AI War 2 News

Full release notes here.

[h2]Forge Of Empires (Formerly Known As Sidekicks)[/h2]

• Lots of buffs to the Dyson Empire, and bugfixes for the Dark Zenith Empire.
  
• Armada Empire now needs to use Multi-Phasing flagships to attack new AI installations that hide in multi-phase. (Badger has been wanting something like this for a while; there's a lot of cool things one can do with phasing).
  

[h2]Other Updates[/h2]

• Performance improvements to the marauders; they were notorious for bogging down the game when they got strong. Thanks to CRCGamer for this.
  
• Improvements to the Exodian Blade mod.
  
• The steamworks integration has been updated for OSX and linux, which should make it so that silicon-based macs are now able to use steamworks features. It's unclear if intel-based macs will still work with this or not, but it has not effect on windows and should not affect linux either.
  

[h2]Heart of the Machine[/h2]
Heart of the Machine is continuing to evolve, and is racking up positive reviews. It's currently on discount for 35% off during the summer sale!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/

Full release notes here.

[h2]Forge Of Empires (Formerly Known As Sidekicks)[/h2]
This is basically an unofficial DLC4, and it's free, and it's created by one of the main developers of the game (Badger). Originally, the Sidekicks mod started life as something a lot more modest, but it grew to a degree where the name was really no longer relevant. So... what is this thing:

• 4 new player empires.
  
• Dyson Empire: 4 races unite to create dyson spheres to help resist the AI
  
• Scourge Infused Empire: Control your scourge allies as they help you fight the AI
  
• Dark Zenith Empire: Lead the Dark Zenith as they seize the galaxy
  
• Armada Empire: 2 races fight the AI and their new allies, while making friends along the way.
  
• 13 AI Types, including the brand new "Hateful" AI type, that just uses people's least favorite AI ships
  

[h2]Other New Pieces[/h2]

• Mod organization: Featured Mods are now shown at the top of the mod list, along with Forge of Empires, with the goal being to make it easy for players to find interesting and exciting mods to enhance their gameplay.
  
• Four mods are featured to start with:
  
• Points of Interest and Generator are both cool mods to increase the variety of your galaxies.
  
• DPSHud gives you a new way to understand combat.
  
• Extended Ship Variants gives you a lot of new ship lines to play with.
  

[h2]Heart of the Machine[/h2]
Heart of the Machine is continuing to evolve. It's currently on discount for 35% off for the first time ever! Update 18, Update 19, and Update 20 all went live this week, and are each notable in their own way. They've been in progress for a while. Update 21 will be out later tonight, in just a few hours, and has the new The Executive Tomb side story. This is a great time to dive into the game if you haven't yet!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/

[p]The full notes are here. There are a bunch of balance adjustments from CRCGamer in this one for units that were over-performanc or under-performing, a couple of fixes from Dismiss, a few quickstarts from Erenussocrates, and then a bunch of additions to the Sidekicks mod from Badger.[/p][p] [/p][h2]Balance Adjustments[/h2][p]Long-time contributor CRCGamer has done a pass on some of the more exotic ships that were just a bit too powerful, or more frequently, not quite useful enough to warrant their cost.[/p][p][/p][p]Just to set your mind at ease, the only real nerfs were to Electric Bombers and Phantasmal Hosts, and they needed it. The Electric Bombers are a bit worse at crowd control now, but still excellent. And Phantasmal Hosts don't have so many decoys, which will help with performance as well as their general balance.[/p][p][/p][p]Pretty much everything else is some level of buff, a lot of them slight. Fusion Bombers in particular got a big buff against shields, because some years-old balance changes had put them in kind of a not-great spot. But Agravic Pods, Grenade Launcher Corvettes, and Ablative Gatlings are some of the other common ships that are now a lot more useful.[/p][p][/p][p]There are other changes as well, so please see the release notes for details.[/p][p][/p][h2]New QuickStarts[/h2][p]The new quickstarts from Erenussocrates are mod-heavy and help you get your bearings with some of his mods, which is really nice.[/p][p][/p][h2]Sidekicks Mod[/h2][p]Badger has been adding lots of cool things. Once again, if you're not familiar with this mod, be sure to check it out! As one of the main developers on the game, Badger has essentially created a fourth DLC, for free, for you to check out. Don't miss it![/p][p][/p][p]Exo Badger is a new difficulty level that focuses on having a reduced ship budget, but seeing lots of exo war ships early and often.[/p][p][/p][p]Dyson Sidekick now gives both the Templare and the Spire unique moons with their own turrets.[/p][p][/p][p]Armada Empire is ANOTHER whole new player type in this mod! It's a coalition of races that will fight the AI. Please bear in mind that this is a first build of this, and Badger notes that it's not particularly well-balanced yet. It's under active development, so expect savegames including this feature to break a few times in the near future. Normally that's not something we do, but for a mod that's in active development, that's up to the modder. Anyway, the purpose of this being released at the moment is for people to try it out and give early feedback.[/p][p][/p][h2]Heart of the Machine[/h2][p]Heart of the Machine is continuing to evolve. Be sure to keep an eye on it this month. Update 17 just went live yesterday, but there's even more cool stuff coming in the near future.[/p]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/

