New alpha version .101.

[x4000]

Here's the release notes: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=The_Last_Federation_Alpha_Release_Notes#Alpha_Verson_.101

This has a lot of general tweaks and fixes, several new battle controls requested by you guys, substantial adjustments to the speed of battle as well as your ability to control that, balance updates based on your feedback and our testing, and then the next stuff that was on our list anyhow.  In that last category, it's mainly enemy combat AI at both a flock (squadron) level, and a fleet level.

I'll be interested to hear what is happening with you, but I am suddenly getting my rear end handed to me repeatedly.  Clearly I need to adjust my strategies, although I've not had much time to experiment with it yet.

Coming up next, hopefully tomorrow (but we'll see), is the new "powerup" stuff that really should again make the flow of battles more unique and interesting, both from an offense and defense perspective.  A bunch of new ships have also been designed out, and one of them has been implemented already (hypersonic pod).  The others will probably wait a bit, because while I do want to get to balancing them sooner than later, we also really want to get you into the wider game (and more people into it), rather than just focusing on the combat practice alone.

Enjoy!

[Oralordos]

Is there going to be difficulty levels for combat? Because it sounds quite difficult at the moment.

[x4000]

Yep, there are three overall difficulties at the moment.  It affects both combat and the metagame.  We may have to split that, and we may wind up needing more gradations, too.

At the moment we have been painting with broader strokes difficulty-wise, though, because it's one of those "let's check that bit out in testing" things.

[Volatar]

*blinks*

Did I miss the start of the alpha somehow or is this the limited early bit you were mentioning?

[Misery]

More new ship types coming definitely sounds good for this one.

It's really the only part of the game that bugs me right now.   All this potential for lots of depth (and lots of explosions) yet not enough ship classes as of yet.

Also, aint found much in the way of bugs yet.... so far, a bug-free experience for the most part.

[tigersfan]

*blinks*

Did I miss the start of the alpha somehow or is this the limited early bit you were mentioning?

This is still just the first 6 players.

[Volatar]

*blinks*

Did I miss the start of the alpha somehow or is this the limited early bit you were mentioning?

This is still just the first 6 players.

ok

[x4000]

It's the super super super limited first run of the alpha, not even to round 0 yet, not in the sense I was describing it before.  We will likely be adding some more folks to this late today, if we can get "abandoned hydral technology" and engineering ships stuff up and going fully.  Will be a rush, so not sure if that will happen until Monday, we'll see.

Either way, there are lots of other things coming aside from that -- we're still gearing up for the "real" round 0 with the main metagame (aka more than combat practice) actually available.  A lot of the interfaces of that will be further along than I had thought.

[Volatar]

we're still gearing up for the "real" round 0 with the main metagame (aka more than combat practice) actually available.  A lot of the interfaces of that will be further along than I had thought.

I am excited to join in at that stage. In the meantime, I just got around to playing Bionic Dues. Man do I like it.

[x4000]

Awesome!  Yeah, I really love playing that one, too.

[Hyfrydle]

Looking forward to joining in I love the feeling when a new version is available to test, and seeing the game improve as each day passes by 

[Volatar]

Looking forward to joining in I love the feeling when a new version is available to test, and seeing the game improve as each day passes by 

Each day? This is Arcen. You mean each hour.

[Hyfrydle]

Very true.

[Cyborg]

The AI is suiciding. I think we still need some AI tweaks.

[x4000]

In what sense suiciding?  It really depends on which AI routine you are using, too, and what sort of ships you give it.

Also in the current version, there are a couple of ships which just wreck everything, and some other ships which can't fire far enough to hit anything.  There are several things that are a mess there, sorry about that.