AI War 2 News

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.907_Release_Candidate_4

Release Candidate 4 is just final bugfixes, really. Unless something really dire comes up over the next 10 hours or so, this will pretty much be the version that becomes v4.0 tomorrow, with us finally out of beta. If there are any last minute fixes or tweaks other than this that are needed, please let me know within that next short period!

After v4.0 and us coming out of beta, then it's just a month and a half or so until we fully release DLC3 and the Complete Edition for AI War 2, so this is an exciting time!

More to come soon.
Enjoy!

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.906_Release_Candidate_3

This one took a bit longer than expected to get working, but that's because there are some multiplayer issues that I'm trying to iron out at the last here, and those tend to be the most time-consuming types of bugs to sort out. Overall there are a huge number of bugfixes in this new build, for both singleplayer and multiplayer. Arguably a lot of these are not important enough to warrant not coming out of beta, and I'm not sure that the remaining issues that exist cross that line, either. So the beta exit will either be tomorrow or (more likely) Friday.

But this isn't just a bugfix build!

There are a bunch of new FRS options from CRCGamer, all of which are very powerful but don't give fleet-wide bonuses. This makes them work very well on Expert+ mode, and they're interesting in the other modes as well.

The lightning and storm warheads have been revised in DLC1, again by CRCGamer, to be a bit more like AIWC's counterparts. Essentially, these do even more damage to groups now, but they can't concentrate that damage into single targets to snipe an exo war unit (or similar) now.

Expert mode and above now treats the player power level as being higher, and so the AI is more likely to deploy Exo War units against you. Great idea by Badger.

NR SirLimbo has been working hard on the tooltips, further refining them so that they are easier to read than ever -- with fuel, without fuel, both are improved.

There's a handful of other new things, including some new bughunting tools, a few new cheat codes, and so on.

I had to substantially change the serialization format (for the network and savegames) as part of this build, just FYI. Things seem to be working fine in that area, but there's a slightly higher chance of issues, including corrupt savegames, compared to usual. This is a big step forward for improving multiplayer stability across the board, however.

More to come soon.
Enjoy!

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.905_Release_Candidate_2

This one has a number of bugfixes, some balance fixes to DLC3 in particular, and then a split to the campaign types so that Expert is now split between Expert and Logistician. This release also includes a minor new "Civil Authority" metal gifting and repayment mechanic, although it's a fairly small detail.

Tomorrow I hope to get through more of the relevant bugs that are left and preventing beta exit, and then Wednesday for release? That seems like good distance from Elden Ring, but it's all about the feedback on these builds. Some folks were really put off by their experience with Expert, and handling that a bit better should hopefully be a thing that makes it more enjoyable for more folks, rather than frustrating.

More to come soon.
Enjoy.

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.904_Release_Candidate_1

Happy Elden Ring Day, I guess? We'll just post this as a release candidate for now, and hop off the beta branch on Monday unless something dramatic comes up over the weekend.

This build puts even more finishing touches on multiplayer, and it's now truly the best it's ever been in this title, which is really gratifying to see.

This build also fixes a bug with our random number generator in general, which was causing mapgen in the lobby to not give you consistent results given the same seed.

"Pull" shots (reverse knockback) and attractant fields also both work again. And the Dark Zenith better at linking their planets.

There are some various other bugfixes, and balance adjustments for DLC3 and also DLC2.

More to come soon.
Enjoy!

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.903_Multiplayer_Polish

We're getting SO close to being out of beta. The plan was tomorrow, although it's International Elden Ring Day, so maybe that's not the wisest move? Regardless, there are a lot of major strides here. We might come out of beta tomorrow but not fully announce until Monday, we'll see.

New in this build, factions now have an icon next to their name in the lobby when you're choosing one to add, which adds a lot to making them easier to choose and tell apart. Does not apply to the DLC3 factions just yet.

Lots more balance to DLC3 in general.

Lots of bugfixes across the board, too. Some particularly notable ones:

A number of notable multiplayer stability improvements. Multiplayer client-side ship jitter/lag gone. Multiplayer clients no longer have disappearing ships. (These were the most major remaining MP issues!)

Tachyon beams and similar now show up properly in tooltips again, unlike the last few builds.

If you weren't playing with distributed economy on, it was erroneously still giving you metal harvester bonus income if you were using any command station type other than military. This is now fixed, which prevents players in the more basic game modes from having an excess of income to the same degree.

The game now properly calculates overall power level, which means that exowar units will actually show up again.

More to come soon.
Enjoy!