The full notes are here. Everything in this build is courtesy of long-timer Dismiss and newcomer Erenussocrates.

[h2]Fixes[/h2]
The prior build had an off-by-one error that was giving free first hacks on ARSes. That has been rectified!

There are a few other formatting improvements and things, but that's the main item on fixes.

There are also a number of other improvements to existing mods -- worth taking a look!

[h2]More Additions For Coders[/h2]

If you're a volunteer or mod coder for the game, there are more additions here. In particular Dismiss added a number of things to make hooking in via Harmony (a C# modding tool, basically) a lot easier.

[h2]Three New Mods By Erenussocrates![/h2]

Visible CPA Bunkers is a simple one that lets you keep track of CPA bunkers, since they can be hard to find.

Exodian Blade is notably more involved, and brings back a feature from the original AI War that Badger, Puffin, Zeus, StarKelp, and I had opted not to touch. The Exodian Blade was always an AIWC feature that had stirred mixed feelings in player. A very powerful ship that you can lose permanently? Count a lot of people out. But for people who are into that sort of thing, this mod finally brings that sort of flavor to this sequel. Erenussocrates created it in a way that ties it to the Fallen Spire campaign, which is quite smart, as it probably makes the idea more palatable for more people, and it also gives more variety to the Fallen Spire campaign in the process. Very clever way to get around how naturally risk-averse some folks can be!

AIP for ExoWar Units is kind of a nightmare situation in terms of kicking you when you're already down, but it's likely to make really galaxy-ending conflicts even more exciting. I expect this one will be just something that catches on with advanced players, but the concept is really cool.

[h2]Heart of the Machine[/h2]
Heart of the Machine is actually on sale at the moment as part of LudoNarraCon! If you haven't grabbed it yet, now is an excellent time. The massive Update 15 is currently in beta, and should be coming to the main branch of the game late this week.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/

The full notes are here. Everything in this build is courtesy of Dismiss.

[h2]Fixes[/h2]
This includes a fix to the "prior" button not actually working properly in the prior build. It now does.

A couple of tooltips have seen some improvements, and there's protection against a couple of possible errors.

[h2]Mods[/h2]
The NecroParty mod has had a lot of balance updates and corrections to how well it gives you a starting spot.

The Generator mod now makes better choices for AI homeworlds.

The Reclaimers mod has had a few balance tweaks.

[h2]More Additions For Coders[/h2]

If you're a volunteer or mod coder for the game, there are a number of additions to make life easier to you.

[h2]Heart of the Machine[/h2]
Heart of the Machine just passed 700 reviews by players! Exciting milestone. The game continues to grow, with a lot of exciting things in work for the next couple of months. April is me reworking the prologue and chapter one a lot, and then May will be a focus on tier one and two goals in chapter 2+.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/