AI War 2 News

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.784_Tractor_Recursion

Lots and lots of bugfixes, a few DLC3 additions, and some quality of life tweaks. I typed up most of a longer post, had to step away for a bit to take care of something, and discord ate it when I got back. Nice. So I'll be super brief, instead.

We need to keep an eye on this for a bit longer before we let it out of beta, clearly, but I'm quite encouraged in the main. Thanks to everyone for all your bug reports.

More to come soon!

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.783_The_Return_Of_Multiplayer.21

Multiplayer is BACK, folks. There were a lot of beta-branch-specific bugs since the great refactor started, because I needed to get singleplayer working first, and then get multiplayer going.

I am very very happy to report that this should be the most stable and most performant version of multiplayer yet, beating out the stable branch most likely, knock on wood. There are still some things that I'm sure will come up in testing, but the ghosts issue seems to finally be fully resolved, which means the "my stuff explodes for no reason" issue, in other words.

There are some other small bugfixes here, but mainly this is MP stuff. There are also a number of notable balance adjustments to DLC3 content, mostly thanks to Zeus.

This feels really good, although it did take me a day longer than I originally expected. I've been able to play 10-20 minutes of multiplayer gametime at once without issues now, though (and I just didn't test further than that).

More to come soon.
Enjoy!

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.782_Smooth_Reloading

Hopefully we are in the last few days before this comes back out of beta. I have some known issues I need to fix in multiplayer, but once again we've cleaned up the full (I think?) list of known bugs of any seriousness that are afflicting multiplayer.

This build also makes it so that when you reload the xml for the game by changing enabled mods or dlc, it now does so in a smooth way with actual interface feedback about what is happening. This is how it was prior to the beta period, but since the beta period it's been jerky and slow and seems like the program is frozen at times. All fixed now!

This build sees tractor beams able to drag ships around again properly, tachyon beams no longer over-negating cloak, invulnerable ships truly being invulnerable again, necromancy working again, stacks splitting less aggressively, ships no longer losing orders when going through wormholes, no "infinite threat spawn" situations anymore, and so on.

Improvements-wise, this includes a feature where ship lines transferred between fleets now take on the orders of the fleet they are being transferred to. And some work on vassals in DLC3, though that doesn't have its control interface yet. Necromancers also got a number of balance improvements and tweaks.

More to come soon.
Enjoy!

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.781_Tachyon_Healing_Reversal

This one... fixes all of the really major bugs that I'm aware of in single-player! So heap on some more, see what you can find! ;)

I still have some known multiplayer bugs that I need to fix before we're able to leave beta, but beyond that and whatever new is reported... that's where we are. So that's quite exciting!

Also exciting? Your own tachyon beams (you know, the ones for revealing clocked enemies?) will no longer accidentally heal enemy cloaking devices, making them perma-cloaked no matter how much the enemy shoots you. Yes... in the past build, I made an error and tachyon beams were your own worst enemy, creating invisible unhittable terrors of enemies who could shoot you with impunity. Seeing that was actually pretty menacing, and I understand it cut a swath through several player empires. Uh... my bad!

This new version has some performance improvements (again), and also a lot of improvements to how notification hovers work. If a notification talks about things on multiple planets, it now highlights all the planets of relevance.

The necromancer got a number of new powers in this build thanks to Badger, and also got a bit of a nerf to the very late game since they were getting absurd apparently. Finding the ideal power curve for that new player faction is a work in progress, but sounds like it's coming along. I particularly like that the Neinzul Elderlings have sanity that they lose, and are losing it faster now. That's fun.

The build yesterday also had some bugs in the new hull system from SirLimbo, which is understandable for something so huge. Those are fixed now, although it sounds like there are a few final gasps from other bugs in that bit of code.

Thanks to everyone who has been testing, and hopefully the next few builds are uncommonly clean for how things have been the last half year. We're finally nearing the exit of beta, and the end of the great refactor, which is a milestone I will really relish.

More to come soon.
Enjoy!

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.780_Nomadic_Ark_Empires_And_The_Hull_System

The last couple of builds had some notable bugs, apologies for that. Those are all solved, and performance has been boosted yet again (compared to the distant past, not just the recent past), and there are some quality of life improvements.

Beyond that, there's a very cool hulls system that -NR-SirLimbo has added to the game, mainly for mods. This is something that lets you create more AI War 1 style hull types and ammo types and vulnerabilities and strengths. It's not something the main game uses much, but it is used in order to provide Heroic Ship traits (really big ships that are immune to most "bs attacks," so to speak). Beyond that, it's a really interesting platform for mods to do cool things.

The More System Defenders mod has returned, and there was at least one other mod depending on it that is now working again, too.

The Ark Empire in DLC1 has been very close to completed! Thanks to Badger on the most recent batch of items there. I still have a very few last bits to add in, but in general you start with an Ark that is nomadic in the middle of enemy territory. In other words, you don't automatically have your first planet, you have to fight for it... or you can opt NOT to take that planet at all, and instead to take one of the neighbors as your first planet. And your actual king is an ark that is mobile and that you can move around as you wish, so your empire is permanently fluid.

It's a very interesting way to play, and gets back to the original kickstarter goals and designs. I don't think it's going to be the way that most people prefer... but then again I could be wrong. It also includes build-your-own-starting-fleet mechanics, which are super exciting. The normal empire that we have now is something that we built because the Ark Empires just "didn't feel like AI War" when it was the only way to play. But now the Ark Empires are much more advanced, and optional, so I'll be curious to see what people find is more fun in the end.

Badger also made a number of major improvements to the Intel menu, making it way more readable. Necromancer got some tweaks from Badger, and expert mode got some tweaks from Tom.

Puffin is also still steadily working away on his massive Classic Fusion total conversion mod.

Lots of cool things afoot! More to come soon.
Enjoy!