BETA AI War 2 v0.870 Released! "Improving Fleet EXP Mechanics"

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Release notes here.

Reminder: to play the beta, you MUST go into your Steam properties for the game, go under the Betas tab, and choose the "current_beta" option.  Otherwise you're going to be stuck on the pre-fleets version of the game.

If you don't know what I'm talking about regarding fleets, then reading this link is a really good thing to do or you are likely to be mighty confused.

So what's new in this build?  This is obviously an incremental one, headed towards the non-beta full release of 0.900 that we're aiming at in the next... weeks?  That timeframe is unclear, and will be based on testing feedback, which has been rolling in well so far; but there will be loads of incremental beta releases during this period.  Anyway, what's new:

• The EXP that fleets gain is now handled really differently, and hopefully in a more balanced fashion.


• That said, there are still some open questions about the fleet EXP mechanics and a few related items that I'd definitely be interested in feedback on.

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]

So I spent a few hours (in game, not real time) playing against 3 AIs, 7/7/8. I don't feel like there's much challenge. I farmed enough exp that I can just sort of walk through all the AI planets I've wanted to so far. The AI seems completely unable to do anything menacing. I build military command stations on most of my planets and fortify them so the AI waves don't do much. I'm sitting on 20K+ science because I don't need to spend it; I spent a bit of science to make sure I had high-enough mark Station-Keeping Assault Frigates, but otherwise the power gain I get from levelling my fleets is much more effective than spending science.

The next thing I'm going to do is to wander the galaxy with my giant fleetball, knock out all the AIP reducers I can find, then slowly take planets until I can see the AI homeworlds, then take out the homeworlds.

I also note that I really don't care about the Hunter, Warden or Threat forces. They are gnats in my path. The AI has launched at least one CPA at me, but I didn't actually notice.

[AnnoyingOrange]

I'm currently having some fun against a 9/9/9 AI, which feels a lot like fighting a 7 in classic: difficulty tweaks will be needed for sure.
At least fleet EXP lets us make any unit somewhat useful, even if the EXP changes make it practically impossible to ever see MK7 or even MK6 support units: you now need a fleet to see at least one hundred thousand AI guardian kills to get to fleet level 6, even against a Royal AI that's simply not going to happen and EXP splitting plus EXP reductions inflate the number even further.

[BadgerBadger]

I do feel the desire to not-fleetball when grinding experience, which is good. Unfortunately, I can still fleetball to take out important objectives.

What if levelling up a fleet upped the mark of a single, random strikecraft type instead of all the ships and the flagship? Upgrading the flagship with science is like 8K science from level 2 to 3, and the player winds up getting it for free as a byproduct of just playing the game.

[x4000]

Hopefully the new build addresses a lot of this: https://forums.arcengames.com/ai-war-ii/ai-war-2-v0-871-released!-'more-control-part-1'/

I'm only now seeing your messages, though, because for some reason it decided to start putting all my arcen notifications in spam, sigh.