AI War 2 v0.768 Released! "Golem Rebirth"

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Release notes here.

There's a lot of good stuff in here.  All sorts of bugfixes, major targeting improvements, beam weapons work better and have visuals, the AI does some cool new things, and there's a lot of balance improvements.  It's very late and I'm tired, so I'll mostly leave it at that. ;)  Oh, there was a giant performance improvement, too.

One question: is the game too sluggish right now, in terms of how fast units kill things?  It feels like units die a lot slower here than they did in AIWC.  If so, that's quite a pendulum swing away from where ships were insta-dying a few weeks ago, but the real balance needs to be somewhere in the middle.  It's just something I was noticing, it seems like battles are really slow affairs right now.

I mentioned this last two times, but heck, I will again: RocketAssistedPuffin has stepped into a volunteer balancer role, and he is not only looking for feedback, but he's actively integrating lots of things that other people are suggesting on our forums and Discord, as well as things that he's finding and coming up with himself.  The more feedback the better, for sure.

The schedule that I outlined last time is still what we're planning on, and so far so good.  There were a lot of things that were off the beaten path that I got done today that needed to happen, but I still was faster than the schedule laid out, so that's good.  I won't be around tomorrow, but I'll be on Sunday unless I'm just absolutely beaten tired again.  Not sure why that's been happening on the weekends.  But any rate, I'm going to be out next Friday (grr), so I want to get that extra day in in advance.  Gotta make this schedule work.  Anyhow, for now: sleep!

Lots more to come next week!

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

[RocketAssistedPuffin]

I have noticed that fights are a fair bit slower...but I think I personally prefer it? It's allowing debuffs and the damage increases from things like Tritium units to show up visibly. This is the exact kind of gameplay I love, though maybe others don't. I seem to be an oddity in general with this, so no problem with cranking it up if it's an issue.

EDIT: Been mulling it over today...there might be a good case for it. I've had some complaints again about Fusion Bombers needing more damage to deal with shields. A 50% damage increase to nearly everything would reduce the time-to-kill by 33%, I believe, but won't be instant death. Debuffs etc should still be good. I think a...25% increase is a 20% decrease in time-to-kill, going from past calculations of this.

A big culprit of it is probably that we don't have the hull multipliers from Classic - while we do have the multipliers based on a stat, ships generally get bonuses vs fewer things now.

HeartHunter made a good point that doing such a large change would really screw up things like Grenade Launchers. There can be case by case exceptions of course - but this might just undo everything so far. I'd...maybe only do it if there is strong support. I'd worry about the Press getting bored though if the game remains as it is...

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Potentially we should make a central lobby option for combat speed, which would adjust the damage dealt by a multiplier for all ships, but have some sort of algorithmic reduction for specific odd cases like grenade launchers. The default could stay as is and be called Stately or something. Then maybe we have one that is 50% more damage that we call Normal, and one that is more like 100% that is Swift. Maybe even a 200% Blitz option.

This seems like the sort of thing that will vary by taste.

[RocketAssistedPuffin]

That sounds like a pretty good idea. The current one is a nice slow pace - 25% damage increase testing is a step up. 50% increase would definitely make it less chore-like at times.

Incidentally, any thoughts on increasing the frequency of waves? Classic had two AIs, but we only have one here and they feel so rare. Mostly seem to fight the Warden and Hunter - Sentinel is sorta a bystander. Even with upgraded guard posts he's...not really bothersome other than the occasional really large wave.

[HeartHunter]

Interesting idea. So, right now, Vanilla, can be standart variant?

In my games, Warden is good(50% time fight with him), Sentinel good with waves. Hunter worse.
And I dont have time finish first Sentinel wave(without tricks), how i m getting second wave or close.
What do you think about decrease frequency of waves : D?

[etheric42]

I like the idea of having the damage scaling as an option in the advanced menu, the only thing to consider is how it will mess with balance unless you also tie speed and/or ranges into the same scaling.  As damage increases, ships that have longer ranges accrue more and more of a differential advantage.  Also, ships with a high-powered single shot start getting more of an advantage over low-powered rapid fire shots.  So having the ability to change the pacing via damage amping is good, but it will impact the ship balance unless a more complicated lever is built.

[RocketAssistedPuffin]

From the few people who have used my 25% damage increase mod, the game almost apparently goes *too fast* at that point? Will see if it becomes a greater problem.

Maybe it should have a bunch of different settings...adds more work though, but allows easier adjustment, i.e speed, range, damage, others. Balancing the game for two separate speeds would probably be nigh impossible, so maybe it shouldn't even be attempted? Classic had some speed changes I recall. Maybe it'll just be an optional thing, there if people want it but not super developed?

[tadrinth]

Nitpick: in AIWC, you could accidentally scrap your Home Force Field and then not be able to rebuild it.  Has AIW2 fixed that?

[tadrinth]

Exogalactic Wormholes can also be used to spawn regular waves.

I suggest putting a tuning knob on this that applies a scaling factor to wave budget spent in this way. EG, at 50%, these waves are 50% as powerful as regular waves (while costing just as much budget).  Can scale with difficulty, but I don't think it needs to be 100% even on Diff10. 

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Nitpick: in AIWC, you could accidentally scrap your Home Force Field and then not be able to rebuild it.  Has AIW2 fixed that?

I don't think so, but I haven't tested it.  Could you throw it on mantis?

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From the few people who have used my 25% damage increase mod, the game almost apparently goes *too fast* at that point? Will see if it becomes a greater problem.

Maybe it should have a bunch of different settings...adds more work though, but allows easier adjustment, i.e speed, range, damage, others. Balancing the game for two separate speeds would probably be nigh impossible, so maybe it shouldn't even be attempted? Classic had some speed changes I recall. Maybe it'll just be an optional thing, there if people want it but not super developed?

This is a really good point.  I find that I just bump the simulation speed up whenever I want the battles to go faster, at the moment.  I think that we should strive to find a balance that doesn't feel sluggish by default, but which isn't super over the top fast, either.

[RocketAssistedPuffin]

Will need to see with this update - with the new tools for Bubble Forcefield destruction, and Riot Starships not being quite as durable should speed up the really boring parts, while Dires should provide actual challenges in places.

Though from the poll with only two votes, and anyone who mentioned it...the game ends up being alright in speed. So huh. If there is a bump it'll probably be very minor - 25% was apparently too much?