets --> the junction gets larger
-click (left or right button) down --> sometimes the junction gets small again, sometimes not (i.e. the click is not registered)
-release click --> the junction gets large again
-quickly double click and hold second click --> the junction gets small everytime on the second click
-click 5 times per second --> the junction seems to react to every click

windows 7/64bits, windowed 2540x1320, current game performance was 100%

Damn, now I can't hate my coworkers anymore when they hijack my release threads with bug reports

[x4000]

Thanks!

Coming next build:

* Fixed an issue with the planet links where their collision capsules were intersecting with the collision boxes of planets and ship icons on the galaxy map.
** This was having the effect of making it so that quite often you couldn't select specific ships except at certain zoom levels, or couldn't click planets or ships reliably in general (zoom level and scale of icons did play a role here also).
** Basically, the solution was to make it so that we first raycast to find ONLY the planets and ships/fleets, if there are any under the mouse cursor.  These use one set of physx layers.
** Only if we don't find anything with that first raycast do we then do a second raycast against the new physx layer that the links now use.  Now it doesn't matter if the capsules for the links overlap with planets or ship icons (no way to stop that, really), because it will ALWAYS give preference to the other icons first, and only go for the links between planets if the icons fail.