Author Topic: AI War 2 v0.952 Released! "A Little Help From Scary Friends"  (Read 1774 times)

Offline x4000

  • Chris McElligott Park, Arcen Founder and Lead Dev
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,651
AI War 2 v0.952 Released! "A Little Help From Scary Friends"
« on: October 16, 2019, 08:45:31 pm »

Release notes here.

Yesterday we actually did a small hotfix version that had a number of cool things in it, but they were small enough that I didn't post about it here. So hence the version jump of two.

What's new between the two of these?

  • There's a really cool new "Helping Hands" quick start in the Basics category, which basically sets you up with powerful human and alien allies that do most of the heavy lifting for you. It's a fun way to get in and play the game... kind of while NPC allies basically really do all the work. Aka it makes it a low-stress way to have someone just come in and experience things. Perfect for reluctant SOs, people who just want to play around with things, and so on.
  • Yesterday's hotfix had a number of bugfixes, some centering around repeat plays of audio clips being excessive.
  • Today has even more fixes, including some bugs that could rear up in the tutorials in an inopportune way.
  • With some absolute-minimum-system-requirements hardware on linux, it was possible to get some funkiness in the latest versions of the game, so we tried to address that or at least give workarounds (adding Vulkan support in addition to just OpenGL). On OSX we also started supporting Metal as an option.
  • Some minar speeling and gramr mistakes have been fixed in the tutorials. (Yes, I'm a dad. Sorry!)
  • The credits screen now includes all 3048 of the kickstarter backers, categorized and alphebetized so that they can find their name (assuming they didn't go anonymous).
  • There are several UI improvements to make things more clear, particularly when a flagship is hacking and thus can't leave the current planet.
  • Also the multiplayer "menu" no longer opens a menu with sub-options saying "coming soon." Instead it pops open a text window with a short TLDR of when multiplayer is coming and then a long-winded explanation of why for people who want to find that out without having to go to the forums on our site or Steam.
  • Several new options have been added for controlling things like other factions generate AIP or threat.
  • Several hacks now cost a lot fewer hacking points, making them more attractive.
  • The AI now gains some reinforcement cap at higher AIPs on difficulties over 5.
  • Oh, and there was a nasty bug that is fixed in this build that could cause AI killing stacks to make the counterattack numbers go up WAY inappropriately much. So that was what some of those difficulty spikes were that a few people experienced, starting in the recent press build.

More to come soon. Enjoy!

Reminder: Launch Is Coming Up October 22nd!

We're now in the process of tidying things up for the 10-year anniversary of AI War Classic appearing on Steam for the first time. We're getting really close! I understand a lot of you are really enjoying the game now, which is super duper awesome. If that's you, and you haven't written a review yet, would you mind just dropping a couple of brief thoughts on the store page for the game?

There's a sea of other indie titles out there now, and I'm anxious about my career to put it kind of frankly. Please be honest, obviously, but if you're enjoying the game it would really be a big deal to me personally if you'd let other people know; that stuff makes a big difference in our ability to get featuring on the store, in how people choose to purchase or not, and so on.

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

Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

Offline kmunoz

  • Jr. Member Mark III
  • **
  • Posts: 88
Re: AI War 2 v0.952 Released! "A Little Help From Scary Friends"
« Reply #1 on: October 16, 2019, 09:50:04 pm »
So.. uh... my name is spelled funny in the credits because there's a tilde in my last name and computers are dumb. I'm listed as Kevin A MuA_oz because of the tilde over the n. It should be Kevin A Munoz. You may want to check other backer names for special characters that didn't convert over.

Offline I-KP

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 681
  • Caveat Pactor
Re: AI War 2 v0.952 Released! "A Little Help From Scary Friends"
« Reply #2 on: October 17, 2019, 04:45:28 am »
So my recent 2.5K Strength counteract for a Diff6 game was overkill after all! :)
Atmospheric & Lithospheric Reticulator,
Post-accretion Protoplanet Aesthetic Seeding Team,
Celestial Body Design & Procurement Division,
Magrathea Pan-Galactic Planets Corp.,
Magrathea.

Offline barryvm

  • Jr. Member Mark III
  • **
  • Posts: 88
Re: AI War 2 v0.952 Released! "A Little Help From Scary Friends"
« Reply #3 on: October 17, 2019, 10:29:52 am »
Hi,

I backed AI War 2 but I haven't really played much of it, partly because of personal lack of time and partly because I (selfishly) didn't want to burn out on the preview versions. I really enjoyed the little that I did play, so now that the (nearly) release version is coming out and I am starting to have more free time again, both obstacles have vanished and I am itching to start a full game.

Is it preferable to post a review while it is still in early access or do so at release? I am unaware of the 'mechanics' of the steam review and its impact, as I have never actually made one. Granted, I'll have to play for a bit first to get a good look at it and if it is at all like the first game, a "bit" is likely going to be ten to fifteen hours, so the question may be moot.

