New Maps, rebalancing, multiple fixes, local server and more!
+ General:
Add 7 new WPMarshall maps.
Add Queller AI 5.23.1 - this is no longer a mod, but is now a full part of the game.
Add UPnP support on Windows builds, required so the local servers can see out into the world and get incoming connections from other clients.
Unit balancing tweaks.
Retrained AI values, so the AI will play more competitively with the new balancing tweaks.
Games are hosted by default locally (instead of remote servers) and limited to 6 slots. Use --local-server-max-players flag on the client to override this limit. Remote servers are still available for larger games, just the game defaults to local servers for smaller games.
+ Fixes:
== Hardcoded unit names:
Units usually get their behaviors from their classes (e.g. Orbital & Transport & Interplanetary) but the Astraeus unit had its behavior locked to its name instead.
That blocked derivative units of the same type (e.g. Chariot from Legion) from having the same behavior.
== First factory blocks metal spots:
Fix a bug where the code ignored the metal spots location when building new factories, the locations are now properly detected.
== AI doesn’t play until the 20 second mark in certain conditions
Sometimes the AI fails to start playing the game (just idling instead) before the 20 second mark. We determined that initially the game handles strategic map locations (like metal spots and base locations) in batches. Those batches were too small, which caused the AI to wait until the next update cycle to start processing locations.
We increased the batch size a little so the AI handles more spots in one go but still keeps CPU usage low.
== AI crashes server with Legion Expansion Starcannon
Sometimes the game would crash when a game engine entity had a parent that was unreachable (like a temporary). This was the case sometimes with transporters that were used by the Starcannon to send units to a planet. We patched the engine to ignore those parents instead of doing a hard check.
== Fighters and Galata built to fight an air presence that doesn't exist
The AI builds fighters when the enemy has no air, leading it to use fighters in Galactic War against players who don’t even have air tech, let alone an air presence.
We created a "GalacticWar" personality tag for the AI in the GW mode and gave units a way to check for the air presence as well as the tag, which fixed the issue.
== Doesn't recognise Unit Cannon as an orbital threat
Sometimes the game handles some units individually, because of their odd behavior. That's the case with the Unit Cannon, however it wasn't being consistently checked everywhere. We patched the AI brain to recognize the Unit Cannon individually and it fixed the issue.
== FocusTargetThreatRatio always returns true
The condition FocusTargetThreatRatio used to return true even when the target wasn't available. We fixed it to return false when there is no target.
== Presence booleans not set by radar or factories
The presence booleans were set according to the threat model used by the game, which failed in certain conditions (like evaluating buildings).
We added a new system internally that keeps track of enemy and friendly presences without using the threat model, which fixed the issues.
Add 7 new WPMarshall maps.
Add Queller AI 5.23.1 - this is no longer a mod, but is now a full part of the game.
Add UPnP support on Windows builds, required so the local servers can see out into the world and get incoming connections from other clients.
Unit balancing tweaks.
Retrained AI values, so the AI will play more competitively with the new balancing tweaks.
Games are hosted by default locally (instead of remote servers) and limited to 6 slots. Use --local-server-max-players flag on the client to override this limit. Remote servers are still available for larger games, just the game defaults to local servers for smaller games.
+ Fixes:
== Hardcoded unit names:
Units usually get their behaviors from their classes (e.g. Orbital & Transport & Interplanetary) but the Astraeus unit had its behavior locked to its name instead.
That blocked derivative units of the same type (e.g. Chariot from Legion) from having the same behavior.
== First factory blocks metal spots:
Fix a bug where the code ignored the metal spots location when building new factories, the locations are now properly detected.
== AI doesn’t play until the 20 second mark in certain conditions
Sometimes the AI fails to start playing the game (just idling instead) before the 20 second mark. We determined that initially the game handles strategic map locations (like metal spots and base locations) in batches. Those batches were too small, which caused the AI to wait until the next update cycle to start processing locations.
We increased the batch size a little so the AI handles more spots in one go but still keeps CPU usage low.
== AI crashes server with Legion Expansion Starcannon
Sometimes the game would crash when a game engine entity had a parent that was unreachable (like a temporary). This was the case sometimes with transporters that were used by the Starcannon to send units to a planet. We patched the engine to ignore those parents instead of doing a hard check.
== Fighters and Galata built to fight an air presence that doesn't exist
The AI builds fighters when the enemy has no air, leading it to use fighters in Galactic War against players who don’t even have air tech, let alone an air presence.
We created a "GalacticWar" personality tag for the AI in the GW mode and gave units a way to check for the air presence as well as the tag, which fixed the issue.
== Doesn't recognise Unit Cannon as an orbital threat
Sometimes the game handles some units individually, because of their odd behavior. That's the case with the Unit Cannon, however it wasn't being consistently checked everywhere. We patched the AI brain to recognize the Unit Cannon individually and it fixed the issue.
== FocusTargetThreatRatio always returns true
The condition FocusTargetThreatRatio used to return true even when the target wasn't available. We fixed it to return false when there is no target.
== Presence booleans not set by radar or factories
The presence booleans were set according to the threat model used by the game, which failed in certain conditions (like evaluating buildings).
We added a new system internally that keeps track of enemy and friendly presences without using the threat model, which fixed the issues.