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AI War 2 News

5.501 Fixes

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Post_Completion#5.501_Fixes

This one is smaller, mainly some fixes. Some of those for mods, some for the main game. More fixes and similar are coming; it's been a really busy period, and those of us internally have been spread unusually thin.

More to come soon.
Enjoy!

5.500 Classic Fusion, And A Megaton Otherwise

New build, and it's truly a whopper: https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Post_Completion#5.500_Classic_Fusion.2C_And_A_Megaton_Otherwise

The first thing of note is that Puffin's massive total conversion "Classic Fusion" mod is now released in this build. This has been a two-year project for him, and it essentially hybridizes the first and second AI War games, using the engine of the second game but mostly ship stats and designs and such from the first game. This is a very exciting thing, because Puffin and I wound up having some disagreements on just where to be similar to the first game versus where to be divergent, and I'm really glad to see his version of that vision now as something that others can also enjoy. Hopefully it brings a lot of fans of the first game joy!

But wait! I said there was a megaton otherwise. By that I mean this is absolutely a packed build, partly because it's about 3 weeks of work; I was traveling out of the country to visit family, and folks were busy while I was away and couldn't push builds.

Badger has also added a new mod, this one the Dyson Sidekick. "This is a new player-controllable faction. Play as a coalition of Zenith, Neinzul, Templar and Spire trying to build a Dyson Sphere, while fighting the AI and the Reapers, the forces of an evil Necromancer."

Good grief! That's quite cool, and also huge!

And another big mod: The Reclaimers by Dismiss are a human faction dedicated to human recovery and advancement in the galaxy, though not through direct combat.

And SirLimbo has re-released his AMU mod: "Right now AMU is only at about 20% of the code it had before, but a lot of AMU has been integrated into the main game, so the actual progress is probably between 30-40%."

Outguard Party by Dismiss has been updated to v3! DpsHud by Dismiss has been updated to v2!

Tom Prince fixed a ton more bugs, and made a number of more things run more smoothly. CRCGamer has been working on balance like a madman. These are each really long sets of release notes all on their own, and exciting even for folks who aren't interested in all these new mods and such.

More to come soon.
Enjoy!

5.018 Easier Reconnection

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Post_Completion#5.018_Easier_Reconnection

Quick heads up: this is the last one for maybe half a month, probably, because I'm going to be traveling. Normal updates will resume in early July.

This build includes a number of tweaks and fixes from the usual suspects, including Tom Prince, CRCGamer, and SirLimbo. Lots of good refinement in here, including some balance fixes to unexpected cheese sources. There was a very unusual way of farming metal that folks discovered just recently, which is kind of cool to have pop up after 6 years of development, really.

In multiplayer, when clients disconnect, they can now reconnect much more smoothly without the host having to disconnect and rehost first. In my experience it worked if you just tried it twice anyway, but that was not apparent to everyone, and probably not universal anyway.

I also fixed some issues with improper long range thread planning happening after you reloaded the xml for the game by switching out mods or dlcs that are enabled (without restarting the game). This prevents a number of "thread stalled" issues, which so far as I can tell were all related to this one use case.

More to come in early July.
Enjoy!

Hooded Horse and Arcen Announce Partnership - And Forward Fiction AI War Books!

Hey! Chris M. McElligott Park here, founder of Arcen Games. Double announcement today, involving two new partners and a lot of awesome staffing news, as well.

Hooded Horse Partnership


First off: Arcen is happy to join the Hooded Horse “stable,” working on an untitled project to be fully announced later. This title is set in the sci-fi Arcenverse, and has strategic elements, but further details will need to wait for video. For the moment, please enjoy the following in-engine preproduction screenshots.



Staff Again!


I’m taking the usual role of game director and code lead, but for the first time in almost half a decade, I won’t be so alone. This is a really big deal to me, and one of many reasons I’m excited to be working with Tim Bender and the others at Hooded Horse.

Many of the long-time AI War 2 collaborators are now joining fulltime, including Willard “Badger” Davis, George “Zeus” Tibbitts, and Spencer “StarKelp” Ferguson. Joining in a part-time capacity are Daniel “Daniexpert” Garcevic, Ethan “Democracy” Wong, and Quinn Beltramo.

Familiar faces Pablo Vega (composer), and Dan “Blue” Mann (artist/environment) also take key roles.



Forward Fiction Partnership


In related exciting news, Uproar Books is launching a new imprint called Forward Fiction, and a new series of canonical AI War books will be the flagship titles launched under that new label.

Forward Fiction has done a great job really immersing themselves in the lore of the games, including unreleased content. The first novel in the new AI War trilogy shows a lot of scenarios from the games in a new light, as well as laying the groundwork to explore some big questions that the games have yet to answer. It also includes a major character from the upcoming Hooded-Horse-published game.

I’ve wanted to show who the AI is fighting outside the galaxy for the last thirteen years, but I wanted to do the reveal in a closer-perspective game than any we’ve released thus far. This is one of several areas that Forward Fiction is tackling, and I’ve been really delighted by how meticulous they are in their planning and outlining.

I spent most of my life thinking I wanted to be a novelist and trying to get published. Despite finishing a few manuscripts, publication of my own work was always elusive. I wound up being far better suited for game development, but nonetheless I remain deeply interested in the print publishing world, and am really pleased with the care and quality I see coming from Forward Fiction.

Way More Info In The Coming Months!


Having someone else write novels set in a fictional universe of my creation is truly surreal, but in the best way. Rather like finding such an excellent publishing partner as in Hooded Horse. This is a whole new chapter for Arcen, and everyone on the team is really thrilled.

Media Contacts


[h2]About Arcen Games, LLC[/h2]

Arcen Games is a Durham, NC based developer of strategy, tactics, simulation, and adventure games. Their first title, AI War: Fleet Command, was one of the most critically-acclaimed PC games of 2009. Other titles include The Last Federation, A Valley Without Wind, Starward Rogue, and many more. For more information, visit ArcenGames.com.

Press Inquiries: [email protected]

[h2]About Hooded Horse, Inc.[/h2]
Hooded Horse is a Dallas, Texas based publisher of indie strategy, simulation, and role-playing games. For more information, visit HoodedHorse.com.

Press Inquiries: [email protected].

[h2]About Forward Fiction[/h2]
Forward Fiction is a book publishing and marketing firm that specializes in developing novels
from existing intellectual properties, including video games, films, and television shows. For
more information, visit ForwardFiction.com.

Media Contact: Sarae Hope
[email protected]

5.017 More Ways To Win

New... ginormous... build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Post_Completion#5.017_More_Ways_To_Win

I really am having trouble summarizing this one, it's so large and voluminous.

One of the big new things is that SirLimbo has added some support for new win conditions other than beating the AI Overlord. You can enable these things through the galaxy settings, and it's also the sort of thing that other factions and mods can extend or use in new ways later.

There is a new DPS Hud mod by Dismiss, which gives you some new QoL UI tools, and his Outguard Party mod has also seen a number of updates.

Tom Prince put in another metric ton of fixes, quality of life improvements, and general updates. There are so, so many of these in this build. Dismiss also had a notable number of these added in this build.

CRCGamer added a few fixes, and then a sizeable number of balance fixes to a variety of units and factions.

Badger also put in a number of fixes and tweaks and QoL improvements, and made some updates to his DZ Sidekick mod.

More to come soon.
Enjoy!