At any rate, congratulations on getting it to this point and I hope the release works our for you.

Offline x4000

  • Chris McElligott Park, Arcen Founder and Lead Dev
  • Arcen Staff
  • Zenith Council Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 31,651
Re: AI War 2 v0.952 Released! "A Little Help From Scary Friends"
« Reply #4 on: October 17, 2019, 05:12:48 pm »
Thanks, all!

For the names that are incorrect, those are things I'll fix as I can.  This one is now in:

* Fixed one backer name in the credits (Kevin A Munoz), which did not translate over well into pure basic-ascii characters when we ran it through a handy processor (https://pteo.paranoiaworks.mobi/diacriticsremover/) to get rid of unicode characters not supported by our fonts.
** If other folks find that their name got a bit mangled, please do let us know!  There were SO many people's names that it was impossible to go through them all manually.


For reviews, I'm honestly not sure what helps more -- before EA or after EA.  I'm guessing that after EA will help the most at this point, since we already have a lot of EA reviews.  But frankly, the more reviews the better in terms of causing Steam to register the game as something worthy of its algorithms, etc.  So it's a lot more relevant to HAVE reviews at all (particularly on launch day) than whether they are EA reviews or not.  But nobody knows exactly how the black box works, just that it does... ;)
Have ideas or bug reports for one of our games?  Mantis for Suggestions and Bug Reports. Thanks for helping to make our games better!

Offline RockyBst

  • Full Member Mark III
  • ***
  • Posts: 219
Re: AI War 2 v0.952 Released! "A Little Help From Scary Friends"
« Reply #5 on: October 18, 2019, 11:48:00 am »
Just came across an interesting issue. After fighting off a CPA, a reconquest wave, another wave then another reconquest wave the command station on one of my whipping boys had been destroyed several times. After the last time rebuilding it everything else got stuck with 'Cannot build until there's a fully rebuilt command station on this planet'. Went away after saving and reloading unfortunately, so I don't have a reproducible example.

Offline BadgerBadger

  • Arcen Volunteer
  • Hero Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,229
  • BadgerBadgerBadgerBadger
Re: AI War 2 v0.952 Released! "A Little Help From Scary Friends"
« Reply #6 on: October 18, 2019, 12:29:07 pm »
That's a known problem, https://bugtracker.arcengames.com/view.php?id=21805

Save/reload fixes it, as does changing the Command Station type

Offline RockyBst

  • Full Member Mark III
  • ***
  • Posts: 219
Re: AI War 2 v0.952 Released! "A Little Help From Scary Friends"
« Reply #7 on: October 18, 2019, 12:52:58 pm »
Okay, cool. After the turret defenestration a while back I'm not sure the GCA counts were properly updated by the way. Here's a screenshot with a GAC which promises 13 pike turrets, and a planet with a military command station which has built 13/13. I'd expect +13 * 200% to be 26 pike turrets, even without the ones it gets by default.

Offline BadgerBadger

  • Arcen Volunteer
  • Hero Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,229
  • BadgerBadgerBadgerBadger
Re: AI War 2 v0.952 Released! "A Little Help From Scary Friends"
« Reply #8 on: October 18, 2019, 02:23:17 pm »
I've fixed the "GCA lies to you" bug

Offline RockyBst

  • Full Member Mark III
  • ***
  • Posts: 219
Re: AI War 2 v0.952 Released! "A Little Help From Scary Friends"
« Reply #9 on: October 19, 2019, 08:14:05 am »
Nice, thanks. I think that the 'command station fleet' lies as well at the moment, for instance when hovering over the logistics command station build option right now it tells me 24 pike turrets, then only lets me build 10.

EDIT: Also the hacking log lies to you, just in general the counts for units you've gotten or are going to get seem inconsistent.

By the way, as far as I can tell there's nothing on the AI alarm posts that indicate they'll self destruct when you enter the planet with forces twice the size of the AI. I was wondering how they kept getting killed and giving me +5AIP before I could hack them.

EDIT: I like the new shipline aggregation that's happening when hacking ARSes, even though it took me a moment to work out what was going on. I've ended up with 250 Mk V parasites in one fleet, 8 Mk II siege frigates in another etc rather than having four siege frigates in two different fleets. My only quibble is that I still can't aggregate ship lines from the fleet screen, i.e. I've got 8 muggers in one fleet and four in another but can't just get a single ship line of 12.
« Last Edit: October 19, 2019, 09:26:31 am by RockyBst »

Offline BadgerBadger

  • Arcen Volunteer
  • Hero Member Mark III
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,229
  • BadgerBadgerBadgerBadger
Re: AI War 2 v0.952 Released! "A Little Help From Scary Friends"
« Reply #10 on: October 19, 2019, 03:02:23 pm »
Can you give some examples of the hacking log lying? Saves, screenshots, etc?