(crossposted from
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/arcengames/ai-war-ii-0/posts/2054208 )
Keith here, with a gameplay video and an update on development progress.
First, the video:
And now onto the update. On October 31st we released 0.600 and began the process of getting that out to all our backers (if you haven't gotten your key, please let us know).
25 days later, we're up to 0.607, and you can find all the release notes here:
https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:_Making_Alpha_FunTo summarize: 5 large updates (1 small, 1 internal-only), 130+ individual changes, almost 9000 words. We had to stop before it went over 9000, of course.
Here are some highlights:
Modding
- Most of the AI's decision making has been moved into external code.
- Taking advantage of this, community member BadgerBadger modded in a more AIWC-like method of planning, announcing, and launching AI Waves.
- On that note, BadgerBadger also modded in a more robust, AIWC-like implementation for the Dyson Sphere minor faction. Thanks, Badger!
- Much of the visualization code (controlling display of ships, planets on the galaxy map, etc) has been moved into external code.
Graphics
- The ships now use a more serious, thematically appropriate style.
- The backgrounds are darker, which also helps with a more serious look.
- Target framerate and vsync options have been added, because the graphics were running too _fast_ on some powerful gpus (400+ fps => fan inferno).
- We're now using the Allow Physical Shader Framework since it went open source, and thus we can include it in a way that modders can get at it.
UI
- There's a whole new camera system and a much more AIWC-like default camera (along with a lot of tweakable settings, and pretty much the whole thing is moddable).
- I accidentally the whole bottom bar. Well, not so accidentally. It was an interesting experiment but it needed to go. Much of its former function now lives in a context menu that opens in the bottom-left.
- Replaced the experimental sidebar (which was largely despised) with something much more AIWC-like.
- The galaxy map is now a lot cleaner (fewer icons shown at once).
- Added support for multiple alternate key mappings per keybind.
- When you're placing a turret, the UI now shows the turret's range ring (as in AIWC).
Power Tools
- Build Policies now allow you to tell your constructors "just build everything you can" in a few clicks, and they'll automatically update when new ships are unlocked, etc. You can also tell it to build long-range ships first, cheapest ships first, or just about anything else you can express via C# modding.
- Budget Policies now allow you to tell your metal economy to save up a reserve, or to prioritize work that directly helps your units currently in battle, or (again) just about anything else you can express via C# modding.
Balance
- Reduced unit sizes so that things are less cramped in the grav well.
- It's now much easier to decloak those invisible swarms attacking you.
- The balance of the Power resource (per-planet pop-cap on facilities and defenses) relaxed to let you build more defenses, though the overall balance model for these needs to change to make the upgrades sensible and intuitive.
Bugfixes
- Nailed a longstanding issue with starting in fullscreen mode, especially on Linux/OSX.
- and tons more fixes, mostly not needing a direct mention but put all together it's a much more pleasant experience
AI
- The AI's ships now pay broader attention to hostile mobile forces that could intervene to stop an attack, and are thus more likely to swoop in at the right time.
- The AI's retreating logic has actually been made intentionally dumber, so you actually get a shot to destroy attacking waves before they run off to hunt you later. The AI was pretty unhappy about that.
- All ships (AI and yours) now pay much better attention to not massively overkilling targets, thus allocating their fire in a more efficient fashion. This is basically how AIWC did it.
- All ships (AI and yours) now automatically prefer pathing through less dangerous planets to get from point A to point B. This is an improvement compared to AIWC's logic.
Moving forward from here, we've still got a long way to go on making the UI pleasant and intuitive, and we hope to be putting more time into the actual balance of the game and making the challenge enjoyable.
Thanks again for your support!
